The human heart is only about the size of your fist, and weighs 11 ounces. Yet it keeps your body's 50 trillion cells alive. Talk about an overachiever!

 

            Scrounge around and find three things that weigh about 11 ounces. Examples: A can of pop from which you've taken a couple of sips . . . two sticks of butter plus three tablespoons . . . a little bit less than a cup and a half of ice cream.

 

            But of course, pop, butter and ice cream aren't good for your heart. So go easy on that kind of stuff, and then your heart can have an easier "go" of its job, too.

 

            Did you know:

 

            The heart pumps a million barrels of blood during an average lifetime.

 

            A barrel holds a lot: 31½ gallons of oil, for example. Imagine 1,000 barrels lined up in a row. Now imagine 1,000 rows of 1,000 barrels. That's enormous. And to think it's pumped through your body your whole life by something so small. No wonder our hearts are so important. You could say they . . . have us over a barrel!

           

            The heart beats around 40 million times a year.

 

            That's about how many times your mom tells you to clean your room, eh? Well, you know what they say: the beat goes on. Boy, does it ever. If you divide 40 million beats per year by 365 days in a year, that's 109,589 beats in just one day. Dividing that by 24 hours in a day comes to 4,566 heartbeats per hour. That boils down to 76 beats per minute - less than one per second. Kind of makes the Everyready Battery Bunny look like a piker.

 

            Your blood makes a complete circuit of your body every 23 seconds.

 

            You know those long lines you sometimes have to stand in, at football games or in the school cafeteria? Well, the heart is having none of that waiting game. And that's a good thing. Your body can't wait for what the heart send it: life. The heart is such a strong pump, it can force your blood through every nook and cranny of your body in about as much time as it takes you to brush your teeth. That brings a constantly fresh supply of oxygen and nutrients to every bone, muscle, organ and tootsie toe you have. If you have a stopwatch, time yourself and see how far you can get in 23 seconds. Can you run around your house? To the mailbox and back? Or can you, indeed, brush your teeth in as little time as it takes your heart to re-supply your entire body with life-giving blood?

 

            Pretty fast, isn't it? You know what they say: in a heartbeat!