Circulation means movement. Air circulates. Fluid circulates. People circulate. My online dictionary says it means:
- Move through a space, circuit or system, returning to a starting point.
- Cause to be widely known
- Cause to be distributed.
The second and third definitions are what happens when a newspaper is in circulation. We often say that a newspaper or a magazine has a “circulation” of “X” numbers of people. Or the newspaper has a “wide circulation”.
The second is sort of like Social Media. Your message circulates through Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram.
It’s the first definition that really relates to the physical body. Our blood circulates throughout our body starting with and returning to the heart. The air circulates through our body, starting out as oxygen and returning as carbon dioxide, carried both ways in the bloodstream and starting as we inhale air into the lungs. The cardio-vascular system is also known colloquially as our “circulatory system”.
As long as blood and air are in motion, we live. When they stop, we die. We cannot live without either. When we exercise, we tend to speed up the circulatory process. Our heart rate increases with exercise; our breathing increases with exercise — both providing fuel to provide energy for the body.
Our digestive system fits the third definition. It’s a method of taking in fuel, distributing it to the body, getting the fuel to the cells through the bloodstream, and then eliminating the leftovers.
Movement of air and water provide a “cleaning” system outside the body, too. When air is moving, it is self-cleaning. I’ve read that a ceiling fan filters air better than the air filter in your home heating and cooling system. Wind helps clean the air in the atmosphere. I have read many different accounts of how fast the air needs to move to clean it, and a slowly rotating ceiling fan or table top fan seem to fulfill the requirement.
Much the same is true of water. Before our municipal water purification systems were developed, water flowing over rocks was considered the best way to clean it. Stagnate water pools and is self-polluting. Moving water acts as its own filter, particularly when moving over rock and stone. This is not an essay on water quality, it’s meant to show how flowing water is self-cleaning (but only up to a point, and depending upon what we dump into our natural water resources).
The point of all this is that circulation cleans and purifies. Circulation is life! Stagnation allows an environment where disease and other problems can originate and fester.
The more you move, the more air and fluids circulate through your body and the less susceptible you are to disease — not disease free, just less susceptible.
I didn’t mention lymph in the above. That’s a topic for a separate article. Nor did I mention that the entire body is a series of different size “tubes” allowing for circulation of different fluids and other substances throughout the body to keep it active and alive.
If you can think of your body as a series of tubes, then you will realize that keeping these tubes clean and clear so fluids, nutrients and waste can circulate and be absorbed by the your cells, or eliminated, then you will understand why plentiful exercise, good breathing patterns, and non-artery clogging food will feed and cleanse your body and keep you healthy.
Thank you for reading.