Blood: its plasma and cells

The main organ of the Cardiovascular System is the heart. Its beating keeps us alive. The heart's main purpose is to pump blood through our veins.. Blood is our life force. Our heart is physical but has emotional purposes too that drive us.

Blood plasma is 92% water

Blood is a connective tissue. It’s an aqueous solution made up of blood plasma and blood cells. The plasma is 92% water, and the rest consists of metabolic waste products from cells, hormones, nutrients, dissolved gases, clotting proteins and ions.

The proteins in plasma fall into 3 categories: a) albumins maintain blood osmotic pressure and contribute to the viscosity of the blood, responsible for maintaining consistent pH in the blood, transporting fatty acids and hormones; b) globulins are part of the immune response and body’s defense; c) fibrinogens are a product of the liver, involved in blood clotting.

Healthy blood protect body from disease

Healthy blood cells are 99% red blood cells, and 1% white blood cells and platelets. The blood cells are suspended in the liquid plasma. Blood cells and other components protect the body from disease by recognizing and destroying microorganisms and foreign molecules in the bloodstream, transporting metabolic waste from the cells to the kidneys, carrying nutrients from the Digestive System to the cells, and hormones throughout the body.

Everything that we take into our body ends up in our blood stream. We learned that that Urinary System forms urine from the blood plasma (via the kidneys), and that this contributes to blood pressure. The kidneys carry blood, filtrate it, and get rid of the waste to cleanse it.

Emotional and subtle heart

Studying an anatomical system bridges me to it somatically, felt in the subtle body. Bridging from the Digestive System to the Cardiovascular System has been complex for me on many levels. The pull of my life force, my heart and who I truly want to be in the world was not able to move forward until I came to terms with traumas inside me.

Subtle body holds unresolved traumas

Scary breathing issues that highlight involuntary muscles alerted me to the power of the body, and how it's subtly in charge, more than the mind or herbal remedies and lifestyle. While studying, I asked my yoga practice to guide me, to lead me out.

The cardiovascular heart and blood moving through me are involuntary too. It's what I feel most activated with my Ashtanga yoga practice, bridging each breath to my emotional heart but subtle and physical blood system too.

My yoga practice handed me my next physical ailment to somatically get the most out of my studies: a muscle pull in my pectoralis minor or rib attachment right atop my heart. The muscle strain was off to the right a bit, while the heart is off to the left so I had a subtle vantage point from which to see and feel it (for, metaphorically, sometimes it's easier to see something from a distance, not smothering it up too close).

This minor muscle pain affected me in most of my yoga practice, forcing me to adjust the sensitive alignment of muscles so that I could protect the muscle, and heal it properly by keeping it warm, stretched, contracted and relaxed. This is an integral part of my daily Ashtanga Second Series in its entirety, modified by me in small ways. Most importantly, to protect myself, I went slower, deeper and as a result am more internal psychologically and spiritually.

The most valuable intention is a more focused, long inhale and exhale breathing up into my rib cage. To heal in yoga, we give the area more breath. I do this intuitively as it also physiologically soothes the discomfort. And so, it also opens my emotional heart, and my involuntary physical heart beats on circulating my blood.

The answer is to relax my heart on all levels.