Be gentle with your body – you need it more than it needs you
It takes pleasure in lots of things, some of which embarrass you, and, generally, overcomes your more high-minded resistance. Where other people are concerned, it can invade their space. In the main that is unintentional, as it fears assault.
And it sure can let you down, particularly the morning after a night before or when it insists on going to the loo even though you are already so late for that meeting, that gathering, that interview.
It shares all your joys and your sorrows, all your most intimate moments, never, ever leaving any space for privacy, regardless. And you would not have it otherwise. For where would you be without your body?
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As with so much in life – parents, siblings, where/when we're born – it is given to us without choice and, if we're lucky, is ordinary, normal, healthy.
It is always best to get on well with it too, as the body is master, that is all. Look after it and most other things fall into place. Do not and it will have bitter revenge.
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The body is one of the most complex and intelligent biological systems on Earth. Its largest organ, the skin, covers nearly two square metres.
Its heart pumps non-stop for more decades than you care to guess at and the liver – its largest internal organ – performs more than 500 tasks without your awareness. Unless you upset it with such as excess alcohol. All hell lies there.
It has 206 bones, the largest being the femur or thigh bone, with 27 in the hand alone. It has 230 joints with 33 vertebrae, and up to 800 muscles.
The brain averages at 1,400 grammes (in most people!). Men, of course, have bigger hearts than women – at 340 grammes to 150 grammes, and men also have an extra 'pump', the prostate.
Be gentle with your body. You need it more than it needs you.
Body, from Old English bodig, for 'trunk of a man or beast'.
inaword@irishtimes.com
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