A breath of air
Your Organs
What do your organs do?
An organ is a body part with a big job. Your brain thinks, your lungs breathe, your stomach mashes food, and your kidneys clean your blood.
๐คฉ Fun fact: The brain cannot feel pain itself, even though it helps you feel everything else. ๐ง Brain โ
About your organs (Organs)
An organ is a body part with a big job. Your brain thinks, your lungs breathe, your stomach mashes food, and your kidneys clean your blood.
Organs work in teams called systems. Your mouth, stomach and intestines are the digestive system. Your nose, windpipe and lungs are the breathing system. Your brain and nerves are the nervous system.
Most organs are packed snugly inside your chest and belly, kept safe by your ribs and backbone.
- Biggest organ insideliver
- Small intestineabout 20 feetabout 6.1 metres
- Brain cellsabout 86 billion
- Brain: Your brain is the boss of your body. It helps you think, feel, move and remember.
- Nerves (Spinal cord and nerves): Nerves are like wires that carry messages between your brain and every part of your body.
- Eyes: Your eyes catch light and send pictures to your brain so you can see.
- Ears: Your ears catch sounds and send them to your brain. They also help you keep your balance.
- Nose (Smell): Your nose lets air in, cleans it, and smells cookies, flowers and stinky socks too!
- Tongue: Your tongue is a strong, wiggly muscle that tastes your food and helps you talk.
- Teeth: Your teeth bite and chew your food into small pieces so you can swallow it.
- Voice box (Larynx): Your voice box is in your throat. It buzzes when you talk, sing, laugh or shout.
- Thyroid: Your thyroid is a little butterfly in your neck that helps your body grow and use energy.
- Windpipe (Trachea): Your windpipe is a tube that carries the air you breathe down to your lungs.
- Food pipe (Esophagus): Your food pipe is a squeezy tube that carries food from your mouth down to your stomach.
- Lungs: Your two lungs fill up with air like balloons, bringing in the oxygen your body needs.
- Liver: Your liver is a big, busy helper that cleans your blood and helps digest your food.
- Gallbladder: Your gallbladder is a little pouch that saves bile, a juice that helps you digest fat.
- Stomach: Your stomach is a stretchy bag that mashes your food into a soupy mush.
- Pancreas: Your pancreas makes juices to digest food and insulin to help your body use sugar.
- Spleen: Your spleen cleans your blood and helps your body fight germs.
- Small intestine: Your small intestine is a long, curly tube that soaks up the good stuff from your food.
- Large intestine (Colon): Your large intestine soaks up water from leftover food and turns the rest into poop.
- Appendix: Your appendix is a tiny pouch shaped like a finger, hanging off your large intestine.
- Kidneys: Your two kidneys clean your blood and turn extra water and waste into pee.
- Bladder: Your bladder is a stretchy bag that holds your pee until you go to the bathroom.
- Digestion (Digestive system): Digestion is the big journey your food takes, from your first bite all the way to poop.
โ๏ธ Boss fight: ๐ง Organs
Beat the Tummy Rumbler with what you know about your organs. Tap the parts above first if you need a hint.
Every stop on the way
- In through your nose. It warms the air, wets it, and catches dust on the way.Breaths a dayabout 20,000 More about the nose โ
- Down your windpipe, a bendy tube held open by rings, like a vacuum hose. More about the windpipe โ
- Into your lungs, which branch like an upside-down tree into smaller and smaller tubes. More about the lungs โ
- At the ends are millions of tiny air bags, thinner than a bubble. This is where the swap happens.Tiny air bagsabout 300 million More about the lungs โ
- Oxygen hops into your blood, and the waste gas hops out. Your blood turns bright red. More about the lung loop โ
- Your heart takes the fresh blood and pumps it to every single part of you. More about the heart โ
- Under your lungs, a big flat muscle pulls down to breathe in and relaxes to breathe out. More about the breathing muscle โ
- And out it goes, carrying the waste gas away. You did that about twenty thousand times today. More about the lungs โ
About a breath of air
You breathe about twenty thousand times a day and almost never notice. Every breath brings in oxygen, which every cell in you needs to turn food into energy, and takes away carbon dioxide, the waste gas that work makes.
Your lungs are not balloons. Inside they branch like an upside-down tree into smaller and smaller tubes, ending in millions of tiny air bags with blood vessels wrapped round them. All that folding is how something the size of your chest holds a surface big enough to do the job.
The muscle that does most of the breathing is not in your chest at all. It is the diaphragm, a big flat sheet underneath your lungs.
- Breaths a dayabout 20,000
- Tiny air bagsabout 300 million
- Does most of the workyour diaphragm
๐คฉ Wow facts
- Your lungs are not the same size. The left one is smaller, to leave room for your heart.
- A hiccup is your diaphragm jumping by accident, and the funny noise is your windpipe snapping shut.
- A sneeze clears your nose fast. Hold it in and the pressure has nowhere good to go, so let it out, into your elbow.
- A yawn is a big slow breath. Nobody is quite sure why it is catching, but seeing one really does make you do one.
- You cannot hold your breath until you faint on purpose. Your brain takes over and makes you breathe.
- Talking, singing and whistling are all done on the way out, with the air you are already letting go.
๐ Questions kids ask
Why do I breathe faster when I run?
Your muscles are working hard, so they need more oxygen and make more waste gas. Breathing faster brings in more of one and gets rid of the other.
Why does breathing cold air hurt a bit?
Your nose usually warms and wets the air first. Cold dry air going straight in can sting a little. Breathing through your nose, or a scarf, helps.
What is a stitch in my side?
Doctors think it is your diaphragm complaining when you run too soon after eating or drinking. Slow down, breathe deeply, and it usually goes.
Do I breathe when I am asleep?
Yes, all night. Your brain keeps your breathing going whether you are thinking about it or not.
๐ง Quick quiz
Question 1 of 3Which muscle does most of your breathing?