In other words, if I jump in a pool and fill up my lungs and mouth with the stereotypical chipmunk cheeks full of air, do my lungs use any of that air in my cheeks as like a “reserve”? Or is it only the air that made it into the lungs that gets used?
In: 12
You can fit so little air just in your mouth. It will be of no use to you. That’s like trying to fill a tire by waving your arms in front of the valve.
The main issue with this is where do you get the pressure to puff your cheeks? There has to be some air pressure pushing your cheeks outward and it’s not from the outside because then the pressure inside and outside your cheeks would match and they wouldn’t puff out. So that air pressure must be coming from you lungs. If you’re puffing your cheeks, you’re pushing air out of your lungs to do it.
Try this, fill your lungs with as much air as you can, then puff your cheeks, theoretically this is 100% maximum air capacity. But you’ll find that you can pull the cheek air back into your lungs if you try. That’s because it came from your lungs.
You can move the tidal volume of your lungs to mix the deoxygenated air at the end of the airway with fresher air closer to your mouth. It won’t add much though.
Medical student here! I’ll do my best to explain in simple terms.
Very basic anatomy of the respiratory system first: you have your mouth which is connected to your wind pipe which is connected to your lungs.
The air in your cheeks will not get used. This is because any air *above* your lungs (lungs are located in your chest) like the air that sits in you wind pipe (in the neck), or even higher, in your mouth, is considered “dead space”.
This means that the air *above* your lungs is essentially *too far away* to be involved in “gas exchange”. The whole point of breathing is to get oxygen into your blood and carbon dioxide out of the blood (this is what “gas exchange” means). Again, this can only happen in your lungs and not in any parts higher than that (windpipe and mouth)
Hope this helps!!
In other words, if I jump in a pool and fill up my lungs and mouth with the stereotypical chipmunk cheeks full of air, do my lungs use any of that air in my cheeks as like a “reserve”? Or is it only the air that made it into the lungs that gets used?
In: 12
You can fit so little air just in your mouth. It will be of no use to you. That’s like trying to fill a tire by waving your arms in front of the valve.
The main issue with this is where do you get the pressure to puff your cheeks? There has to be some air pressure pushing your cheeks outward and it’s not from the outside because then the pressure inside and outside your cheeks would match and they wouldn’t puff out. So that air pressure must be coming from you lungs. If you’re puffing your cheeks, you’re pushing air out of your lungs to do it.
Try this, fill your lungs with as much air as you can, then puff your cheeks, theoretically this is 100% maximum air capacity. But you’ll find that you can pull the cheek air back into your lungs if you try. That’s because it came from your lungs.
You can move the tidal volume of your lungs to mix the deoxygenated air at the end of the airway with fresher air closer to your mouth. It won’t add much though.
Medical student here! I’ll do my best to explain in simple terms.
Very basic anatomy of the respiratory system first: you have your mouth which is connected to your wind pipe which is connected to your lungs.
The air in your cheeks will not get used. This is because any air *above* your lungs (lungs are located in your chest) like the air that sits in you wind pipe (in the neck), or even higher, in your mouth, is considered “dead space”.
This means that the air *above* your lungs is essentially *too far away* to be involved in “gas exchange”. The whole point of breathing is to get oxygen into your blood and carbon dioxide out of the blood (this is what “gas exchange” means). Again, this can only happen in your lungs and not in any parts higher than that (windpipe and mouth)
Hope this helps!!
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