How does CPR work?
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Other people have explained the mechanicsm of chest compressions, but just an extra note is that the heart is an incredibly impressive organ and can just start itself back up again without any medical intervention. It can completely stop and then just start again. And actually, that’s what you’re relying on in the meditation.
We don’t have drugs that can make a non-beating heart beat again. Sometimes the heart will beat erratically, and different Chambers can beat at different times resulting in really poor blood flow. Medical intervention (including defibrillators) are designed to stop the heart, not restart it. If you stop the heart, then you’ve stopped the hearts erratic and uncontrolled rhythm. And the hope is that once stopped, the heart will restart itself with a regular rhythm.
CPR is meant to delay brain death (which would otherwise happen in only a few minutes) while you wait for that to happen, medically induced or otherwise.
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