Getting older causes us to think more about our veins and arteries. They are utterly different in structure. Arteries are tougher, veins are weaker, almost “baggier”. If we let our hands hang down, we can often see the veins on the back of our hands fill with blood. Then, after raising them higher than our heads for a few minutes, they’re immediately back to normal size, almost like emptying a bag. Try it. Sometimes, the vein empties so quickly it’s almost audible.
Smoking constricts veins and arteries. When we stop smoking, it takes awhile for them to get back to normal, if, in fact, they ever do.
Sitting, standing, or sleeping in odd positions restricts blood flow. It helps our health to keep that in mind. If we think about the endless miles of blood-filled tubes inside us, we may become more conscious of the need to stand, exercise, and straighten out our fingers, hands, arms, toes, feet, and legs more frequently. And, we want to keep our spine straight. If we don’t, we end up with”bags” full of blood. These can strain and stress our vessels, causing weak points that break.
We’ve seen garden hoses kink, so we know what sharp bends do to flow. The same thing happens to our vessels. It stresses and weakens both the “kink” area and similarly stretches and weakens that portion of the vessel immediately upstream. It happens most frequently with veins. They’re nearest the surface, so they end up being blocked more readily by bending, constriction, and uneven compression caused by sitting in ways that impede circulation.
In the same vein, there are very good reasons to stand up straight, not the least of which is stopping the bad effects of blocking blood vessels. Standing in a swimming pool puts pressure on our veins, and keeps them compressed. When we get out of the water, they quickly sag back to normal. It may be that if we kept our bodies in water for a week or so, that our veins would rebuild themselves, slowly making repairs without the endless stress of having unequal pressures applied to them.
