Prof. J.P.N. Mishra
Health is a major issue in today's world. More and more people are becoming health conscious and are looking for means to get a perfectly built personality. Yoga and Preksha Meditation are also one mean to get prefect health. Preksha Meditation is a system of meditation which has diversified effect on human physiology. To evaluate the beneficial health promoting effects of Preksha Meditation a scientific experimental study was conducted on "Efficacy of Preksha Meditation on Neurological, Cardiovascular along with Blood Profile, Respiratory and Muscular Functions in healthy adults". In this chapter indepth introduction of the anatomico-physiological description of various components under investigation has been provided.
Cardiovascular System
Cardiovascular system is meant to the passages through which the blood flows - The Heart, a hollow four chambered muscular pump; Arteries, the vesslls' that carry blood away from the heart; Veins, the vessels that carry blood back to the heart; and microscopic blood vessels that connects the smallest arteries to the smallest veins, known as capillaries.
The cardiovascular system has two major divisions; a pulmonary division, which carries blood to the lungs for gas exchange and then returns it to the heart; and a systemic division, which supplies blood to every organ of the body. The right side of the heart serves the pulmonary circuit. It receives blood that circulated through the body, unloaded oxygen and nutrients and picked up a load of CO, and other wastes. It pumps this oxygen-poor blood into a large artery, the pulmonary trunk, which immediately divides into right and left pulmonary arteries. These transport blood to the lungs, where C02 in unloaded and oxygen is picked up. The oxygen-rich blood then flows by way of the pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart.
The left side of the heart works as the systemic circuit. Oxygenated blood leaves it by way of another large artery the Aorta. The aorta takes a sharp U-turn, the aortic arch, and passes down, dorsal to the heart. The aortic arch gives off arteries the supply the head, neck and upper limbs. The aorta then travels through the thoracic and abdominal cavities and issues smaller arteries the other organs. After circulating through the body, now deoxygenated systemic blood return to the two large veins, the superior vena cava (draining the head, neck, upper limbs and thoracic organs) and inferior vena cava (draining the organs below the diaphragm) (Tortora at. el., 2006).
