Health Collage

To me, health is the overall well being of a person, mentally, physically, and socially. For me, the pillar I am strongest at would be the exercise pillar. I say this because I work out every other day and play water polo every day. The pillars I need to improve most on would be both the sleep and stress pillar. I need to improve in these pillars because I am always getting less than 8 hours of sleep (6 if I'm really lucky) and I can never seem to just let a mistake I made go. In regards to health I really want to learn more about how the body functions based off of a well balanced life vs a unbalanced life and compare the two.

Laughter Presentation: Reflection

The reason I chose this topic was because I wanted to make people feel better and enjoy their experience during the Monday Wellness assignment. I soon found that laughter would be the perfect topic to use for my Monday Wellness as laughter would cheer up the class and took a major role in my everyday life. My whole goal with choosing the topic was to make the class’s  Monday better. When I chose this topic, I expected there to be only mental health benefits. However, as I researched the function of laughter I soon found that it took a far greater role. This role was, in summary, to keep our hormones in balance. Finding out that laughter was a hormonal buffer was probably the most interesting fact I found during my research.

Laughter connects to our unit in health in many ways. For instance, I found that laughter affects the main three healths in our body: mental, physical, and social. As I said earlier though, laughter's most notable role in our body is a hormonal buffer. By this I mean that if there is more cortisol in our blood stream, laughter will help to lower the secretion of this hormone. By lowering the amount of cortisol in the blood stream, blood vessels can dilate and pump more oxygen to the organs.  You may think that cortisol is just one hormone and doesn’t control much. However, during my research of laughter, I also researched the vast effects of cortisol on the human body and other hormones as well. For example, cortisol not only affects the amount of stress we feel but also affects the size of blood vessels in the cardiovascular system. Laughter not only affects cortisol levels, but beta-endorphins as well. These beta endorphins are neurohormones that help us to perceive pain. Essentially, laughter helps us to reduce pain. The way laughter affects mental health is in how we deal with stress. Laughter has been shown to help improve conditions of post traumatic stress disorder. Socially, laughter helps us to make a social tension reliever. These are just some of the many incredible benefits of laughter.

If I were to rate myself on a one to ten grading scale I would probably grade myself as a 9.5. I would give myself this grade because I was the first one of my class to present and did two people’s worth of work in the same amount of time, probably even less. Now that I think about it I probably should have gone last. Anyways, I feel as though my delivery of the speech could have been much better. I say this because I often slurred my words together and forgot certain aspects to my slides. If I were to do this assignment again I would likely partner up with someone so that I wouldn’t have to do all the work. Not only would having a partner during this project help workload wise, but would also help comfort me when it’s my turn to present. Ultimately, I believe that I did a fair job on the project, but I could have much better if I had more time, a partner, and sleep.

P.s. Other things that sparked my interest during this project included:

• the anatomy of the larynx and epiglottis
• the physiology of the larynx
• the hypothesis of how laughter developed during evolution
• how laughter affects humans in such a small (hormones) way, but has such a huge impact (relaxation of muscles).

Link to Presentation) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16ly_56PMxn4wImYWnlPQ-OGIFj68nsafMeMFp-KoqJI/edit#slide=id.g666b793a3_0_354

Unit 1 reflection

In unit one of anatomy and physiology, the class learned about the types of tissues that make up the body, the anatomical terms for locations on the body, as well as the organelles of the red blood cell. However, the major portion of time spent on this unit was the study of histology. Some of the common themes that we learned were that, the perspective of the one preforming the autopsy is the wrong one and that form fits function. The essential understanding of form fitting function is that if the form of something altered in any way, than the function will also be altered.

Through the process of several labs and video guides, I learned about histology, anatomical terms, and cellular organelles. During the histology portion of this unit we were able to look at several different types of tissues under a microscope. This lab helped me to understand the idea that each tissue is specialized in both form and function. The four main types of tissues were, nervous, muscular, epithelial, and connective.


 One the basis of anatomical terms I was able to identify the location of a wound or other mark on the body using anatomical terms thanks to the Anna the banana lab. The cell portion of the unit I had remembered from my previous years in biology. Thanks to the comprehensive video guides and lab, all information covered in the unit was understood.

To improve my learning experience I am considering drinking caffeine, not because the class is boring, but because I am almost always so tired from staying up really late and super sore from water polo. This unit relates most directly to a pathologist. A pathologist would need to know the way pathogens effect a tissue and how to combat its effects.

"      Animal Tissues." Everything Maths and Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

       9AP Chapter 40 - Animal Form and Function (basic)." Quia -. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

       Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

Relate and Review: Tissue Lab

Today in class there were several types of tissue on display under several different microscopes. The lesson taught the class the different types of tissues and how to identify them based off of their look and key features. For example, the lesson included a piece of cardiac tissue that included the disks in between the muscle as well as the branches the tissue makes. The lesson also helped us to look for distinct differences between the tissue types. Examples of the variations in tissues we looked at includes the fibrous strands found in muscle tissue and the difference in patterns between regular and irregular connective tissue. To further the classes understanding of the material, this lab challenged the class to identify where the tissue was located and how its anatomy affected its function. For example, the neuron cells located in nervous tissue are specialized with axons to relay messages to the next cell where the standard red blood cell uses fatty acids to communicate. The axon is specialized in the way that it conducts electrical impulses away from the cell body.

Another example of a type of tissue being specialized for its location and anatomy would be the muscular tissue. The muscular tissue is broken into three categories, each based off of location, anatomy, and function. One of the most fascinating, in my opinion, would be the cardiac tissue. The cardiac tissue's function is based off its anatomy and location as such. The cardiac tissue is only located in the heart, making it a very specialized tissue. The purpose of the tissue is to contract, pumping blood through the hearts vessels as it does. The anatomical component that allows the tissue to contract are the small disks that are intertwined within the tissue.




Citations in order of appearance:

Graphic 1) "The Cell Diagram of a Neuron - Cell Diagram." Cell Diagram. N.p., 09 Apr. 2012. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

Graphic 2) "Muscle and Nervous Tissues." - Jim Campbell. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

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