Imagine what happens to a city when it’s transport corridors are blocked, everything soon grinds to a dirty, frustrating stand still. Poor traffic circulation has similarities to poor blood circulation. Reliable physical transportation of people, goods and waste are essential to the health of cities. Good blood circulation is essential to the health of your body for similar reasons. (Closed plumbing and drainage systems are a good example of circulation at work too).

Arterial  roads act like major arteries and veins in your body and secondary roads are like the arterioles and venules in your circulatory system where the flow is divided to direct blood and hormones to specific parts of your anatomy. Driveways, loading docks and internal access lanes function like the finest of blood vessels, your capillaries. It is through the capillaries that the cells, the basic building blocks of the body, get nourished and have their waste carted away through the venous system.

When we are young we usually don’t have to worry too much about blood circulation but as we age it becomes increasingly important to help our circulation remain efficient. There are many things that can undermine blood circulation, in fact pretty well any disease, significant injury, addiction or nutritional deficiency has circulatory consequences to our health. Diabetes damages capillaries in our eyes and extremities, cancerous growths deprive healthy blood flow to normal tissues, iv drug use collapses veins, smoking slows healing, soft tissue trauma creates scar tissue that impedes blood flow, high levels of stress create high blood pressure that causes strokes and heart failure and malnutrition impairs circulation through weakening the whole system.  

Adequate water intake, a balanced diet, regular age appropriate exercise, massage and good posture can all be used by almost everybody to help maintain healthy circulation. Good blood circulation gives you strength and energy, it gives your complexion a healthy colour and it is essential to the healing process when your body sustains damage. Water when it flows remains fresh, when it doesn’t flow it stagnates, so too with blood and other body fluids.

Sedentary desk-bound jobs can cause or worsen circulatory problems, given the fact that major growth areas of the job market are desk bound jobs there is a potential for circulatory diseases to increase. Already 2 of the 3 biggest killers of people in developed countries are circulatory events, stroke and heart failure.

The rate of smoking is thankfully coming down in western countries which is a big contributor to circulatory disease, unfortunately we are getting fatter which can cause circulatory problems of it’s own. Circulatory health is always a work in progress and something we forget or ignore at our own peril.

All of the Self Massage techniques and exercises in Self Massage & + 40 fitness help with the circulation of blood and body fluids