Respiratory System

Breathing Rate

• An average adult's normal breathing rate is 12 to 20 breaths per minute (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Vital Sign Assessment
  
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• Every day, the average person takes approximately 17,000 breaths.
• Breathing consumes more than half a liter of water every day.

Newborn’s Breathing

• The average respiratory rate of a newborn baby is about 30–60 breaths per minute (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Respiratory Distress in the Newborn
  
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Human Lungs

• Normal healthy lungs are pinkish-gray in color.
• The right lung has three lobes, whereas the left lung has two lobes.
• Each lung contains 300-350 million respiratory units called alveoli, for a total of 700 million in both lungs (3^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Histology, Lung
  
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Amount of Oxygen

• Our bodies consume approximately 550 liters of pure oxygen per day.
• The oxygen percentage of the air we breathe is 21%, but out of that, only 5 percent is used by our body, and the rest is exhaled (4^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  The physics of human breathing: flow, timing, volume, and pressure parameters for normal, on-demand, and ventilator respiration
  
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• When compared to an 80 year old, people under the age of 30 inhale twice as much oxygen (5^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Effect of aging on respiratory system physiology and immunology
  
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Yawning and Oxygen

• Yawning increases the amount of oxygen in the lungs (6^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Yawning and its physiological significance
  
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• When the brain detects a shortage of oxygen, it causes it to take a long, deep breath or to yawn (6^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Yawning and its physiological significance
  
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Floating Lungs

• Lungs are the only body organs that can float on water and are largely related to the air that is contained within alveoli.

Size of the Lungs

• The lungs would be around the size of a tennis court if they were unfolded and expanded out to their maximum extent (7^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature
  
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• The left lung tends to be smaller than the right lung to accommodate the heart (8^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Anatomy, Thorax, Lungs
  
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• If the capillaries of the lungs were placed end to end, they could extend up to 1,600 kilometers (9^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  What is asbestos?
  
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Lung Capacity

• The average lung capacity of an adult is about 6 liters (10^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Physiology, Lung Capacity
  
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• Males tend to have a larger lung capacity than females (10^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Physiology, Lung Capacity
  
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Speed of the Sneeze

• The highest sneeze speed ever recorded is 165 km per hour (11^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Public Health assessment
  
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Singing for Lung Health

• Singing improves lung function by increasing lung capacity, strengthening the diaphragm and intercostal muscles, and promoting better breath control (12^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Singing for Lung Health - a systematic review of the literature and consensus statement
  
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Non-respiratory Movements

• Coughing, crying, laughing, and sneezing are the non-respiratory movements of the respiratory tract (13^✔ ✔Trusted Source
  Multifunctional Laryn geal Premotor Neurons: Their Activities during Breathing, Coughing, Sneezing, and Swallowing
  
  Go to source).