Ever wondered why your stomach rumbles when you are hungry? Well, you may want to pay more attention to that rumbling in the future because your body is usually passing a very important message. The same goes for when you start shivering or your fingers become numb when you are cold. The systems in the human body are intelligent enough to detect danger and they react in some amazing ways to keep us safe. Sometimes, our bodies' methods of protecting us are not exactly comfortable but they are essential.
Frostbite
Climbing the sounds like the adventure of a lifetime, until you realize that your chances of freezing to death are very close to definite. When your body temperature starts falling below its normal average of 98.6°F, your brain moves into survival mode. Its priority is saving the vital organs you can't live without, so the blood which maintains body temperature is cut off from "unessential" parts of your body such as the fingers and toes.
That is why your fingers start feeling numb and soon lose all feeling. In temperatures continue to fall below zero, the cell fluid in the fingers and toes will turn to ice and you will realize that your fingers, toes and arms turn blue or black. Once that happens, you will live if you find a warm place quickly but you will lose a few fingers and toes. However, the brain will have done its main job of keeping your vital organs working.
Pain
Pain is one of those things everyone hopes to avoid but you will be worse off if your body can't feel pain than when it can. When the nerves sense an injury to any part of your body, the nerves in that area send alarm signals to the brain, which results in the bad feeling called pain. However, the brain needs these signals to induce the corrective action necessary for the kind of injury you are experiencing, such as adrenaline for fight or flight, increase your heart rate, or whatever action that will help you in that situation. Pain also helps you pay more attention to the part of your body that is injured and hence protect it more to prevent further damage, for example, pain prevents you from walking on a broken leg.
Shivers
This is another response to cold that the body induces naturally and it may just be the action that keeps you from freezing to death. Shivering sets in when your body's core temperature drops. The brain sends signals to your skeletal muscles causing them all to shake concurrently rubbing against each other and generating some heat. That heat is quickly transferred into your inner body through the bloodstream to keep your body temperature high and keep you going. It is just like rubbing your arms together but in this case, your body is causing as many muscles in your body as it can get to rub against each other so it produces more heat.
Fever
When you get sick, it is mostly because a virus or bacteria is attacking your body and most of them tend to do well when your body is at its normal temperature. To make life hard for these dangerous foreign bodies, the body automatically increases your temperature making it hard for them to multiply and move to other parts of your body. The fever also makes it easier for your immune system to work. You may need medication to complete the job but if you have a fever, you can rest assured that your immune system hasn't given up on you.
Sneezing
Sneezing is a semiautonomous reflex action, meaning you have some level of control over it, just like breathing. Although it irritates you to have to sneeze, especially in public, it is a very healthy reaction by your body. When your body detects foreign material in your nasal cavities such as pollen, dust and germs, it instructs the brain to cause a relaxation of muscles in your chest cavity causing air to build up. Once enough air is available in your chest, your muscles contract suddenly causing you to expel the air through your nasal cavity flushing out the dangerous bodies with it. It prevents harmful particles from reaching your lungs.
Screaming
Did you know that your loudest scream could make you deaf? When you scream, whether it is out of fright or joy, the noise could blow your eardrums causing you to go deaf. However, your brain induces a natural regulator that inhibits the ability of the sound waves to flow into your auditory system. The brain blocks your ears from the inside so you won't hear much of your own screams. The response also regulates the volume of your screams so they won't go past a certain level. Once you are done screaming, the response stops and your normal hearing is restored.
Stomach Rumbling When Hungry
These are also called hunger contractions and they start if your stomach has been empty for at least 2 hours. In a real sense, they are your body's way of telling you to go and get something to eat. They involve the walls of your lower stomach contracting to push any remaining food particles, mucus and air into your intestines in response to brain cells sensing that there is no food in there. They continue for 10 to 20 minutes and return every two hours until you get something to eat. The longer you stay without food, the louder they become since air is mostly all that is being pushed and that discomfort should cause you to get some food.
Poisoning
Your body detects many things like poisoning, some of which may not be dangerous, such as when you are on a roller-coaster or in a moving car. If your brain thinks that you have been poisoned, it immediately goes into action to help you eradicate the poison. The first feeling is always nausea which causes you to vomit so you can expel the poison.
Some poisoning is brought by bacteria multiplying inside your stomach or intestines undetected. They start poisoning you after their numbers swell and this is when your immune system sets in releasing more fluid into your stomach to flush them out through diarrhoea. The more fluids being sacrificed to flush the foreign bodies may cause dehydration but you can counter that by taking more fluids and medicine of course.
Coughing
Just like Sneezing, coughing is a semiautonomous reflex meaning you can choose to cough or your body may do so on its own. Chronic coughing can be dangerous on its own as the air under pressure irritates the inner lining of your trachea but the intention behind coughing is to protect you. When the cells in your breathing system are irritated, the brain causes your lungs to send out air under high pressure through the passages to flush out the irritants. It works in most cases but if the irritant is caused by an infection which means more irritants continue to build up, it may lead to chronic coughing hence the need for medication.
Sweating
People sweat for different reasons ranging from the food they are eating to exercise. However, the core function of sweating is to cool down your body. Sweating is induced when your body temperature is higher than normal, so your body releases the fluid made of water, salt and fats and as the liquid evaporates, your body cools down. While it can be disgusting to feel sweaty and groggy, failure to sweat is more dangerous since your body also releases excessive salt and toxins from your bloodstream through sweat as well.
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