Educational Feature

The Urinary System

Each Voice of The Body is defined within a Structure made up of the Cognitive, Symbology, and Sensory Awareness aspects. Each aspect is defined by particular elements that impart the scientific components and deeper meanings of the Voice of The Body. Review the Structure to better understand this issue's Voices of the Body.

Cognitive

Who Am I: I am your Urinary System. My primary function is to help you eliminate waste products and maintain the proper volume and composition of body fluids.

Voice of The Urinary System: I am the voice of your urinary system. By design I have several parts that include: a urethra, bladder, two ureters, and two kidneys that compliment each other. Together these parts function to remove waste from your body and regulate body fluids so that you are able to maintain the appropriate arterial pressure needed for you to sustain proper blood pressure. One of my not so well known functions is the stimulation of the production of red blood cells, cells that come from your bone marrow.

My urethra, equipped with two sphincters to control the flow of urine through me, is the final passage way for urine to move from the inside of you to the outside. My bladder is a temporary storage center and reservoir, a storehouse for urine. My bladder speaks to you through the sensation of internal pressure, and when full, I ask you to eliminate and release. My two ureters are small tubes that carry urine from my bladder. My two kidneys, the primary organs of your urinary system, are shaped like beans. They rest on either side of your spine.

Inside each of my kidneys is a tiny, invisible, and very complex system of tubules. My amazing tubules are thin-walled tubes called nephrons that function as chemical filtration plants to filter your blood and reabsorb useful substances and parts of water that you need. You’ll find about a million of these tubules inside each of my kidneys happily working around the clock for you, maintaining the chemical balance and filtration of your body fluid. If placed end-to-end, these two million tubule filters would form a pipe about 50 miles long.

My system functions like super filters with an intelligence to clean and reabsorb the entire internal sea of liquid that moves through your body, an internal system that flows nearly fifteen times a day. I am designed to handle one quarter of the total output of blood that comes from your heart, approximately 2 pints every minute. You’ll find my kidneys nestling close to the bottom of your ribs behind your stomach and liver. Even though we appear to be floating we are held in place by a wondrous web-like fibrous connective tissue that is attached to your abdominal wall.

When you consider that your body weight is about 60 percent liquid, and that over half of that liquid is contained in your cells, you see the tremendous responsibility I have in your life. You keep me healthy by drinking clean water and by avoiding unhealthy chemicals and additives.

My Gift To You: I make it possible for you to eat and drink, and maintain the perfect volume and composition of body fluid, while filtering body liquid and maintaining the right chemical balance so that your cells can function optimally.

Symbology

Imagine Me As: Visualize me as a processing plant no bigger than the size of your fist whose job is to regulate your body’s internal chemical and liquid sea.

Sensory

In Nia: The Craft and Techniques you use to keep your Urinary System healthy are:

• Awareness: Become sensory aware of what your body is asking for that will make it feel better, more comfortable and cared for, particularly keeping in check and balancing the body’s pH.
• Natural Time: Allow all things to come and go naturally. Learn to sense when your body is asking to let go and release and respond by eliminating. Learn to release unwanted tension by eliminating as soon as you can.
• Three Planes: Move through Three Planes and levels to become sensitive to working with and listening to your body.
• The Joy of Movement: Recognize the sensation of Joy and learn to choose it, sustain it, and cultivate it in your life so that all parts of your body are fed with love and pleasure.

When Dancing Through Life: Move all 13 joints and become body aware by paying attention to the first subtle signal of thirst from your body that says, “I need water.” Find a beautiful water jug or bottle. Write the word ‘Love’ on a piece of paper and tape it to the bottle. Drink from this bottle, a minimum of 6-8 glasses of water a day, to help aid your body in getting rid of excess salts, and in making urine.

Pay attention to sweating, and if you do not sweat, be sure to keep your body cool and hydrated when you work out. Avoid excessive use of coffee, alcohol, tea, and all products that can aggravate water retention and dehydration. Monitor your daily fluid intake and outtake, and balance your intake and loss.

When your bladder calls, listen to it and release so that you avoid holding onto urine in the bladder. Check the color of your urine. If you’re not drinking enough water, your urine will be more concentrated in color and less in volume. Drink more water and watch the color and volume change. Your urine should be plentiful and almost clear.

See the Nia glossary for more information. Also, see the Nia book, The Nia Technique for details on each technique.

Reference Book: The Endless Web; Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality by RR. Louis Schultz, PhD and Rosemary Feitis

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