system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What actually happens when you get the wind knocked out of you?
gpt
funnily enough they taught something different to the other comments in med school this year. when you breathe it's a balance of plural cavity pressures plus the effect of the lung called the elastic recoil resisting the expansion of the langs. this recoil is due to the surface tension of water in the alveoli and is greatest at the smaller volumes of the alveoli because the water is closer together. also there's a volume of air in the lungs called the residual volume that cannot be exhaled which really aids in maintaining the elastic recoil not being too high. when you're winded it can pushes out the residual volume so you need to overcome the higher than normal contracting force of the surface tension to inhale and that's why it's harder to breathe. or that's what was taught to me anyways.