Heart Sounds

[devayaani]

Question:
We can hear our own bowel sounds (very loud rumbling at times).
Similarly why can't we hear our own heart sounds?

Thanks.

[Buenchico]

Sound is caused by (or, indeed, consists of) vibrations.

Your heart muscles pump blood fairly smoothly around your body, using fairly narrow channels, resulting in only minor vibrations.

However the muscles within your digestive system are pumping a mixture of semi-solids, liquids and (importantly) gases through much wider channels. As the gases (etc) are squeezed through the sphincters along your digestive tract they cause them to vibrate, resluting in many of the sounds you hear. (You also hear the sounds of fluids moving because, unlike in your heart, there are 'air locks' within the system).

As an analogy, if fill a toy ballon with water and then allow it to empty, there's no significant noise from the balloon itself. However if you fill the same ballon with air, and then allow it to empty, you end up with a 'farting' noise as the rubber is forced to vibrate.

So it's largely the presence of gases within your digestive tract that are the cause of the sounds you here.

[Theland]

What about a sneaky silent one? Seriously.

[jim360]

I think if you are in an anechoic chamber then it's possible to hear even more sounds coming from your body, possibly including heartbeat and the like, but I've never experienced that for myself.

[Hopkirk]

I can often hear my heartbeat, when in a quiet bedroom.

[Old_Geezer]

A change of head position on the pillow can remove hearing that pulse point.

[Sqad]

As Buenchico has said above ( and without a link;-)

Also...the bowels have 6 feet of activity to transmit and this dwarfs the normal sized much smaller heart chambers.

The heart is surrounded by lung and thick heart muscles which dampen or lag the transmitted sound, although at times many people can heart the heart sounds.

[devayaani]

Thank you a;ll.
Very much appreciate.