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Your Lungs Your lungs work all day and night, whether you’re awake or asleep. That’s 20,000 or so breaths per day! By the time you’re 50, you have taken around 400 million breaths. Diseases like COVID-19, which can attack the lungs, shine a light on how important these organs are. They get oxygen into your blood and into every cell in your body. And they help get rid of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is toxic if you have too much. How Air Gets Into Your Lungs When you breathe in air through your nose, tiny hairs help rid it of dust and germs. It passes through your sinuses (hollow bony spaces around your nose and eyes), which help get air to the right temperature and moisture level. Air also enters through your mouth, especially during exercise or if your nose is stuffy. All of it goes through your throat and into your windpipe, which splits into two bronchial tubes -- one for each lung. The Bronchial Tree In your lungs, each bronchial tube branches into a maze of smaller and smalle...