Facts about Yawning
Why do we yawn?
No one knows! Not even Google! But we do know these facts about yawning:
A baby begins yawning in the womb only 11 weeks after its conception.
Yawning really is contagious: there is a strong social empathy component to yawning. That’s why many autistic children do not yawn when others yawn.
Is yawning due to fatigue and boredom? Studies haven’t been able to prove this. Teens were plopped in front of MTV and yawned less than when they were forced to watch the most boring thing on earth (something about color bars, I don’t know, I couldn’t finish reading it). Other studies have shown that we do tend to yawn more when we are tired, of course, but yawning’s actual purpose remains maddeningly elusive. Maybe we are releasing the engrams!
A very popular theory - that our bodies need to expel excess carbon dioxide and yawning serves this purpose - has been proven to be incorrect. It seemed sensible enough: boredom and fatigue slow your breathing, possibly creating a need for the lungs to get a bigger gulp of oxygen. Wrong, I tell you!
The current scientific consensus (because I know these things) is all about the stretch theory. You know how a yawn is really unsatisfying if you have to conceal it? Yawning may simply serve to stretch the jaw.
Wackiest theory award: it’s been suggested that yawning may cool off the brain. Prescription: if you yawn a lot, try thinking less. You is overheating the motherboard.
The greater the levels of serotonin, glutamic acid, and dopamine in your brain, the more you yawn. The greater the levels of endorphins, the less you yawn. Just try hitting that elliptical and yawning at the same time. It’s not right.
Yawning may also help regulate pressure in the ear drums.
Some psychologists believe yawning is the body’s natural way to release intense or negative emotions, much like crying and laughter.
The average yawn lasts 6 seconds, just like the average male orgasm (women get 23 seconds on average).
References:
- el wiki
- Sciencebase
- Dub
- Photo link
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POSTED IN: Your Body
6 opinions for Facts about Yawning
Jim
Nov 11, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I yawned twice reading this. How many times did you yawn writing this?
Sara
Nov 11, 2007 at 6:56 pm
It took me two days just to write this because I kept falling asleep.
EEJ
Nov 12, 2007 at 11:39 am
I yawned once reading this (not from boredom, I chose to read this) and once while writing this comment.
How’s that for a pavlovian response?
Mikeachim
Nov 12, 2007 at 6:22 pm
6 seconds is the average?
Women are designed better.
It’s like Men were designed by the British, and Women were designed by German engineers.
No wonder that there has been 2,000 years of sexual inequality. That’s men, trying to compensate. And getting it wrong, as usual.
Straying reluctantly back to the point - I yawn when I’m faced with something I’m not really interested in, no matter how much I’m concentrating on it or thinking hard. A yawn is my Inner Canary, tweeting away to tell me the air in my brain has started to get bad.
Could be that it’s a manifestation of negative emotions, though, as you say.
I yawn a lot in the office.
saco
Nov 13, 2007 at 5:48 am
I yawned like 5 times while i was reading this article. :) Cool post tho!
rhonda
Oct 23, 2008 at 7:15 pm
i yawned 5 or 6 times while reading this!
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