You wake up in the morning and yawn, you’re feeling a little tired you yawn, you’re in the middle of speaking and all of a sudden you yawn. How many times have you yawned and wondered why? You yawn and then the people around you start yawning, how could something spread that fast? You ask why you yawn and everyone just says it’s because you’re tired.
As of now scientists still don’t know for sure why we yawn but many recent studies suggest that it’s to cool down our brains. In fact the belief that we yawn because we are tired and that yawning helps get oxygen to the blood stream which helps wake us up is not true. In the articles that I found it talks about many studies that were done to measure if yawning was actually done to keep the brain cool. Andrew Gallop says this, “stretching of the jaw, gaping of the mouth and long deep inhalation, followed by a shallow exhalation—may serve as a thermoregulatory mechanism. In a 2007 study, Gallup found that holding hot or cold packs to the forehead influenced how often people yawned when they saw videos of others doing it. When participants held a warm pack to their forehead, they yawned 41 percent of the time. When they held a cold pack, the incidence of yawning dropped to 9 percent.” Naturally our body temperature is the highest when we just wake up and when we are going to bed. Thus the theory of yawning being the way that the body cools down the brain so that is doesn’t overheat makes a lot of sense. The article describes the process as being able to “chill the head like air conditioning.”
As for yawning being contagious that is not a myth, all you need to do is read about yawning and you will get the urge to do so. In conclusion it is still a mystery as to why we yawn but scientists haven’t given up on finding the reason. After reading this you’ve probably yawned a few times anyway!
Sources: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-do-we-yawn-nothing-to-do-with-boredom–were-just-cooling-our-brains-say-scientists-9356468.html
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140811-warning-this-may-make-you-yawn
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-do-we-yawn
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-we-yawn-and-why-is-it-contagious-3749674/?no-ist
I did a post on contagious yawning earlier this blogging period. One debatable theory is that the cause correlates with empathy. Specifically, if you are empathetic toward others, you will yawn when other people yawn. However, if you generally are not empathetic toward others you will resist the urge to yawn when you see others yawning. However, I’m not sure if that is subconscious or if you would purposely be trying not to yawn. You should check my blog out http://sites.psu.edu/siowfa14/2014/11/09/the-more-you-yawn-the-nicer-you-are/ and see if you agree with that theory or not!