Why do people yawn? Why is it contagious?

[ILikeSprite]

<< My eyes water alot when I yawn.....do yours? >>



me too...... I hate that!!!!!

 

[Vortex22]

HAHA I didn't yawn! :Q

 

[JohnCU]

I think it has something to do with being nervous, like someone else mentioned. I never yawn in 1st period, which is a class that I'm comfortable in, but 2nd period I yawn like crazy because I'm more nervous in that class.

 

[iamme]

<< i always figured it was some animal sign of comfort. do you ever yawn when you're nervous? also, if a nervous or scared dog sees you yawn, they calm down. i tried this with my puppy. my neighbors have big dogs that bark at night, and my puppy wouldn't do her thing in the yard before bed with them barking, so i made a big show of yawning in front of her and she wasn't afraid anymore. anyways, that's just mho >>



interesting, i'm going to try that...

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Humans are social/group animals. The fact that yawning is contagious helps us synchronize our sleeping schedules. Don't think you're tired? Well, *yawn* I sure am...

 

[911paramedic]

My god, I did too. No joke.

heeh, me too.

There was another theory that I heard once, probably wrong, but I thought I would throw it out there.

In caveman times when the alpha male would start to yawn it would signal the others that it was time to "hit the sack". It was a communal thing.

(sort of like when women that work together menstrate at the same time. **that is true, no flames please**)

 

[Spooner]

Wow. Some serious yawning going on here.

 

[SinNisTeR]

i yawned 10 seconds before even seeing this thread. i yawned when i read the title. and yawned when i read the thread. damn! :|

i dont know wh :yawn: y we yawn.. =\

 

[SinNisTeR]

its either to get rid of excess carbon dioxide in the blood

or

to stretch your jaw muscles.

 

[NogginBoink]

It is well known that we yawn to equalize the pressure in our inner ears with ambient atmospheric pressure.

However, the very act of doing so actually changes the ambient atmospheric pressure. This creates pressure imbalance in the inner ears of other people nearby, who must then yawn to equalize their ear pressure with the new ambient air pressure.

Which is why yawns are contagious.

 

[skace]

I still believe in the physiological theory: That we yawn because we lack oxygen. The reason I believe this one is that I live in a poorly ventilated room. When my window is shut, the temperature rises and the air stagnates. When this occurs I find myself a lot more drowsy and constantly yawning. When I open my window, the temperature lowers and the air is a lot more fresh. I then feel much more awake and very rarely yawn until I am actually tired.

I think yawning has something to do with lack of oxygen AS WELL AS being tired. A runner might not yawn because they are fully awake and energized. But someone who is half asleep is lacking energy and is using yawning as a last ditch attempt to get more oxygen.

I don't think yawning is as contageious as some people make it out to be. Yes lots of people yawn when they see others yawn, because most people yawn at times where others are tired (majority of people have similar sleeping schedules). I've yawned around people in the middle of the day and not had them yawn. I've had people yawn around me at night and not yawned. I'm sure if you yawned in the middle of a soccer match no one else would yawn. It is all about the timing.

Needless to say, I slept well last night and my work enviroment is well ventilated, so I did not yawn once while reading this post or while replying. Infact, I havn't yawned all morning.

Do some testing and come to your own conclusion....

 

[iamme]

Alright you lazy people......back to work

 

[Elledan]

Yawning prepares an individual for physical (and sometimes mental) exercises. While yawning, the blood-pressure rises and more air is sucked into the lungs, increasing the flow of oxygen and nutritional substances to all tissues.

Athletes yawn often before a contest. Early in the morning and late in the evening/night, people yawn in order to remain or become alert.

[edit]: As for why yawning is 'contagious', when one individual in a group yawns in order to remain or become alert, others in the group will follow the example, so that they are all about equally alert.

 

[crawford]

lol i yawned when i read it too, then i read that reading about yawns makes you yawn and i laughed so hard. lol thats sentence that i just wrote is really hard to understand. oh well.

 

[exp]

Of course this is all pure speculation, but if [CO2] is to blame then I would guess that it is only increased levels in the brain which trigger yawning. Oxygen levels in muscle are less important and thus there is no correlation between exercise and yawning.

Someone should study patterns of brain activity (esp. in regions known to be associated with the maintainence of attention/arousal levels) and monitor whether yawning produces any noticeable effect. Actually, given the number of yawning studies indexed on Pubmed this has likely been done before. Would love to see the results, though.

 

[Jfrag Teh Foul]

I have yawned 3 times reading this post... ok 4 times in the reading of this post... leaving NOW!

BTW, my nostrils get bigger than Dionne Warwick's when I yawn.

 

[911paramedic]

I am begging you, DELETE this thread!!!

I yawn everytime I read the title in the topic area. Please have mercy, stop the insanity... :Q

 

[Zenmervolt]

I generally sigh instead of yawn, but that's beside the point. (And yes I did sigh/yawn while reading this thread.) I seem to recall reading somewhere that yawning is a physical manifestation of a transition in mental states, either from alertness to relaxation or from relaxation to alertness (which is why we yawn when waking up, and also when getting ready to sleep). The "oxygen gulp" idea has been pretty much disproven, since there is no measureable increase in the oxygen level of the blood after yawning, and for the reason you listed. The idea of a correlation (not necessarily causation) with a change in mental activity state seems to me to be the most plausable given the current information, since it also explains the boredom theory and accounts for Olympic athletes yawning before their event [their mental activity changes (increases) before the event].

ZV

 

[MajesticMoose]

<< Robert Provine, a psychologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a leading expert on yawning, has tested this theory >>


Fitting that this study would be done at University of MD, boring campus. Maybe i should take a class with that guy so i can sleep through it and claim i got a little bit too into my research