More about yawning

Tweet

After reading the responses to my recent post on yawning, I decided to do a bit more research. Incidentally, only about six out of 26 said they yawned on or while reading the discussion. However, I yawned ten times while writing replies to you all. I must be a very susceptible individual. One site said that, on average, adults yawn 20 times a day which I found quite surprising. Once you feel a yawn starting to happen, it’s really difficult to stop it. That didn’t surprise me. The chances of yawning increase sixfold after seeing someone else yawn. This is called contagious yawning and is due to a phenomenon called social mirroring, where organisms copy the actions of others. Those on the autism spectrum or with high pyschopathic traits are not so likely to yawn when others do. WHY we yawn at all isn’t too clear but one theory suggests that a yawn builds up oxygen levels quickly, while expelling carbon dioxide. When we’re tired we breathe less deeply and our intake of oxygen might fall a little. I can’t recall every seeing a sheep or cow yawn but apparently they do. Dogs and cats certainly and seem to have huge mouths when they yawn. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Sautter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons