Yawning. A process where we all stretch our mouths like hippos, look all funny and weird while doing it and still insist on doing it anyways! Science has yet to pin point, exactly why that is the case.

There are many theories that try to explain it though. One theory suggests that it might be to increase the oxygen level in our body and decrease the carbon-dioxide levels when we are running low on oxygen.

Other theory suggests, it might be one of the ways in which the body controls the brain temperature. Apparently, our brains function optimally within a range of temperature and yawning might just be a way for the brain to cool down.

Yet another theory suggests that it is also triggered due to sleepiness and boredom due to the various chemical changes in the brain. Maybe it’s a combination of all these or maybe there’s an entirely different reason.

Contagious Yawning

If you thought yawning was mysterious, try contagious yawning. Have you ever seen other people around you yawn and started yawning too as a result?

It doesn’t even have to be a live person doing it next to you. You could just see an image on the internet or even read about yawning, or even hear about it and you will start too!

If you ask me that’s kind of freaky and voodoo like! I mean a person or even a bunch of pixels on your computer screen have the power to make you go ahhhh?

Various studies have showed that contagious yawning does indeed exist but we knew that already, didn’t we? So, what does science have to say about this weird, almost telepathic like phenomenon?

Why Does It Happen?

Image taken as a screenshot of Asapscience's video on YouTube.

Since we are social animals, it has been suggested that it might be an evolutionarily hardwired function for us to yawn in response to others yawning in the group, for social bonding.

This behaviour is stronger in people who are socially or genetically close to you. Studies have shown that even dogs yawn in response to the yawns of their owners.

There is also a long standing belief that contagious yawning might be because of our empathy. Researchers state that children develop this kind of yawning at the age of around 4, around the same time they develop empathy and the ability to identify emotions, concluding that there might be a link between the two.

However, this belief is refuted by many scientists by stating that contagious yawning affects younger people much more than older people. As you grow older, somehow, you are less likely to catch a yawn.

A Confession To Make

Writing this post was a brave thing to do, as you can only imagine how many times I yawned, having to type this word again and again and looking for photos of people doing the same. I didn’t count but it must have been around 50 times!

Inspite of that, I wanted to write this post because I wanted to conduct a little study of my own. I know this is not a scientific way at all but despite that I think we can learn some things about who was affected and who was not.

I wanted to see how many of you yawned just by looking at the thumbnail or the title and how many times you yawned reading this whole article. Do tell in the comments section down below.

Image Credits 1, 2