It Cools The Brain To Yawn, But Why Do We Yawn?

Why do we yawn? Does it have anything to do with our health? The neuroscientist, Raquel Marin, provides an overview of the importance and function of a gap.

Under normal circumstances, researchers estimate that people yawn on average 28 times a day. You spend about four minutes every day on this seemingly unnecessary and often uncontrollable activity. You will yawn all your life.

It starts during the fifth month of pregnancy and it ends during your last days of life. In certain contexts, it is rude to yawn. However, gaps are necessary for your health. This is because gaps cool the brain, among other things.

Read on to learn more.

Why are you yawning?

You probably associate gap with being tired or bored, but that’s only part of the story. Fetuses also yawn, like most other vertebrates (fish, reptiles, birds and mammals).

In many cultures, people consider it rude to yawn in public. Nevertheless, everyone does, and even very well-educated people. Furthermore, gaps can actually be very contagious. All you have to do is see someone yawning immediately near you and you feel pressured to do the same.

Gaps in fetuses help with brain development

As we mentioned above, even unborn babies yawn. They start yawning around week 20 and they continue with this behavior for the rest of their lives.

Babies in the womb do not yawn because they are bored or tired, obviously. So why are they yawning? At this stage of their growth, gaps foster a sequential and orderly brain development. Many studies indicate that gaps are a sign that the brain and the peripheral nerves that regulate muscle movements are developing properly.

Gaps in fetuses are so important that their absence may be a sign of neural dysfunction.

Gab helps you pay attention

Most people think that people yawn to get more oxygen to the brain. However, this theory does not hold. After all, you are breathing continuously day and night, through your mouth and nose, and it has nothing to do with oxygenation of the brain.

The oxygen that supplies your brain cells is primarily transported by the network of blood vessels that approach each other in the brain. If the purpose of yawning was to oxygenate the brain, then why not yawn more when holding your breath? Or when you are in an environment with less oxygen?

Therefore, this explanation does not hold up to closer examination. There are other, more recent explanations that claim that gab allows you to switch from a default setting mode to an alert mode.

According to Walusinski (2014), gaps increase the amount of fluid in the brain, allowing for the increased attention and concentration needed for more complex tasks. In other words, gab helps you, in a way, to switch between tasks and concentrate fully.

Other studies claim that gaps cool the brain by helping regulate temperature.

Gab cools the brain

Try this experiment, developed by researchers at the University of Albany. To begin with, you need to be surrounded by people and be ready to yawn.

Place a cold item on your forehead. Be careful not to damage your skin if it is too cold. The reason you need to place the item on your forehead is because your forehead has more sweat glands to cool you than anywhere else on your body.

With the cold element on your forehead, your urge to yawn when people around you yawn can be five times less than normal. However, if you place a hot item on your forehead, your need to yawn will not diminish.

This experiment shows that cooling your forehead will help cool the brain and eliminate the contagious gap. You can also try to breathe intensely through your nose to increase the cooling. It can also work.

The increased ventilation that occurs when you yawn helps reduce the temperature of your brain. Lack of sleep and mental exhaustion after strenuous mental activity increases brain temperature.

Therefore, you yawn more when you go to bed or get up, or if you have been working for some time with something mentally demanding. Although most people still consider gaps to be rude in certain contexts, it is a normal and necessary activity.

Why do you yawn more than usual? It may be a sign of brain pathologies

We’ve talked about how gaps, in general, are a good thing. However, if you yawn too much, it can be a sign of illness. What’s too much? Continuous gaps more than three times every 15 minutes.

Patients suffering from stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, migraines, brain tumors, intracranial hypertension, chronic insomnia or epilepsy are more likely to yawn than usual. In the case of Parkinson’s, continuous and excessive yawning is one of the symptoms of this disease.

If you yawn more than usual in a single day, there is no need to worry. Maybe your brain is exhausted and needs to cool down. Keep in mind that yawning is very common.

Another possible cause of excessive yawning is the ingestion of certain pharmaceutical drugs, such as antidepressants, opioids or sedatives. Drinking too much caffeine can also make you yawn more often.

If it’s made you yawn, read this article, it’s good! That means it has piqued your interest and promoted your brain activity! Just let go!