Did you know that yawning is your body's way of getting rid of extra carbon dioxide? (At least that's one theory that a high school teacher shared with us.) If you think about it, during a yawn, you bring in lots of oxygen and then breathe out as far as you can. When you are bored or tired you are breathing more shallow and so you don't rid yourself of enough carbon dioxide. When you fall asleep, you breathe deeply and so... no more yawning. Also, when you are up doing things and/or talking you are breathing deeply. So next time you can't stop yawning try breathing deep. Especially the breathing out part.
Isn't it weird that you can make yourself yawn though? Like when your ears get plugged during ascending and descending. When I read books to my kids and the character yawns, I can make the perfect sound effect with a (real) yawn of my own. And isn't it weird that yawning is contagious? I think so.
6 comments:
That is weird. I always thought hiccups were because of not getting enough air, but hiccups always seem to do more damage than good. The yawning actually makes sense and it's not painful.
Sometimes I wish I could make myself sneeze.
It's fun in a group to fake a yawn and see who yawns, its subconciously contagious. I do that with my girls its pretty funny.
I'm yawning right now...
I used to yawn a thousand times before I raced... we all did. It must of been because of our shallow, nervous breathing. But I love a yawn. Especially the old-man-let-out-a-song-afterward kind. :)
I just yawned while reading this blog post.
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