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Is Catching A Yawn An Involuntary Reaction?

2nd October, 2010 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Ever thought why you get a desire to yawn when someone near you yawns? Well the actual answer is that the scientists don’t know, however they do come up with explanations. One such explanation is acknowleged by the Cincinnati orthodontist and Cincinnati cosmetic dentist. It relates to the jaw movement during yawning. However, the mystery of catching a yawn is is associated to the brain. It may not seem like the biggest mystery of life; however, scientists are left scratching their head for getting the answers. An interesting part is that it’s not just the humans who yawn, but this behavior is also very prevalent within chimpanzees, dogs and cats.

This contagious tendency of yawning is mostly unconscious. We see someone yawning close to us and yearn to replicate the action without knowing about it. Sometimes, we are aware of this action, however it sets on us without conscious control. Before discussing the unknown reasons for catching yawns, let us first mull over a few factual information as to why a yawn starts. It’s basically a responsive inhalation in which the reflex is created from our body to get more oxygen into the bloodstream. Usually, however, people associate yawning as a indication of exhaustion which is true to some extent. But this is not everytime the case for yawning. Many a times, people yawn for issues such as stress, boredom, emotion along with a lot of work.

Whereas the contagious yawn is concerned, one aspect is for sure that up to 60% people are likely to catch yawns at just the sight of a yawning picture. Even if you are going through an article on yawning, you are likely to feel more frequent yawns than usual.

This response of catching yawns is not fully understood, however, the logical evaluation suggests that it could be the consequence of the unconscious herding behavior. For example, birds every bird follows the rising behavior of another thus they all rise together as a flock. Similar is the case for yawning in which it seems as an unconscious signal to the group that it’s time to go to sleep. If you observe someone yawning when they are tired, then it’s an unconscious symbol to shift from the topic of the dialogue that failed to catch your interest.

The scientific theory certainly, tells that a yawn starts when we lack in the physical need of oxygen, the deep breaths taken as a consequence of the yawn, supports to replenish the depleted oxygen. There are other hypotheses which tell that yawning helps to regulate the body temperature or the chemicals responsible for moods along with emotions are the ones that make us yawn.There are also many superstitions regarding yawning, which originated basically from the Greeks. They used to believe that it starts when danger is near. Today, however people know that it’s a physical reflex that initiates a yawn. On the contrary, the catching of a yawn is a behavioral instinct with some biological explanation that has not been discovered fully, as yet.