During an important conversation or at a business meeting, you suddenly start yawning (and often, over and over again) and realize that you cannot control yourself, and meanwhile your interlocutor may think that you are bored and uninteresting, even if this is not the case. Try one of these tricks when your yawning gets out of control.
Breathe through your nose
According to one study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, inhaling and exhaling air through the nose can eliminate contagious yawning. Nearly half of the volunteers who were told to breathe through their mouths or were given no instructions at all to do so yawned while watching a video of characters doing the same thing. But none of the participants who were told to breathe through their nose yawned at that moment. Researchers suggest that the desire to show fatigue only appears when your brain becomes too warm (overheated, tired). And if you breathe through your nose, it will help cool it down, so to speak.
Need to relax a little and have a snack
The second part of the same study, published in Evolutionary Psychology: How to Stop Yawning, took a more direct approach to the question of brain cooling. The researchers gave participants bagged hand towels that were either hot, cold or at room temperature. Only 9 percent of 100 people who held cold packs yawned, compared to 41 percent of the other two groups. Check the room temperature or eat something cold, like watermelon, if you want to cool down. But if you are constantly cold, then this may indicate health problems.
Take a deep breath
One general theory is this. People yawn when their blood oxygen levels are low, but on the other hand, too high levels also cause this symptom of fatigue. Take a few deep breaths slowly to restore oxygen levels in your blood so you can stop yawning. Don't switch to deep breathing too quickly, because your body may perceive this as hyperventilation, and the problem will only get worse.
Clear your throat well
Don't hold back and clear your throat freely, as this can help stop yawning. And if you don’t feel like coughing, then try to do it on purpose. Perhaps the deep breath you take before this will stop the whole series of yawns. At the very least, a cough will distract the other person from your supposedly bored appearance.
Stretch your legs
If you feel uncomfortable during another bout of yawning, your body may be hinting that it's time for you to move. Take a short walk to grab a glass of water, or do some exercise at your desk if you can't get up and walk around. Also, be mindful of your daily habits, as they can drain your energy.
Get some fresh air
Staying in the same place for long periods of time, such as in front of a computer, is taxing on your mind, causing you to feel sleepy and start wondering how to stop yawning. A short change of environment can relieve boredom. Go outside for at least a few minutes to stimulate your body with fresh air.
Check your medication list
If you notice that you have been yawning too often lately, then know that one of the reasons may be the medications you take every day. For example, antidepressants, antihistamines, and some pain relievers can cause drowsiness and contribute to yawning.
Drink a glass of water
When your body is dehydrated, you may begin to feel tired. Drink a large glass of water to rehydrate your body and stop fighting the urge to yawn.
Yawning is a natural process of the body. When yawning, a person takes a deep breath. The body urgently wants to rest. And in order not to fall asleep where you sit or stand, yawning begins. The body receives a portion of oxygen, which helps it survive for some time.
A person yawns even after sleep. During sleep, many processes in the body are inhibited. A deep breath while yawning will provide a flow of oxygen that will wake up all organs.
But yawning at work or during lectures is not accepted. What to do? How to cheer up?
1. Fresh air
A stuffy room, a switched-on heater - all this creates an oxygen deficiency. To perk up, go outside, take off a warm sweater, turn on the air conditioner or open a window.
2. Physical education minute
Small exercises that speed up the blood will also help in the fight against sleep. You can still run through the floors.
3. Breathing exercises
Inhale and exhale (preferably deeply), then calmly inhale and exhale several times. Repeat the exercises several times so that sleep completely leaves you.
4. Coffee and tea
Drinking a lot of them, of course, is harmful, but you don’t have to choose. Either you will yawn, or you will drink another mug of tea.
5. Boring job
Even a well-rested person can be attacked by yawning. And this is due to boring work. If you are tired of an activity, switch to something interesting, for example, go to lunch or simply take up another, more interesting activity.
6. Body temperature
When the room is hot, yawning also occurs. Rinse your face and hands with cold water and unbutton the top buttons of your jacket, blouse or shirt. This will cool the body.
7. Short naps
Of course, there is no bed at work, so just put your head in your hands and take a nap for 10-15 minutes. Such a small recharge will give you strength and drive away yawning.
8. Chain reaction
As soon as someone yawns in the office, everyone begins to follow his example. Don't look at those who yawn.
9. Music
Music will also come to the rescue. Turn on the radio or your favorite tunes. It's better to listen with headphones. This way you won't bother anyone.
10. Fight yawning
As soon as you feel the urge to yawn, close your lips tightly. Breathe through your nose. This technique is best used during meetings and lectures, when your yawning can earn you a remark.
Yawning is not accepted in society, but sometimes the body just needs to do it. Without this, disruptions in the functioning of some organs will begin. If you don’t want to be caught doing such an interesting activity, cover your mouth slightly.
Autumn. Less sun, less vitamins, and after a long break we return to school or university to busy activities, and at work there is now no reason to relax under the excuse of heat or good weather. So now we yawn. Constantly, always and everywhere. Faking a yawn in the middle of an important meeting or during a conversation is a shame. This is how society tends to react to it.
Sometimes a yawn pops up when you least expect it. The trigger here is when the respiratory center in the brain determines that there is too much carbon dioxide in the blood. Typically, yawning begins when your breathing is slow and, accordingly, your body requires more oxygen. This happens when you are tired, when you are concentrating, when you are scared, in a dream and under other circumstances. Once you understand this dynamic, there are several techniques that can help prevent large yawns at inopportune moments.
1. Watch your breathing and breathe deeply. Here you will probably have to practice, because when focusing on their breathing, people often, as they say, “fall into the astral plane” and are distracted from everything around them. And vice versa, when focusing, for example, on work, they forget about everything else.
When you use shallow and slow breathing, the rate of exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the bloodstream decreases relative to normal. This is what causes yawning. So consciously control the rhythm and depth of the breaths you take to ensure your body is oxygenated.
2. When you feel a yawn coming, lick your lips. Seriously - it helps and is very effective! Moreover, both lips: both upper and lower. Stretching your tongue forward and up/down stops the urge to yawn.
3. Try not to watch others yawn - turn away. Even in the picture. And don't read about yawning people and yawns. It is contagious in any form. Even if this happens, for example, before the start of a meeting: if the signal reaches the brain, it will not want to leave for a long time, and a yawn will definitely pop up at an important moment of the meeting.
4. Get enough sleep for yourself, every night in a row. If you get enough sleep on the weekend, but not at all before Monday, this will not save you from yawning. Plus, some walk in good spirits even after 6 hours of sleep, while for others (especially pay attention to this if you have health problems, such as heart problems), only 10 hours will bring the desired recovery. Fatigue is the most common cause of yawning, and it's better to show up to a meeting with your nails unpainted than to yawn all morning during an important discussion, or every morning in front of your boss.
Instead of going to a bar or watching TV all the time at home, think about how good it will be to sleep: go to bed as soon as you arrive home from the office. Completely darken the room, after ventilating and cooling it, drink a light herbal sedative, block out all noise (buy earplugs and warn those who live with you) - and sleep!
Take a nap. And make it a habit to do this at every opportunity. If you are traveling as a passenger in a car to some place - and in any other transport where this action is available to you without harm; during the window between couples; during your lunch break, if you haven’t eaten much in 15 minutes and have another 45 left, etc. Sleep as much as possible on the weekend: not only at night, but during the day and evening.
5. Sit up straight. After sitting for hours in front of a computer monitor or at a desk, 98% of people forget to sit up straight and use their diaphragm to breathe deeply. If you notice that you have been making a question mark for a long time, just straightening up is not enough: be sure to get up, straighten your shoulders and walk, at least even to the window, and then to a colleague’s table, or even better further - to the cafeteria (for a portion of juice), so you restore deep breathing and saturate your blood with oxygen.
6. Exercise, as everyone already knows, helps oxygenate the blood - if you exercise outside and/or in a thoroughly ventilated room. Once a day, every day. It doesn’t have to be long or strenuous: 40 minutes of jogging, for example (combined with the minimum amount of sleep you need), will save you.
7. Don't eat too much during lunch. When you stuff yourself like a turkey, most of your body's processes slow down, devoting cumulative energy to digesting and assimilating what you eat. Hence the extremely tired evenings and generally the entire second half of the day - and constant yawns. So just a light lunch! Plus, eat more fruit. Chips and other harmful things, again, make you tired faster.
Additions and warnings:
- Prozac, antihistamines and other medications tend to cause excessive yawning. Make sure you fully understand the side effects of your medications.
- Excessive yawning can also be a sign of critical health problems. If you are unable to sleep and have a tendency to snore and yawn constantly, you should be tested for apnea and/or vasovagal problems.
Yawning is an unconditioned reflex act in which the facial muscles and respiratory muscles are involved. Scientists believe that this process is necessary for humans to maintain normal brain function, although the causes of yawning remain not fully understood. Yawning in public, during conversation, at lectures, conferences and other gatherings is considered bad manners and a sign of disrespect. You should learn to get rid of the desire to yawn; for this you need to know the mechanisms and reasons for this act.
Causes of yawning
The exact reasons are still unknown. There are many theories, among which three remain leading:
- Lack of oxygen. The brain consumes more oxygen than any other organ in the human body. If a person is in a stuffy room or is wearing tight clothes, as well as with diseases of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, the neurons of the central nervous system experience oxygen starvation. Yawning helps to cope with this problem and ensures the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the brain. This theory explains yawning from fatigue and boredom. When a person wants to sleep, blood flow slows down.
- Increased blood temperature. There are several organs in the human body whose temperature is maintained at a constant level: the brain, heart, liver, kidneys. The central nervous system is most susceptible to overheating. There are centers in the brain responsible for controlling temperature; if it rises, the body takes measures to cool itself. The first thing you need to do is cool the brain, for this you yawn, and cooler blood flows to the neurons.
- Warm up the muscles. The act of yawning involves the facial and chewing muscles of the face, the muscles of the larynx, pharynx and tongue, as well as the main and auxiliary muscles involved in the act of breathing. Yawning normalizes blood supply to these muscles and eliminates their fatigue.
Why yawning is contagious
The listed reasons do not explain the contagiousness of yawning. Why do we imitate? Scientists have two theories:
- Mirror neurons. There is a theory that in the nervous system there is a group of cells responsible for imitation. They are called "mirror" ones. These neurons make a person want to yawn every time he sees someone yawning or reads about yawning. This mechanism is more developed in some people, less so in others. Mirror neurons are not only responsible for yawning; a person may want to draw after seeing an artist or start banging their hands on a hard surface while watching a drummer. Mirror neurons also act in relation to other types of animals, so you can yawn after a dog or cat.
- Imitative sympathy. Scientists have found that we yawn at the same time with familiar people more often than with strangers. Children yawn after their parents more often, and pets imitate their owners. Why? It is difficult to answer this question unambiguously. Perhaps the mechanism of such yawning is similar to the mechanism that makes us imitate the voice or posture of the interlocutor. Thus, the body subconsciously tries to please someone by imitating his actions.
Yawning mechanism
The brain starts the process. Neurons send impulses to the muscles involved in the act of breathing. The person takes a deep, long breath with his mouth wide open, and then exhales briefly. Due to the involvement of the vocal cords in the process of yawning, in some people, inhalation and exhalation are accompanied by a characteristic loud sound. It can be easily suppressed.
What is happening in the body at this moment? A large portion of oxygen enters the lungs, which quickly enters the blood. At the same time, due to increased pressure in the lungs, the heart rate slows down. Because of this, after a second of venous stagnation, a large portion of blood enters the pulmonary circulation, and accordingly, most of it is enriched with oxygen. These processes help eliminate hypoxia.
In addition, during yawning, a spasm of the facial vessels occurs; they are compressed by the facial and masticatory muscles. Since the brain and head are fed from the branches of the common carotid artery, and its facial branches are blocked, when yawning a large portion of blood flows to the brain.
The muscles involved in the act of yawning experience short-term hypoxia, after which more blood flows to them, which brings oxygen and carries away harmful metabolic products. This eliminates muscle fatigue.
When you yawn, the sinus canals open, as does the Eustachian tube, which connects the ear and pharynx. This helps equalize the pressure in the inner ear and relieve the feeling of fullness.
First of all, you need to try to eliminate the causes of yawning:
- Leave the stuffy room for some air or open a window. This way the body will receive the necessary portion of oxygen without resorting to the act of yawning.
- Loosen your tie or unbutton the top button of your shirt. It is possible that clothing items interfere with the free flow of blood to the brain and neurons suffer from hypoxia because of this.
- Take a deep breath when you feel tired and have less concentration.
- If yawning does not subside, do a short warm-up - this will help cheer you up and increase the intensity of blood flow.
- Keep yourself busy with something, perhaps yawning is due to boredom.
- Some sources advise placing an ice pack on your forehead to lower the temperature inside your skull. This can save you from yawning and at the same time cause frontal sinusitis, headaches and trigeminal neuralgia. It is better to moisten a handkerchief or piece of cloth with cool water and place it on your forehead.
Don't look at those who yawn. Look away or redirect your attention when the other person yawns. This will help you not to follow his example.
If the desire to yawn remains, you can overcome the process itself. As soon as you feel like yawning, clench your teeth tightly and inhale deeply through your nose. This process is less noticeable than the full act of yawning. If you can’t do this, just cover your mouth with your hand.
Remember that yawning is good for the body. Despite the rules of good behavior and impeccable upbringing, allow yourself to yawn periodically. If you suffer from frequent uncontrollable yawning and nothing helps, consult a doctor, this may be the first symptom of cardiopulmonary pathology.
Video: yawning as a symptom of serious illnesses
Why does a person yawn?
Photo by Shutterstock
Often yawning, especially frequent and severe, indicates health problems or chronic fatigue or nervous tension. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the causes of yawning and take the necessary measures.
Why does yawning happen?
The reasons that trigger the yawning reflex are not yet fully understood. Many doctors, biologists and physiologists believe that a person begins to yawn not only when he is bored or sleepy, but also when the body lacks oxygen - for example, when being in a stuffy, poorly ventilated room. Because of this, metabolic products accumulate in the blood. They affect the respiratory center of the brain, thereby not only activating inhibition processes, but also provoking yawning.
The physiological act of yawning itself consists of two phases: a slow, deep inhalation, during which the facial and neck muscles are strongly tensed, and a quick, sharp exhalation. Muscle tension increases the speed of blood flow, which improves blood supply to the brain and accelerates metabolic processes. In addition, impulses from tense muscles excite the nerve cells of the cerebral cortex, which leads, as it were, to “shaking off” the processes of inhibition.
Therefore, after yawning, the brain begins to work more actively (though not for long)
Some scientists believe that yawning functions as a thermoregulatory function for the brain. They compare the brain to some complex electronic device, which begins to work worse when overheated. Yawning, by providing blood flow and cooler air to the brain, relieves it from overheating and thereby improves functioning.
It is not uncommon for a person to yawn immediately after waking up in the morning. This happens because due to prolonged immobility, the speed of blood flow in his body has decreased, and the concentration of carbon dioxide and other metabolic products in the blood, on the contrary, has increased.
Constant yawning also often occurs when performing work associated with risk or anxiety, or increased responsibility. This can happen to people of various professions and in various situations: test pilots before flights, stuntmen before performing risky stunts, actors before going on stage, surgeons before a complex operation, etc.
The reason is that with strong emotional stress and excitement, a person instinctively tries to hold his breath. The oxygen content in the blood quickly drops, and carbon dioxide increases. Then the body just as instinctively turns on the yawning mechanism, saturating the blood with oxygen.
Yawning is a signal of illness
What health problems can yawning indicate and how to get rid of it? If a person yawns frequently, especially during the day, this indicates that his body does not have enough oxygen. It is necessary to go out into the fresh air or at least ventilate the room.
Frequent yawning, especially in combination with a feeling of physical weakness, lethargy, and apathy, may also indicate overwork or emotional stress. This is a signal that the body needs rest. You need to take at least a short vacation or at least reduce your workload, streamline your daily routine, and avoid stressful and conflict situations. Sleep should be long enough, and the sleeping area should be well ventilated.
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Yawning is also one of the signs of vegetative-vascular dystonia. This disease is treated with restorative and sedative medications. It is also necessary to engage in physical therapy and avoid anxiety and stressful situations.
In some cases, as prescribed by a doctor, the patient is prescribed antipsychotic drugs
Frequent yawning can also be a symptom of the development of such a terrible disease as multiple sclerosis. It occurs when the body's immune system, for some reason, begins to mistake its own central nervous system for foreign tissue and attacks and damages it. These attacks can occur in different places in the body (dispersed). Depending on where exactly the damaged areas of the brain are located, the patient experiences certain symptoms. Most often in the early stages of the disease they manifest themselves in the form of blurred vision, muscle weakness, deterioration in coordination of movements, and fine motor skills.
Until relatively recently, the diagnosis of “multiple sclerosis” was considered a death sentence, dooming a person to rapid disability and helplessness. Now, with the help of modern medications, it is possible to avoid the development of the disease without causing disability. But to do this, multiple sclerosis must be detected at an early stage. Therefore, if you yawn frequently, you need to consult a neurologist, who will give you a referral for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and, if foci of brain damage are detected, prescribe treatment.