As I began reading the articles about yawning, I was fascinated by all of the different theories that were suggested. So, I set out for a terrific journey for a few days. I read over articles that explained several theories of the mysterious yawn. Some thought that it was due to lack of oxygen, some thought it was just plain boredom, and some say it is due to an evolutionary theory of showing our teeth.
Discovering more about these theories still didn’t explain why we automatically yawn as soon as you see or even hear someone else yawn. So I thought, “Wow, I think I will try my own little experiment!” Since no one really has a true understanding of why we “spontaneously break into yawns when they see another person yawning”, this was a perfect way for me to investigate further into the great unknown. I was truly on a mission to seek out the truth. I began yawning everywhere I could and every one was different than the last. Some were fake yawns, some were real. Most of them were really long ones that seemed to last forever.
You know, the kinds that make you stretch so hard that you pull your stomach muscles. Each yawn was at the most unpredictable times. My first subject was a friend. We were eating at McDonald’s and we had just sat down with our food. I looked up at the ceiling and began to yawn. He almost instantly began to mock me with his yawn, except his was real.
After dinner, I went back to the counter to ask for a drink refill. Before I asked for the refill, I yawned really big in front of the worker. Before he turned around to get my drink, I saw him cover his mouth and yawn. Because my experiment was going so well, I went to Wal-Mart to get a few more yawns. I went was the toilet paper aisle first because there is almost always someone there. Standing there were a lady and her two young children.
The boy was about three years old and a girl who was about two years old. I had started a conversation with them and while I was talking with them, I began to yawn again. Almost immediately, the lady yawned but the two children didn’t. I thought that the children might have been a little young for the experiment. According to the Pyschport.
com website, “children up the age of five yawn, but not contagiously.” Although the children didn’t yawn, I still wasn’t convinced that one of these theories was the culprit. At about 10 o’ clock that night, I was playing with my six year old niece in the living room. Of course, I had to test these theories on her, too. I yawned and she yawned. We yawned back and forth several times. My mother was sitting in her favorite chair in the living while this was taking place, but she didn’t know about “the experiment.” Then, I asked mom to read an article that I printed out from the psych port website.
It was describing how yawning is contagious. She just laughed out loud because she yawned as she was reading it. What a perfect example for doing my research and gathering all of this not-so-professional information! I wanted to write about something that was really interesting to me, something that we could all enjoy learning about, and something that was strange and unusual. Everyone does it, and no one can explain it. To me, yawning is a perfect subject to write about. Almost every time I have seen someone yawn, I immediately begin to yawn.
I have seen this happen to almost everyone around me at some point. Ronald Baenninger of Philadelphia says “fake yawning can trigger the same bodily response but warns that if you do a fake yawn it is likely to turn into a real one.” Todd Campbell of ABCNEWS. com says “Yawning is basically a deep, involuntary intake of air, accompanied by stretching of the jaw and face muscles, and accompanied by watery eyes and an increased heart rate. Among the things that science can tell us about the yawn is that on average, it lasts about six seconds and it seems to be controlled at least in part by the hypothalamus, which shows increased activity in response to the release of such neurotransmitters as dopamine and serotonin. In the human fetus, yawning starts about 11 weeks after conception.” I am not quite sure which theory to believe, but until then I suppose that I could continue doing my own research. There are many questions that still need to be answered.
Is it a reflex, a personality trait, or just plain unexplainable? Is it really contagious or is there a method to all this madness? Are the physiological, boredom, and evolutionary theories really true? No one has yet to figure out why yawning seems to be contagious. Until then, I suppose this phenomenon will remain just that, a strange phenomenon!