Yawning effects- cats sleep a lot, yawn a lot and they look so content. Why cat’s big-opened-mouth yawning makes us that happy? There is 5 essential effect yawning delivers. Its function is not a sign of boredom
, but may be a form of communication which shows closeness
.
Table of Content
Yawning Effects
1. Cools Your Head and Helps You to Stay Alert
Think our brains as computer, it works at its best when it’s cool. When it’s overheat, it slows down. Andrew Gallup, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Binghamton University who led the study[1], told Discovery News. “They operate most efficiently when cool, and physical adaptations have evolved to allow maximum cooling of the brain.”
He and colleagues Michael Miller and Anne Clark analyzed yawning in parakeets as representative vertebrates because the birds have relatively large brains, live wild in Australia, which is subject to frequent temperature swings, and, most importantly, do not engage in contagious yawning, as humans and some other animals do.
Contagious yawning is thought to be an evolved mechanism for keeping groups alert so they “remain vigilant against danger,” Gallup said.
2. Helps Resetting Your Internal Clock
When you yawn, you help regulate your body’s circadian rhythms or the roughly 24-hour cycle of human behavior and biological activity.
Yawning is like changing switches in your head. We signal a way of change phycological state: a way to help our mind and body transition from one behavioral state to another.
We yawn more when we are in the midst of a change from inactivity to activity. Sleep to wakefulness, anxiety to calm, boredom to alertness and vice versa.
It helps you to come out of jet lag, and out of high elevation as well.
3. Increases Mental Clarity and Efficiency
When you yawn, it stimulates a neural area of the brain that plays a major role in being more conscious and self-reflective. It also helps you to relax and maintain a good memory.
4. Staves Off Sleepiness
Yawning makes contract muscles which force blood through cerebral blood vessels to the brain. It functions as waking up
, so it may reduce sleepness as it reflects a mechanism that maintains attention.
5. Lifts Your Mood Up
The yawn releases numerous neurochemicals, like dopamine. Once released, dopamine activates oxytocin production.
Oxytocin regulates such crucial functions as pleasure, sensuality, and bonding in relationships.
It triggers the mirror neurons that literally prompt you to reflect another person’s behavior or emotional state.
Summary
We understand the yawning effect as it regulates and promotes brain functions.
It’s like a fan attached to our brain as a cooling system. The more we yawn, the better our brains function. If you pay close attention to your yawning, you’d find you feel refreshed each time you yawn really good.
It’s amazing how many times cats yawn in a day, but that’s one of their secrets to staying happy. If you want to enhance your intimate connection with another person, try yawning together(!).
We can apply cat behavior vigorously in terms of benefits backed up by science as yawning effects!
References
Why do we yawn? (READER’S DIGEST best health)
[1]The thermoregulatory theory of yawning: what we know from over 5 years of research (National Center for Biotechnology Information)
THE SURPRISING SCIENCE OF YAWNING (THE NEW YORKER)
Yawning: One of the Best-kept Secrets in Neuroscience (DR. LEAF)
When we yawn: To cool our brains (NBC NEWS)
Fact or Myth: Is Frequent Yawning is a Powerful Neural-Enhancing Tool? (Underground Health Reporter)
Related Articles
Take a Nap!: 5 Benefits You Can Get from Napping
Cats Sleep 16 Hours a Day?: 1 Reason Why
Also published on Medium.
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