No Need for Nyquil

I read this online....thought I would share.

Is yawning actually "contagious"?

Yawning has been researched by scientists for years, and is still a mystery to this day as to why exactly humans and animals alike do it. There have been myths over the years that it is a trigger response from the brain due to lack of oxygen, but it was later announced that people given direct oxygen, were just as likely to yawn. It is normally something that is done early am, or pm, due to fatigue, but can also come at times of boredom. Yawning is psychological because you can tell yourself not to do it and you won't. This is the reason why it is not contagious.

The normal feeling human, who can sympathize with anothers feelings, will yawn after another person, out of a person's natural reaction to atmosphere. This has also proven that schizophrenics (sp) and people that suffer from severe cases of mania, are less likely to yawn after another person, due to their lack of sympathizing for another person in feelings, and lack of acknowledgement to reality. This by no means is implying that someone who doesn't yawn after another is a manic...just that it is a psychological act, when in reaction to another's yawn.

In addition to yawning after another person, animal, whatever...research has discovered that a significant percent of people will yawn from simply reading the word yawn. Most of the test subjects also yawned after watching someone/thing yawn on tv or in movies. They also yawned from hearing someone doing it.


For the record, I'm happy to admit that I MAY NOT be as psychologically unstable as previously thought - I yawned about 6 times while reading this article - and another 4 or so times while posting it.