{"id":2918,"date":"2012-09-20T18:23:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T01:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=2918"},"modified":"2012-09-20T18:23:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T01:23:09","slug":"why-we-yawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=2918","title":{"rendered":"Why we yawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bored? Sleepy? Lack of oxygen? Who knows?<\/p>\n

The Library of Congress posted an interesting analysis of this question in Everyday Mysteries: Why do we yawn?<\/a> They conclude that it may serve a social function and\/or a physiological one, which leaves the door pretty wide open.<\/p>\n

The article claims that “generally speaking, we cannot yawn on command.” I find that I can yawn whenever I choose to, which is handy on airplanes. Do others find that they lack conscious control over yawning? (Stifling a yawn, however, is really difficult!)<\/p>\n

Apparently 42-55% of non-autistic adults find yawning contagious<\/a>. I’m surprised that the percentage isn’t higher. Do you find that the picture of the man yawning above makes you want to yawn? Try doing a google image search on “yawn” and see if you can escape the power! <\/p>\n

As a bonus, I learned two nifty new words while reading this article:<\/p>\n