I often find myself yawning at the end of a meditation.
I’ve always assumed it’s because my body is in a very relaxed state, and I could almost fall asleep.
The subject came up in our meditation class last week.
One person yawned, then another, then another…
You know how ‘catching’ yawns are!
So I thought I’d do a bit more research around it…
And it turns out, it’s still a bit of a mystery.
Most scientists consider it a reflex, as it’s mostly involuntary (you can’t generally control a yawn, although you can make yourself yawn).
Common triggers include tiredness and boredom.
Tiredness after meditation I get, as I mentioned above, because of that feeling of relaxation…
A sense of quiet… and/or stillness…
And the fact that you haven’t been ‘busy doing’ for that period of time.
It’s a sense of your body slowing down, coming to rest, as you do when you go to sleep.
Boredom? Eek I hope not!
I know meditation is ‘not doing’, but it’s not doing nothing.
For many years it was thought yawning (where you take in a deep breath of air) was to bring more oxygen to the brain…
But that’s been widely discarded, as research has shown a controlled lack of oxygen doesn’t result in increased yawning…
And it doesn’t explain why a fetus yawns (I had no idea it could!), it gets its oxygen through blood via the umbilical cord, so that wouldn’t make sense, as no air is being sucked in.
So why do we yawn? It seems there are three main reasons…
1. To help us wake up
This might sound odd, when we’ve said yawning is often caused by tiredness, but your body also uses yawning to keep you awake, to alert you to the fact you are tired.
It activates your brain, and increases your heart rate so it can be a trigger to indicate you need to move or wake up.
2. To cool your brain
The theory is yawning causes a deep breath, drawing cool air into the mouth, which then cools the blood going to the brain.
The jury’s a bit out on this one.
There’s some evidence to show an increase in brain and body temperature is a trigger for yawning, but not so much that it leads to body cooling.
3. Communication
One evolutionary based theory sees it as part of synchronized group behavior, a way of indicating to others that you are tired and unable to do your duty or job, others then ‘catching’ that yawn, indicating they’ve got the message, or it could be related to a phenomenon called social mirroring, where organisms imitate the actions of others.
Psychologists think ‘contagious yawning’ is a non-verbal way to show empathy.
So back to why we yawn after meditation…
To me it’s a combination of 1 and 3.
We’re coming out of a period of rest and relaxation…
Slowly bringing our awareness back, and slowly bringing movement into our bodies…
So it makes sense to yawn to help wake us up and make us more alert again.
We are a social group, meeting on a regular basis, gathering together for the same purpose (to meditate)…
So there’s bound to be some empathy within the group, leading to us ‘catching yawns’ from each other.
Well that’s my theory at least…
And I can’t believe I managed to write this without yawning once!
Ann 🙏