Why are you yawning?
Everybody yawns, including cats and dogs. Yawning is catching, although usually humans almost never catch yawning from cats and dogs. It usually happens when a person yawns and others happen to notice. First thing you know everyone in the room has begun to yawn, or to stifle their yawns with hands over their mouths. Yawning is so contagious, a gifted inventor could make millions of dollars for discovering an antidote for the affliction.Yawn counters say the average person yawns a quarter of a billion times in his or her lifetime, give or take a few thousand yawns. About the first thing out of the mouth of a baby is a lusty yawn and often a yawn lingers in the air when someone passes on to his or her reward.Ask why people yawn and expect to hear several explanations, none of which have scientists proven beyond the stages of a logical-sounding theory.A popular theory has it that we yawn as a need to cool down the gray matter between our ears. It's suggested that when the brain becomes overheated, yawning has the effect of cooling it down a bit. Recently, we have observed many occasions when overheated brains seem to have taken over in various national discourses. Perhaps we should encourage our leaders to yawn more and talk less, in hopes that cooler heads will prevail.Contagious yawning has its tricky elements. People in a group can fall into a yawning contest by seeing someone yawn or by one member of the party merely thinking someone is about to yawn. Only one thing can effectively stop a bout of contagious yawning. Sooner or later someone in the crowd begins to laugh at the absurdity of everyone yawning. Pretty soon everyone is laughing instead of yawning.A late arrival to the party might ask, "What is everyone laughing about?" This will set the guests into another round of contagious laughter. If he were to yawn on entering the room, everyone might resume yawning.Bottom line: You can catch the yawning bug by seeing a yawn, hearing a yawn thinking about a yawn and (sorry about that) reading about yawning.
