Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Yawning Helps Keep Your Brain Cool


  • Yawning is an involuntary behavior that may perform the important function of cooling your brain
  • When you yawn, the influx of cool air may ventilate your sinuses and facilitate brain cooling
  • Brain temperatures increase when you’re sleep deprived, which may be one reason why exhaustion triggers excessive yawning
  • Yawning may also indicate a capacity for empathy, and may be an evolutionarily old process of great social significance

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/19/yawning-triggers-and-functions.aspx?e_cid=20120419_DNL_art_1

This is a fascinating thesis and it will be interesting to see how it develops in coming years.  I thought it was particularly interesting that there's no other compelling explanation for why we have sinuses.

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