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Yawning Keeps Your Brain Cool: Study

Yawning can Help Cool Your Brain
(Photo : Flickr) Yawning can Help Cool Your Brain

Yawning cools the brain and increases mental skills and alertness, according to a study.

It is known that yawning induces a sense of relaxation to the brain by oxygenation and stretching of ear drums. Researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria, the Nova Southeaster University and SUNY College in Oneonta found yawning helps reduce brain temperature or thermoregulation and improves internal stability.

Changes in sleep cycle, cortical arousal and increase in stress as a result of variations in brain temperature. Yawning is largely dependent on environmental temperature and climatic conditions and can reduce brain temperature by forcing in the cool ambient air. For the study, experts recorded the number of times people reacted to contagious yawning of people walking in the streets of Vienna in both summer and winter. The similar method was used to note yawning behavior in participants living dry regions like Arizona in U.S.

The findings revealed people in Vienna yawned more in summer than in winter while the people from Arizona did the opposite. It was observed that factors like seasonal variations or the amount of exposure to the day light was not related to contagious yawning in all participants. But, it occurred when the ambient temperature was about 20 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the study noted contagious yawning was less prominent in locations having high temperatures of 37 degrees Celsius or above in Arizona or even during extremely cold weather seasons in Vienna.

"Yawning is not functional when ambient temperatures are as hot as the body, and may not be necessary or may even have harmful consequences when it is freezing outside," Jorg Massen, the study author explained in the press release.

While many scientists assert yawning is determined by certain emotional and intellectual factors, the authors of the current study believe both yawning and contagious yawning are influenced by temperature.

More information is available online in the journal Physiology and Behavior.

May 07, 2014 09:14 AM EDT

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