Medical Mysteries DON’T YOU WANT TO YAAAWWWNNN?

WRITER: FRED HILTON

Yawns are contagious. Everybody knows that. We remember that Thanksgiving dinner when creepy Uncle Elmo began yawning between bites of mashed potatoes. Pretty soon, everyone at the table was yawning and Grandma threatened to remove the turkey until we all woke up.

You don’t even have to see someone yawn to get the urge to yawn yourself. Just hearing the word “yawn” or reading about it can make you want to yawn. (If you haven’t already yawned, you’ve thought about it, right?)

In addition to contagiousness, there are lots of fun trivia facts about yawns.

FOR EXAMPLE:

• Fetuses begin yawning in the womb as early as 11 weeks after conception.

• “The closer you are to someone generally or emotionally, the more likely it is that you will ‘catch’ their yawn,” according to HuffPost Science.

• Yawns become contagious about age 4, but kids with autism are less likely to catch yawns than other kids.

• Contagious yawning decreases as we get older.

• The average yawn lasts about six seconds.

• Chimpanzees and baboons also are susceptible to contagious yawning.

Much of the earlier thinking about yawning has been challenged. For example, “studies have shot down theories about yawning to bring in more oxygen,” according to Discovery.com.

Some studies have linked contagious yawning with empathy. “There is a correlation between the susceptibility for contagious yawning and self-reported empathy,” Scientific American said.

HowStuffWorks.com agreed: “Contagious yawning goes beyond mere suggestibility. Recent studies show the phenomenon is also related to our predisposition toward empathy — the ability to understand and connect with others’ emotional states. It sounds strange, but whether you’re susceptible to contagious yawning may actually be related to how much empathy you feel for others.”

However, a study released earlier this year rejects the theory about contagious yawning being linked with empathy. Researchers at Duke University found contagious yawning is not associated with empathy. “The lack of association in our study between contagious yawning and empathy suggests contagious yawning is not simply a product of one’s capacity for empathy,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cirulli, assistant professor of medicine at the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University School of Medicine.

The Duke researchers said more study is needed on contagious yawning.

“Ultimately,” Psychology Today said, “contagious yawning remains an unexplained mystery to scientists.”

It is, in other words, a Medical Mystery.