The reason for humans yawning is something that has continued to be a mystery to all. Thoughts have mostly been because of being tired or low on oxygen, but now researchers are thinking that yawning is actually for the purpose of keeping the brain’s temperature lower. They think that when someone yawns that it causes expansion and contraction of the maxillary sinus walls. This in return causes lower brain temperature. This is said to be very helpful due to the brain being very sensitive to heat. Since this process involves the sinus cavities, doctors are beginning to believe that this could help lead to the discovery of why it is that people have sinuses. The researchers think that the act of the jaw during yawning causes the sinus walls to move and allows the sinuses to be “ventilated.” To try and test this, tests were done with both animals and humans. For the human aspect, the researchers used a woman who could predict when she was close to yawning and had her take her temperature both before and after yawning. They found that the brain temperature got higher before she yawned and got lower after the yawn. The rats that were recorded had the same happen. Scientists and doctors are hopeful in any case that understanding why people yawn and the effects that follow could lead to more medical diagnosing assistance – including insomnia.
I thought this article was fascinating, along with how people come to find such conclusions. I remember always hearing the different reasons that people had assumed that yawning was for. If researchers are correct in their find, I think that their hopes of it helping diagnose and help different head situations could definitely be possible. If something as common as insomnia could be helped by this discovery that is quite a large step. Something that was mentioned in the article is that the researchers were a little weary as to whether this was accurate since it had only been tested on two groups. I think that more testing should be done before people consider it a known fact. Migraines were another head case that was hoped to maybe be able to be helped/fixed. I know my brother had migraines when he was little and medicines such as Advil, etc. were never really strong enough to help. With more time and study, doctors could possibly ensure that this was something that was affected and could eventually come to find ways to medicate such problems to help people!
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