A new study says dogs yawn more in response to yawns from their owners than they do to the yawns of strangers. I just tried to make this happen with my dog by yawning several times right in her face. She wouldn’t look at me, possibly out of embarrassment. Or maybe I need to brush my teeth.
But I did start to feel a little tired, so we took a twenty minute nap.
While sleeping I had a short dream that I was a frightened chipmunk running from a Rottweiler who had cornered me at the back of an open garage. With no easy escape, I cowered in a corner as the animal stood over me, drooling and trembling in the same way a movie villain pauses over a supposedly-vanquished superhero or secret agent to make a speech before delivering the final blow. It was a garage, so I considered grabbing a shovel from a hook on the wall and using it to force the dog to back away, but then I remembered, I’m a chipmunk – no hands. So I yawned. Amazingly, that caused the dog to pause for a moment, so I yawned again. The dog tipped its head to one side the way dogs do when they appear to be confused. I yawned a third time, and incredibly, the Rottweiler also opened its mouth wide.
Then I woke up.
I’m not sure this proves anything other than the potential fact that it is not very satisfying to fall asleep while reading science articles because it leads to complicated dreams about research. Maybe articles about yawning studies are bigger snoozers than comparable research papers. I should get a grant to study the phenomenon!
Contagious yawning has been observed and extensively documented between humans, chimpanzees and baboons, and there is reason to believe we have a stronger response to yawns from those we care about. Although the researchers in that study assumed the relationship between family members is automatically a more caring one than any relationship with others. That may not always be the case, since family members can be quite vicious towards one another (see Rottweiler, above).
There is also a theory out there that spontaneous yawning is a natural physical response intended to cool an overheated brain. I suppose you could observe this in any classroom where SAT tests are administered. Perhaps there is also a connection between test-induced yawning and spitwad formation in 16 year olds.
Back to my dog – she is definitely not responding to all the yawn cues I’m giving her, but she has started to obsessively lick a sore spot on her left rear leg. In this case, the theory of empathetic mimicry is not holding up. Although I am feeling a strong urge right now to bite my own ankles.
What makes you yawn?
Trail Baboon 
saying tick tock slowly and repeatedly was a famous yawn inducer when i was a kid.
yawning at other people wasfun to watch and when it was doen to me i laughed. its such a funny thing to be suggested into. ill bet i yawned 5 times reading the post.
your dreams concern me dale. i think you harbor some deep seated resentment toward you suppressors. lick your wounds and see if yawning gets you anywhere you want to be and report back in next week
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I, too, yawned repeated reading Dale’s blog.
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Dale, if you start licking those ankles repeatedly, you are going to end up with the Cone of Shame around your neck to stop you. You have been warned.
My current highly irregular work schedule makes me yawn. Also makes me fall asleep just about anywhere.
Kittens yawning so big you can see down to their tails make me laugh, wonder if anyone has done that study?
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Good morning. A long completely boring monolog by someone I find very uninteresting would be something that would be mostly likely to cause me to yawn. There are a few people capable of boring me to death with their monologs that hang out in places that serve coffee. They rehash the same old arguments about how programs that they brand as liberal are ruining the country. They are sure they are right and they can go on forever on this topic.
These people that berate anything that they think is liberal are similar to some TV pundits who also blame everything on so called liberals. Actually they aren’t completely wrong regarding some so called liberals who also can sometimes have a lot to say about nothing. I’m afraid I might be an example of someone who can be very boring when I carry on too long about something most people don’t think is very interesting. Have any of you started yawning after reading my comment?
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jim i think you are getting out of dodge just in time. in minneapolis you will find a coffee shop where they celebrate you damn liberals. there will be several to choose from and if you want to tell your boring stories they will not have heard them before. they might even find a guy who does seed saving and travels the world teaching people how to sustain on their own more interesting thang fox news.. tick tock… tick tock
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Actually I think of myself as being a progressive. The liberals tend to look upon people like me as being leftist communists.
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Only in Clark’s grove
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It will be good to live in a place where my congressman is Keith Ellison.
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I yawn a lot after lunch, and it is sort of embarrassing to do so when I am in a therapy session. It negates the message of positive regard and interest that I try to convey. I would like to know how many baboons yawn silently, and how many make noises when they yawn. I am a silent yawner and husband sounds like a horn.
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I yawn silently unless I’m stretching at the same time. You know – the stretch where you clasp your hands behind your shoulders and bend your torso from side to side. It sounds like I’m in ecstasy, and in essence, I am.
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i yawn silently and stretch loudly. on occasion both happen at once but more often my stretch is intentional and my yawn is involuntary
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Just reading that made me want to yawn and stretch…and I did.
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Me too! Maybe you will have a group yawn and stretch at Book Club?
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You want to lead it?
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I’m already chief note taker (notes are now finally posted, btw, from the last gathering)…someone else needs to lead the yawning. Too much responsibility for me.
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i was texting to donna
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Just thinking about yawning does me in. And staff meetings. And my sister-in-law.
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how many more staff meetings before you are done wit them forever? just a guestimate?
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12 – 15
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Woo Hoo
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my mom is a sweet lady and she has no one close to talk to anymore so when we get together she likes to discuss my relatives and what unbelievable me me me stuff they have doen lately, my sister and the reason she is so cancerous and awful to be around , my brother and how he doesnt mean to be a self absorbed ass who only pokes his head in when he needs or wants something and when i ask her to stop it is almost funny how it takes three or four more stories and another 15 minutes of my shoulders in my ears to get away from her and the stuff she carries around inside. maybe i should try yawning and see if i can put her in a sleep mode and get the payton place mode shuffled to the back of the brain
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“Cancerous to be around”? That’s a novel descriptor for sure, Tim. Maybe your mom doesn’t have enough people around her because of how she uses the opportunities she does get? I make it a point when talking with any of my kids to go one way only: into their lives, their struggles, their ups & downs. A few weeks ago, while spending 90% of one conversation focused on my son, it occurred to me to quip, “You never ask about what’s going on in my life, Steve”. He responded, “Oh – I don’t have to because I know you’ll tell me if it’s important!” The last thing I want to be is a curmudgeon or whiner, so I intentionally save unpleasant issues for a couple of close friends rather than the kids. I dread the time when my physical frailty becomes any kind of burden to them. This is a good thing since it keeps me determined to remain a trooper no matter what.
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Husband telling me about some little tidbit he found on the internet when I’m getting ready to go to bed is guaranteed to make me yawn (whether or not his tidbit is interesting). Anyone at work yawning. Waking up and eating breakfast…
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Headed to Bismarck today for a Robert Cray concert. I don’t think that will be a yawn maker at all.
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“YAWN” is the perfect word, is it not?
Danish–Gabe
Czech—zívat
Dutch–geeuwen
Finnish–Haukotus
German–Gähnen
Hungarian–Ásít
Italian–Sbadiglio
Norwegian–gjespe
Polish–Ziewać
Portuguese–bocejar
Spanish–bostezar
Swahili–Miayo
Swedish–Gäspa
Turkish–Esnemek
Without hearing the words pronounced, I still like yawn the best, except maybe the Swahili Miayo, but sounds like a cat yawning. Love the Italian Sbadiglio. A ripe word, but not even close to “yawn.”
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Nice to have a student of language among us
Yawn is perfect
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The Dutch word for yawn looks like a good one. How would that be pronounced? My grandfather would probably know if he was still with us.
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The Swahili sounds like what MiG’s kitties do!
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Yawn definitely seems to be the most onomatopoeic. (I just really felt like using that word.)
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I forgot to respond to today’s question about yawning. I cannot yawn at all since my massive surgery in 2010. Seems that cutting through my diaphragm left my body with no ability to contain enough air power to produce a yawn. I guess that most people don’t value the capacity to yawn, but I truly do miss it. Countless times my system needs a big yawn, gears up to produce one, but simply can’t follow through. Along with this loss of function, my formerly raucous and robust laugh also ceased for the same reason. Now, all I can do is “fake laugh” no matter how funny something strikes me. The only diaphragmatic function which did eventually return was sneezing. It’s strange what we take for granted unless we lose it?
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Hey all. I searched around on the web for that scene in Gone With The Wind — you know, when Bonnie Butler has the nightmare and then falls back to sleep and yawns that huge yawn. I swear everyone in the theatre yawned within a few seconds. Couldn’t find it. Rats.
Not sure what makes me yawn. You’d think it would be my department meetings, which are my least favorite thing at work. But I actually get too riled up to go the yawn route. For several years I have doodled during these meetings… I can usually completely fill an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. My boss doesn’t give me grief about this… one of the reasons I like her!
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Life with the grandkids. They left yesterday (will be back for a couple of more days), and we are still so wiped out we can hardly make dinner. Can see why parenthood is usually visited on people under 60!
Anyone in the room yawning gets me going, ordinarily, whether I’m tired or not.
Is that your real puppy, Dale?
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Just caught up reading again, baboons – lots of chuckles yesterday, and:
a hearty CONGRATULATIONS, Edith, on the birth of your two new grandbabies!
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🙂
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Greetings! Boring jobs and not enough sleep definitely make me yawn. When Jim goes into an unnecessary and long technical explanation of some trivial device — well, I try not to yawn, but my eyes and brain glaze over and I just tune him out. You think he’d get the hint ….
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Or when your spouse starts telling one of those loooonnngg stories from his youth that you’ve heard a hundered times already…
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The Robert Cray Band was definitely not yawn producing. It was a wonderful concert. I have the post-church yawns now, which mean it is time to take a nap before we make dill pickles and harvest, weigh, blanche, and then freeze our chard.
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particularly like the last two estornudo and kushami.
my son was commenting on how my sneezes were going to give him a heart attack. i asked what the heck he was talking about and he said everyone else in the world gives a warning sign with an inhale before the exhale or a ka choo or a small little squeek where as i do a silent inhale and then a full out explosion as the exhale that is one blow horn sylable and the disappears to silence again. from silence to full haaaa then nothing got him a couple times the other day. i love sneezing and have to stay focused on the tickle to get it to go otherwise half fade away before they come about. in meetings i have stoppage methods that are silent and foolproof. my co worker always sneezes an odd number of times. looking into the bright sun does it to him every time or coing into the sun forma a dark building.
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I have always been subject to full-frontal sneezing attacks, that can go on as long as 22 in a row, as once counted by a HS friend. Since hay is one of my triggers, my haying seasons were a trial for me and Boots, our dog. When I got into an attack, Boots would look at me with either fear or sympathy, I’m not sure which. If I got up to about 8 sneezes, then he would sneeze a couple of times. But his sneezes were dainty little things, in extreme contrast to mine, which made everyone laugh. Since he did not like being laughed at, it was his trial, too. However, he did not quit sneezing in sympathy to me.
On the word SNEEZE, English looses out to everybody:
German= Niesen
Czech= kychat
Italian= sternutire
Romanian= stranut
Swedish= nyse
French= éternuer (to sneeze)
Hawaiian= kihe
Swahili= chafya
Hungarian= tüsszénts
Spanish: Estornudo
Japanese: Kushami
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the dang reply sign is so light i thought i was repluying to you up one notch under renee .i had a couple broken ribs a few years back and didnt enjoy sneezing at all. number one pain. lasted almost a year
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The Japanese makes me want to know what they say for Gedzundheit (oh yeah, I know I have to be spelling that wrong)-think of it as the Low German spelling 😉
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My cat Sammy expresses his opinion of the humans he encounters with signals – a purr is like a two-star rating. If he extends one paw way out in front of the other, that’s like three stars. If he yawns at you, that’s four stars.
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