As the old adage goes, "Yawning is contagious." And it's not just a saying. Think about the number of times you've seen someone yawn and caught yourself doing the same thing only a few seconds later. According to Discovery Health, 55 percent of people will yawn within five minutes of seeing someone else yawn. But why do we yawn?
Oxygen
One theory is that yawning is your body's way of giving itself more oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Yawning helps rid the blood of carbon dioxide while putting more oxygen into the blood.
Stretching
Yawning helps stretch your muscles, especially the lungs and lung tissue. When your stretch your muscles your body gets ready to spring into action. Yawning helps get you ready by increasing your heart rate and helping you feel more awake.
Brain Temperature
Another theory about why we yawn is that it helps to cool your brain. It's thought that our brains work best at a certain temperature. Yawning helps get our brains to that temperature for maximum performance.
Tags: Yawning helps, carbon dioxide, feel more, more oxygen, stretch your