Why Do We Yawn?

The dog has long been known as 'man's best friend' and many owners claim that their dog understands their mood and therefore has the ability to demonstrate empathy. As more and more scientific research points toward a direct link between contagious yawning and empathy, it stands to reason that dogs should be able to catch their owner's yawns.

I was driving my car to a job interview the other day and I noticed I was feeling a bit nervous. I had the usual symptoms associated with nerves such as butterflies in my stomach, a bead of sweat on my brow and an anxious/restless state of mind, but what I hadn't expected was the amount of yawns I was notching up. The closer I got to the place where my interview was taking place, the more I seemed to be yawning.

Yes it is almost that time again (or should I say loss of time again), British Summer Time is on it's way and that means that we all have to endure the loss of an hours sleep. Officially the clocks go forward on Sunday 25th March 2012 at 1:00am (which of course jumps to 2:00am).

Have you ever been chatting with a close friend and realised you are both sitting in exactly the same position. It has been known for sometime that people mimic each others body language as a sign of social acceptance and affiliation. In fact many businesses have spent thousands on training sales staff the importance of being congruent with their clients and to watch and copy body movements to help build rapport and trust.

We all know that yawning is contagious. But it has been somewhat of a mystery to why we have the urge to mimic the curious reflex action of opening one's mouth wide and inhaling deeply. Well, it seems we now have an answer thanks to the scientists at the Museum of Natural History and Territory in Italy.

It sounds crazy, but new scientific research suggests that our instinct to yawn may be linked to sexual attraction.

According to Dutch author Wolter Seuntjens, yawning may send out erotic subliminal messages to potential sexual partners. Conventional wisdom would suggest that it would be game over if your attempts at seducing a mate were met with a big yawn. Well this new research seems to imply that the yawn of a potential mate could mean it’s your lucky night.

A group of researchers have won the Ig Nobel Prize in the physiology catergory for their study entitled "No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise".