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mise à jour du
8 juillet 2004
J of Clin Psychopharmacol
1985; 5; 1
lexique
Yawning and anxiety modulation
R Shader, D Greenblatt
Tufts University School of medicine
New england Medical center, Boston

Chat-logomini

At a recent symposium, we watched how frequently speakers began to yawn as they were waiting to get up to speak. In discussing this observation with others and speculating about yawning as a way of regulating situational anxiety, we were encouraged to visit a blood donor center to watch for yawning in those waiting to donate blood. In response to this suggestion, we were able to observe that eight out of 10 individuals in the donor situation were noted to be yawning as they waited for "the needle."
 
Little is known about the physiology of yawning. However, it bas been observed in a variety of earth's creatures (e.g., crocodiles and cats and dogs). In his scholarly review of yawning, Heinz Lehmann mentions that a few early investigators viewed yawning as an acute somatic defense to correct a reduction in cerebral oxidative metabolism. It appears to be a self-adjusting or homeostatic reflex. Lehmann develops well his observations on the role of yawning in boredom ("the individual is struggling to focus his attention on something in the outside world"), in the neurasthenic patient ("at times of anxious expectation such as while waiting for an important appointment"), in hysteria, and in some individuals as a muted expression of aggression (You bore me.).
 
In light of our recent speculations about the role of hypoxia in panic attacks, we began to wonder about the following possibilities. Are persons who yawn in an anxiety-provoking situation self-regulating their oxygen and carbon dioxide needs? If yawning is successfull in this way, does it prevent the further development of an anxiety attack? Does its presence suggest an individual who is more prone to anxiety disorders (e.g., panic attacks)? We invite your observations and comments.
 
References
 
1.Lehmann HE. Yawning: a homeostatic reflex and its psychological significance. Bull Menninger Clin 1984;43:123-36.
2.Shader RI. Some observations on the problem of anxiety. In: Tuma AH, Maser JD, eds. Anxiety and the anxiety disorders. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1985:591-4.
mise à jour du
8 juillet 2004
J of Clin Psychopharmacol
1987; 7; 3
Yawning, a postscript and
preliminary thoughts about sighing
R Shader, D Greenblatt
Tufts University School of medicine
New england Medical center, Boston
Chat-logomini
Since our February 1985 (Vol. 5, No. 1) editorial on yawning, we have received a number of letters supporting our thesis and observation that one of the functions of yawning is to modulate anxiety. We recently received two papers from Robert Provine on the subject of yawning which appeared in journals unlikely to be read by our readership, so we thought we would bring them to your attention. In the first article, in Ethology, Provine studied how the instruction "think about yawning" elicited yawning-as did reading about yawning or observing others yawn? In this article, Provine also reviews a literature on yawning that eluded us when we were searching for it in late 1984.
 
We like his descriptive definition of yawning: "a stereotyped and often repetitive motor act characterized by gaping of the mouth accompanied by a long inspiration followed by a shorter expiration." We yawned just reading it! But it also made us wonder about sighing, which might be defined as a stereotyped and often repetitive motor act characterized by a short inspiration followed by a prolonged expiration. We also sighed. Neither should be confused with hyperventilatory breathing (thoracic breathing punctuated with frequent effortless sighing in the presence of minimal diaphragmatic breathing).
 
We did not hyperventilate. All of this reminds us of a quotation from a book by Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman: "anxiety is the experience of breathing difficulty during any blocked excitement." Should we be evaluating and characterizing our anxious (and perhaps depressed) patients by new indices such as a ratio of yawning to sighing? Provine mentions data or speculation on the role of yawning in fatigue, drowsiness, and boredom. The closest he comes to our interest in anxiety is when he mentions speculations about yawning as a means of increasing cerebral blood flow and oxygen levels to increase arousal. We would agree with Provine that yawning "does not deserve its current status as a minor behavioral euriosity."
 
A second paper, coauthored by Heidi Hamernik, in the Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, confirmed the folk myth that people yawn more during boring than interesting events? A rock video was compared to an uninteresting color-bar pattern test. Unfortunately, subjects were not rated according to their levels of anxiety. R.I.S. and D.J.G. both confess that they would be more stressed having to watch 30 minutes of an unchanging color-bar test pattern than by watching a typical rock video-but it would be close!
 
References
 
1.Provine RR. Yawning as a stereotyped action pattern and releasing stimulus. Ethology 1986;72:109-22.
2.Perls P, Hefferline R, Goodman P. Gestalt therapy. New York: Julian Press, 1951.
3.Provine RR, Hamernik HB. Yawning: effects of stimulus interest.Bull Psychonomie Soc 1986;24:437-8.