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
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.
