Photo/Illutration A student yawns at a cram school for junior high school entrance exams in Tokyo in 1973. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

At dawn on a recent spring day, I was awake but still felt very sleepy. It was a really drowsy morning for me. As I slightly opened my eyes while lying on my futon, I saw the blue sky through a window. Fleecy clouds drifted by. I gave a big, loud yawn.

Then I wondered about what yawning really is. I opened a volume of the complete works of Aristotle with suitable dignity and found this sentence: “Why, in response to others yawning, do people usually yawn in return?”

This is apparently a question that has been puzzling mankind since the times of ancient Greece.

It was once believed that yawning was a response to a shortage of oxygen in the blood. But that is an outdated theory, according to Takahiro Ohara, a professor of cognitive psychology at Iryo Sosei University.

Research on the subject in recent years has found that yawning lowers the temperature of the brain and helps people wake up.

Scientific experiments have proven that yawning is indeed contagious. The well-known phenomenon seems to have something to do with our ability to socialize and sympathize with others.

People do not only tend to yawn when they see someone else yawn.

Contagious yawning also happens when people just imagine or read about a yawn.

I asked Ohara whether students taking his classes struggle hard not to yawn.

“I often get miffed when I see students yawning during my classes, but they are actually trying to remain awake,” he says.

When you are bored you are more likely to yawn, but yawning is not necessarily a sign of boredom.

I thought about my father, who is over 80 and now lives in a facility for elderly people. These days, every time I visit him, he yawns repeatedly. I thought he was sleepy or bored, but he may have unconsciously tried to brace himself up in front of his son.

When I visit my father the next time, I will allow myself to catch a yawn from him. We will yawn together to share with the world a huge exhalation of breath.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 28

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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