For a good yawn I need to really open my mouth and push/strain my jaw muscles. If that doesnt happen, then the yawn feels incomplete to my body and it happens again and again till it works “right”

What is the reason/body function behind that?

  • aMockTie@piefed.world
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    12 hours ago

    Yawning is so fascinating. It’s often contagious, even between humans and other animals, it’s an involuntarily reaction and can happen repeatedly in quick succession like sneezing, and reading and/or thinking about it can trigger it (as has happened to me multiple times while writing this).

    I can’t directly answer your question, but what I can say is that it must be important as far as evolution is concerned. In addition to all of the above, it negatively impacts multiple important senses simultaneously, and to your point, we can somehow feel whether or not the yawn was sufficiently satisfying.

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Agree -it’s super interesting! I took a med that made me yawn a lot. Was weird, but it also helped reduce murder urges, so that was worth it. Studies show that some people with autism don’t catch yawns.

    • CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      11 hours ago

      Even just reading the word ‘yawn’ makes me feel the need to yawn. I gotta imagine that’s because my brain is visualizing someone yawning when I read the word.

    • myrmidexA
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      11 hours ago

      Yawning is so fascinating

      It really is. Friend of mine had a cat that would meow in a special way every time a human yawned. We tried endlessly to fool it by fake yawning, but it could tell every time and only meowed during real yawns.