As someone with asthma and lowered ability to cycle out CO2, yawning has always helped me restore the “full” feeling and your comment just made everything snap into place.
The primary driver of suffocation panic, pain, and feeling of air starvation isn’t the lack of oxygen but CO2 buildup. It makes sense that yawning on command could then help alleviate the symptoms of CO2 buildup in asthma sufferers.
Might be a group protection mechanism to indicate low oxigen in crammed spaces qith many individuals. In addition to that could be a geoup trigger for rest.
I always thought it was due to clearing the lungs out or to regulate them but then I saw a turtle yawn under water. I then thought it’s ancestors wouldn’t have been swimmers so maybe it’s instinctive still, but then it would need a mechanism to prevent water inhalation. So why retain the yawn.
Perhaps as you say it’s more about visual communication to others around you.
It seems most sensible to me that it serves a bunch of uses: clearing the lungs, alerting yourself and others that you’re tired and probably need someone else to take over, social bonding, spooking predators…
i thought it was to clear out carbon dioxide build up deep in your lungs, and instinctually its an indicator of rest?
As someone with asthma and lowered ability to cycle out CO2, yawning has always helped me restore the “full” feeling and your comment just made everything snap into place.
The primary driver of suffocation panic, pain, and feeling of air starvation isn’t the lack of oxygen but CO2 buildup. It makes sense that yawning on command could then help alleviate the symptoms of CO2 buildup in asthma sufferers.
Might be a group protection mechanism to indicate low oxigen in crammed spaces qith many individuals. In addition to that could be a geoup trigger for rest.
I always thought it was due to clearing the lungs out or to regulate them but then I saw a turtle yawn under water. I then thought it’s ancestors wouldn’t have been swimmers so maybe it’s instinctive still, but then it would need a mechanism to prevent water inhalation. So why retain the yawn.
Perhaps as you say it’s more about visual communication to others around you.
It seems most sensible to me that it serves a bunch of uses: clearing the lungs, alerting yourself and others that you’re tired and probably need someone else to take over, social bonding, spooking predators…