Yawn and Wake Up

Apr 19, 2016

Yawn and Wake Up

We had another dump of snow this morning, so I’m stoked for spring to come.  I cheated and had an early taste of it in California in February.  Returning home into the dark and cold was hard.  I felt tired, a bit burnt out and unenthused.  Then I got sick, which forced my attention to self-care. And it was at that point that I discovered a great resource to share with you – yawning! 

In Unlock Pleasure, a lot of the focus is on learning to relax and take it in the moment-to-moment lived experience of pleasure and its benefits.  But in our over busy, over intellectually focused lives, how do we get to come back to our bodies and relax?  It turns out yawning is one of the ways the body triggers relaxation and letting go – yawning both wakes us up and winds us down.

When I’m tired and feeling stretched, I’m less aware of my body and become disconnected.  This is an uncomfortable place to be. One night I went to bed early, determined to get 8 hours as the cure, but I wasn’t sleepy.  One of the symptoms of being over stretched is to feel bone tired, but also kind of wired, so that falling sleep is hard. 

So I laid there, pondering my dilemma and wondered what yawning would do – kind of counting sheep idea.  I visualized yawning, the sensation and even faked a few yawns to get going. That worked and real yawns began to happen. Each one was fuller and deeper than the last, until I was yawning with wild abandon and felt the relief and positive effects.  This went on for about 15 minutes and the next thing I knew it was morning, and I had had one of the deepest, most restful sleeps ever. 

As I drifted off, I felt myself relaxing and the effects of hormones that come with yawning kicking in.  Yawn by yawn I opened to awareness of my body and sensations – what’s called embodied self-awareness.

Alan Fogel in Body Sense – The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness says yawning is an instinctive impulse and behaviour that kick starts the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, which fosters rest and repair in the body.  When we’re relaxed, we are more attuned to self-awareness, especially embodied self-awareness.  Fogel makes the case for balance between conceptual self-awareness (what the head knows) and embodied self-awareness (what the body feels). 

“Yawning helps us to wake up from drowsy or sleepy states. Yawning it turns out has all the right physiology for starting the process of waking us up to ourselves.  Yawning is a powerful and pleasurable action.  Yawning activates many muscles, stimulates breathing, and enhances the flow of hormones such as oxytocin and neurotransmitters such as serotonin that increase feelings of wellbeing and pleasure.  Because of this flood of physiological activity, it is hard not to become aware of how good it feels to yawn.”  - A. Fogel. 2009.

But don’t take my word for it watch this video at:   It’s a yawn–o-meter guaranteed to get you yawning. Notice what happens.  It’s important to stay with it for at least a dozen yawns or more to get the full effect. 

Let me know what you discover.

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