Truth or Myth: Is Yawning Really Contagious And Why?

Truth or Myth: Is Yawning Really Contagious And Why?

It is 3pm. You’re in the meeting room, trying to listen to the report your colleague is presenting. All of a sudden, you feel an overwhelming urge to yawn. You try your very best to hold it in, but, oops. Unsightly. Then everyone else just started to yawn as well, one after one… We can all relate to this.

It’s a myth that we yawn to compete with others to breathe in more oxygen is a myth.

So you think you know why this happens:

I’m tired and my brain needs oxygen! There are so many people, there must not be enough oxygen for everyone in the room. And when someone yawn, they breathe in the limited oxygen in the room, so it’s my reflex to take more oxygen back by yawning…


But no, we don’t yawn because we are oxygen-starved.

In fact, scientists have found that breathing in more oxygen doesn’t actually reduce yawning.[1] This shows that something else is making you yawn.

Something in our brain actually gets triggered when we see others yawn.

While the answer to why we yawn is yet to be found, scientists and psychologists have come up with various theories to explain contagious yawning among human beings. Here are a few possibilities:


It’s like a reflex action when we yawn after seeing others do so.

Neuroscience suggests that the contagion may be a kind of fixed action pattern.[2]

When we see the first person yawn, our body automatically behaves in the same way. It’s like a reflex, which is why we can’t help but open our mouth wide. It is caused by an unconscious activity of our brain cells called the chameleon effect. What happens is that our brain makes us do what we see others doing.

This explains why we just can’t control it. If someone yawns, even when we’re not tired, we suddenly feel like we need to yawn. It’s our brain telling us that we’ve just seen someone yawn. Weird.


It can be a subconscious way to communicate with each other.

Psychologists think that contagious yawning may be due to an effect called emotional contagion.[3] This suggests that yawning is a “primal instinct” that helps us bond as a community.

An experiment has found evidence to support that contagious yawning can be a sign of empathy too.[4]

Autistic children and very young children do not respond to contagious yawning, probably because they don’t have the ability to feel emotional empathy. On the other hand, 40%-60% of healthy grown-ups will yawn after seeing others do it.

It is also possible that contagious yawning is a kind of herding behavior.[5] When we yawn, we are communicating to a group that we’re sleepy, and others just can’t help doing so to say that they agree.

Despite all the possibilities, there’s no conclusion about contagious yawning yet.

All of the above theories are only suggestions. Scientists still haven’t reached a conclusion about contagious yawning yet. For example, we still can’t explain why it doesn’t happen every time someone yawns, or why some of us yawn but don’t respond to the contagion.[6] More research on these questions is needed.

Meanwhile, you can stop feeling guilty about that time you started a yawning contagion. It’s probably happened to all of us!



More by this author

Wen Shan

Proud Philosophy grad. Based in HK.

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Last Updated on October 16, 2019

5 Proven Memorization Techniques to Make the Most of Your Memory

5 Proven Memorization Techniques to Make the Most of Your Memory

Do you forget stuff every now and then? Are you trying to enhance your memory but not sure how?

All you need is the right memorization techniques to make the most of your memory.

The human brain is fascinating. More specifically, the vast interconnections within our mind. Mendel Kaelen compares the human brain to a hill covered in snow,

“Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, and thoughts as sleds gliding down that hill. As one sled after another goes down the hill a small number of main trails will appear in the snow. And every time a new sled goes down, it will be drawn into preexisting trails, almost like a magnet. In time it becomes more and more difficulty to glide down the hill on any other path or in a different direction.”

The intent of Kaelen’s discussion is to think of new ways to temporarily flatten the snow. Kaelen remarked,

“The deeply worn trails disappear, and suddenly the sled can go in other directions, exploring new landscapes and, literally, creating new pathways.”

The idea here is to temporarily rewire your brain, or as Michael Pollan remarked in How to Change Your Mind,

“The power to shake the snow globe, disrupting unhealthy patterns of thought and creating a space of flexibility-entropy-in which more salubrious patterns and narratives have an opportunity to coalesce as the snow slowly settles.”

So, how can we rewire our brain allowing deeply worn connections to disappear and new connections to form? The answer is quite simple. We must change the way we store information in our mind.

    Let’s examine 5 specific memorization techniques that will change the way you think and remember information.

    1. Build a Memory Palace

      What is it?

      The method of loci[1] (aka memory palace) is a method of memory enhancement using visualizations with the use of spatial memory. It uses familiar information about your environment to quickly recall information. It is a method that was discussed by Cicero in an ancient dialogue called De Oratore.

      How to use it?

      Ron White discusses in How to Memorize Fast and Easily: Build a Memory Palace, that it’s essentially a room or building that you have memorized and you use locations in the room to store data. Ron informs us,

      “You memorize locations in a room and then you later go back to those locations to retrieve the data that you want to remember.”


      An easy 5-step example, in the form of a Wiki, can be found at Let’s examine the the steps:

      • Step 1. Choose a place that you know well. For example, your house or office.
      • Step 2. Plan the route and pick specific locations in your route. For example, your front door, bathroom kitchen, etc.
      • Step 3. Decide what you want to memorize. For example, geography, list of items, answers for a test, etc.
      • Step 4. Place one or two items, with a mental image, and place them in your memory palace. Exaggerate your images. For example, use nudity or crazy images forcing it to stick in your mind.
      • Step 5. Make the image into a mnemonic.

      You can learn more about this technique here: How to Build a Memory Palace to Remember More of Everything

      2. Mnemonic

        What is it?

        A mnemonic is a memory device that aids in retention and/or retrieval of information. Mnemonic systems are techniques consciously used to improve memory by helping us use information already stored in long-term memory to make memorization easier.[2]

        How to use it?

        Mnemonics make use of retrieval cues to encode information in our brain allowing for efficient storage and retrieval of the information. The trick is to learn how to easily create mnemonics. If you find that you struggle with creating your own, try the following website: Mnemonic Generator.


        I recently came across a video using mnemonics to memorize countries. Memorizing Countries using Mnemonics is a video created as an introduction to a class for using memory techniques to learn the names of countries on maps.

        I actively search for videos that provide enormous educational value, yet receive very little exposure. At the time of this writing, this video has received less than 4k views. Let’s examine the video.

        Goal: Create a mnemonic to memorize the countries in the Caribbean (just the countries you need to learn).

        Step 1. Looking at a map – write out each country (for which five were chosen).

        Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.

        Step 2. Write the first letter of each country vertically.







        Step 3. Create a sentence or phrase.






        Cubs just hate doing push-ups. (Cuba Jamaica Haiti Dominican Republic Puerto Rico)

        3. Mnemonic Peg System

          What is it?

          According to, a mnemonic peg system is a technique for memorizing lists and it works by memorizing a list of words that are easy to associate with the numbers they represent.[3] These objects are the pegs of the system.

          How to use it?

          The trick is to create a Number Rhyme System with each number having a rhyming mnemonic keyword.


          Let’s look at an example of a Number Rhyme System:[4]

          0 = hero

          1 = gun

          2 = shoe


          3 = tree

          4 = door

          5 = hive

          6 = sticks

          7 = heaven

          8 = gate

          9 = line

          Another technique like the Peg system is the Number Shape System.[5] Here you are assigning mnemonic images based on the shape of the number. Watch the following video for an example of this system: Number Shape System for Memorizing Numbers.

          4. Chunking

            What is it?

            Chunking is a way to remember large bits of information by chunking them into smaller pieces of information. We are more likely to then remember the information when we put the small pieces back together to see the entire picture.

            How to use it?

            In the video Chunking – A Learning Technique, we can see that there are several ways to chunk information.


            Let’s examine a simple example using a nine-digit number.

            Step 1. What is the number you are trying to remember?


            Step 2. Cut the number into smaller pieces through chunking.


            081 – 127 – 882

            Let’s look at one more example from the same video.

            “Piano teachers will first demonstrate an entire song to students. They will then ask their students to practice one measure at a time. Once the part has been learned and the neural connections in the brain have been built, then students go on to the next measure. After all chunks have been played separately, they are combined until the entire piece is connected.”

            5. Transfer of Learning

              What is it?

              Transfer of learning is a way to learn something in one area and apply it in another. Authors of Thinking at Every Desk, Derek and Laura Cabrera inform us about the transfer of learning,

              “If a student has a high transfer skills, she can learn one thing and then teach herself 10, 50, or 100 additional things.”

              How to use it?

              There are two specific ways to use it:

              1. Vertical Transfer (aka Far Transfer). Think of learning something in grade school and applying it another grade or later in life.
              2. Horizontal Transfer (aka Near Transfer). Think of learning a concept in history and applying it in math.


              I provide a detailed step-by-step example for this technique in this article:

              Learn How to Learn: How to Understand and Connect Difficult Ideas Easily

              The Bottom Line

              The key to using the techniques discussed here is to remember that we must actively think about information.

              We cannot simply drill information into our brain through rote memorization. We must change the way we think about memorization. We must find a way to “shake the snow-globe” in our mind or flatten the snow so that we can create new learning paths.

              Or as Derek and Laura Cabrera point out, we must insert “Thinking” into the equation,

              “Information X Thinking = Knowledge”

              More About Enhancing Memories

              Featured photo credit: Nong Vang via


              [1] Remember Everything: Memory Palaces and the Method of Loci
              [2] The Learning Center Exchange: 9 Types of Mnemonics for Better Memory
              [3] Art of Memory: Mnemonic Peg System
              [4] Art of Memory: Number Rhyme System
              [5] Art of Memory: Number Shape System

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