Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The Brain Healing Power of Yawning

I just completed a wonderful book How God Changes Your Brain by Dr. Andrew Newberg. In the book, Andrew talks about the therapeutic effects of yawning. Yawning triggers neural circuits in the brain that elicit awareness, attention, and compassion. It is a means to cool the brain when we get involved in persistent mental work and can turn the heat up. Yawning stimulates the Precuneus, a region deep in our parietal lobes that gives us a sense of self distinct from others and from other things.

Yawning can help enhance our focus, our attention, our mental arousal and it can even help to promote memory function. It is a great exercise to bring calm, joy, and compassion to your brain. It will serve to bathe your brain with love and kindness that can be shared with others. Yawning will help you develop more empathy for others. It relaxes you and gives the brain a break, while increasing attention.

So do not be shy to yawn. Work at yawning. Go ahead and practice yawning and by the 5th try you will notice your brain will generate automatic yawns. Yawning is infectious, one yawn will lead you to another yawn and your yawning will elicit yawning from those around you! It is a great technique to relax, to gain focus, and to use when you are confronted with a challenge or in need of reducing stress.

Have a great day filled with yawns and make yawning part of your daily meditative practice.

Dr. Nussbaum



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