Welcome to the anxiety attic where I make self-help videos for people with anxiety
disorders. I've received a number of requests to make a video about why anxiety causes yawning.
To be honest this is not something that I knew much about but as a number of people have asked
including a therapist who had several clients who were worried about yawning,
I thought I should do some research. Even the pioneer of yawning research Robert Provine
acknowledged that yawning is a little understood human behaviour. However after many hours of
researching I have managed to find a few theories about what causes anxiety yawning. First let's
take one of the most common theories. This theory says that yawning is caused by not getting
enough oxygen and people with anxiety may not breathe properly. It could be hyperventilation,
it could be tightness in the chest muscles or it could be just trying to over breathe.
Now this theory does seem to make sense to me but apparently the science doesn't back it up.
Robert Provine conducted some experiments where he subjected different subjects to different
mixtures of air. Sometimes there was extra carbon dioxide and sometimes it was just pure oxygen
but the frequency of yawning didn't change at all, suggesting that there is no link between yawning
and not getting enough oxygen. Another theory is that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can
cause anxiety yawning. These are the medications commonly prescribed for anxiety disorders
and include things like citalopram paroxetine fluoxetine and sertraline
and if you google these drugs you will find that yawning can be a side effect.
Another theory is that anxiety increases the temperature of the body and the brain and yawning
produces a cooling effect and we know that people who suffer from anxiety often have hot flushes and
I cover that in this video here. But this cooling effect theory is backed up by some science.
Experiments on rats did show that an increase in yawning decreased the temperature of their brains
but the most interesting and convincing theory that I found was that excessive yawning is
caused by our old friend cortisol. This is known as the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis
and it says that when our body responds to stress cortisol causes electrical activity
in the nerves in the muscles around the jaw causing yawning. The reason it does this
is for temperature regulation which is what I mentioned earlier. Before I get into how
to stop excessive yawning why would anybody be worried about yawning in the first place.
Well there could be several reasons. Some people might just be worried that it appears rude, others
I know can worry that if they yawn when they're eating they might choke and I'm sure there's
plenty of people who worry that excessive yawning is a sign of some terrible illness and I'm sure
if you google for long enough you'll be able to associate excessive urine with something horrible.
So how do you stop excessive yawning. Well I guess it depends on what's causing it.
If your excessive yawning is being caused by your medication then you need to speak
to your doctor but he might just change you to another SSRI that also causes excessive yawning
and coming off SSRIs or changing them
can actually create some unpleasant side effects so this probably shouldn't be your first choice.
So I believe the best way to treat excessive yawning from anxiety is the
same way you treat any other anxiety symptom whether that's a racing heart or a hot flush.
The secret is, don't treat the symptom treat the anxiety. If your excessive yawning is being caused
by a release of cortisol it's because your brain believes that your body is in danger
and you need to teach your brain that the body is not in danger. Now I've made many
videos showing you how to do that using the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy.
But I will give you this one tip. If you're anxious about yawning I bet you have some safety
behaviours related to it. For example if you're worried you're going to choke because you're
yawning when you're eating maybe you cut up your food into tiny pieces or do something
to try and stop yawning or maybe you are constantly googling what causes yawning
to try and reassure yourself that it's not something sinister.
All these safety behaviours will convince your brain that it's in danger so your body
will release more cortisol which will cause more yawning. It's the classic anxiety cycle.
I hope you found this video useful and if you have please give me a like. If you're worried
about any other anxiety symptoms you may want to watch this video here. If you suffer from panic
attacks then you may want to take a look at my panic disorder playlist which you'll find here.