Table of contents:
- What causes us to yawn?
- Diseases that cause you to yawn excessively
- 1. Central Sleep Apnea
- 2. Heart attack
- 3. Multiple sclerosis
- 4. Stroke
- 5. Epilepsy
Do you yawn a lot lately? Are you getting enough sleep? If you feel you have had enough sleep, then why do you yawn frequently? What actually causes you to yawn?
What causes us to yawn?
Yawning is an activity that you are not aware of, because it just happens or is also called movement involuntary. Have you ever yawned because you intended to yawn? This activity is directly regulated and controlled by the brain without us knowing it. According to research, yawning is an activity to "cool" the brain. The brain is like machines that operate all the time and there are times when our brains feel hot because they are used continuously. When this condition occurs, the brain will automatically cool itself by stimulating you to yawn.
In fact, when you yawn, you naturally stretch your jaw and increase blood flow to your neck, face and head. Then, while yawning you also unconsciously you will take a deep breath and make spinal fluid and blood flow from the brain to the lower body. This makes the mouth wide open and a wind from outside comes in to cool the brain. Therefore, according to a study when in cold air the body will evaporate more often than when it is in a hot temperature.
Diseases that cause you to yawn excessively
Excessive yawning is when you yawn more than once a minute and is usually caused by extreme fatigue and drowsiness. Even so, it turns out that frequent yawning also indicates a problem with your health. What are the distractions?
1. Central Sleep Apnea
This condition is a problem that occurs when you sleep and usually the symptoms that appear are difficulty breathing or even stop breathing when you fall asleep at night. These breathing problems are related to problems with the brain "forgetting" to give your muscles to breathe while you are asleep.
Central sleep apnea different from obstructive sleep apnea which is a respiratory disorder caused by closed airways. People with central sleep apnea don't experience blockage of the respiratory tract, but the problem is with the connection between the brain and the muscles that play a role in breathing. If you have this disorder, you will often yawn because your sleep is disturbed, causing fatigue and excessive drowsiness.
2. Heart attack
Heart attack or also referred to as myocardial infarction in medical language is a condition in which heart function is impaired due to the heart not getting blood flow that contains oxygen and food substances used to pump blood. Atherosclerosis is the main cause of heart attacks, where blood vessels become clogged due to plaques that are formed from fat which then prevents blood flow to the heart.
Symptoms that arise if you have a heart attack are chest pain, sweating, nausea, breathing problems, and fatigue. Therefore, yawning will also occur frequently because you will feel very tired.
3. Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic problem of the central nervous system, in which the immune system attacks the nerve tissue sheaths and causes inflammation and injury to the tissue. Multiple sclerosis causes various symptoms, but about 80% of multiple sclerosis sufferers experience severe fatigue and fatigue and will also cause you to yawn more frequently. In addition, people who suffer from multiple sclerosis also experience disorders in regulating body temperature and often yawn to make it easier to regulate the temperature back to normal.
4. Stroke
Stroke is a disease caused by damage to brain tissue due to plaque clogged blood vessels in the brain, which then causes the blood flow that carries oxygen and food to not reach the brain. Cells and brain tissue are damaged and cause stroke. A journal, namely the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry states that stroke sufferers will also yawn frequently. This is because the injury to the brain causes irritation of the nervous system which then increases the temperature in the brain. Then a yawning movement will appear as a response to cool the brain.
A study in stroke patients found that stroke patients yawned at least more than 3 times in 15 minutes.
5. Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a problem in the brain that causes seizure symptoms that are unexpected when they occur and often recur. These seizures are caused by changes in the electrical activity of the brain caused by various things such as the consumption of illegal drugs, brain disorders and problems since childhood, meningitis, strokes, and trauma that cause brain damage. Several studies have found that people who frequently yawn excessively may have brain problems, one of which is epilepsy.
