I usually begin my mornings with a few minutes of conscious breathing and meditation. On  this beautiful morning I tried something a little different, I replaced my usual conscious breathing routine with a series of 20 conscious YAWNS. That’s right, I intentionally generated 20 big,  wide mouthed, close eyed, deeply relaxing and cellular renewing yawns over about a six minute period. The procedure went  like this: I sit quietly while waiting for my body to signal that it wants to take breath, then the biggest yawn that I can muster, sitting quietly again waiting for the next felt sense from my body and repeat. Yes I know, sounds a bit weird. So go ahead and  laugh if you want (laughter is great for the mind -body connection as well, yet according to the latest  neuroscience research, not as beneficial a good yawn).

As many of you know, one of my core passions is studying and researching transformation as well as ways of utilizing our inner resources to influence our moods or most desired  of states of being.  I often use myself as a laboratory. This was the case this morning, the yawning lab.  During those six minutes I easily slipped in to my own  favorite state of being of what I call “peaceful-aliveness”.

Several recent brain scan studies have shown that yawning evokes a unique neural activity in the areas of the brain that are directly involved in generating deep relaxation, introspection, alertness, social awareness and creating feelings of empathy. One of those areas is the precuneus, a tiny structure hidden within the parietal lobe. This area of the brain appears to play a central role in consciousness, self reflection and memory retrieval. The precuneus  is also stimulated by deep conscious and yogic breathing.

As a practitioner and teacher of conscious breath work of many years, I can say that nothing simulates a more beneficial breath than a nice big yawn.

“Yawning will relax you and bring you into a state of alertness faster than any other meditation technique.” Neuroscientist author or of five books including his newest, How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg.

Stay tuned for more research and tips on the power of….you guest it, yawning.

Hope this made you yawn!

In Wholeness,

Michael