Why we yawn? How yawning works at different levels - blood flows, muscular and skeletal aspects, neurological pathways, social (being rather contagious), etc. - and how those mechanisms help achieve the goal of yawning. It looks like there are no single definitive answer to "why" question and myths about regulating the CO2-vs-O2 balance have been dispelled several years ago, so very interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Also, interested to know why we DON'T yawn when we sleep.
Hy, after 7 year of working I have just returned to university full time to pursue a challenging degree in computational science. Being away so long I have to process quite a lot of new concepts and fill some gaps very fast and therefore I really prioritize good sleep and eating habits (getting up with the sun, spread out learning sessions, post meal walks, fasting, no blue screens after 8pm, meditation). For medical reasons I could not exercise the last year, I can do so now. However, every time when I start to exercise again It has an strong effect on my sleep demand (+2hrs a night for the first couple weeks) and so I really wonder if starting to intensively exercise again in parallel to this intensive learning time would be counterproductive. To put in in a simple question: does the rest & sleep I need from exercise even favor my learning since it aids me sleeping long and deep or is this in competition to me learning and processing a lot of new concepts. Being able to keep up and have a good start at Uni is important to me, so I could postpone the exercise until this is more settled. Many thanks for taking the time to read this and maybe share some insight. Footnote: I am very average in my fitness and asthmatic, so intensive exercise to me is a daily run for 5-10km or joining the gym again.