Why does singing make me yawn

When you yawn, it stretches the jaws, boosting the flow of blood to the neck, face, and head. As you sing, the back of the throat expands a bit. Your soft palate raises, contracting the muscles of your pharynx and pushing your larynx down. Now, although theres nothing wrong with yawning while singing, it can still be uncomfortable and embarrassing at times. So, instead of compromising your performance, its best if you can learn the best techniques on how to control yawning.

The first thing you need to do is to breathe deeply before you sing. Try to do this for 5 to 10 minutes. But it is a very common reason. Get some sleep! Being a singer can mean a lot of vocalizations, practicing, late-night performances, and even early morning rehearsals. If you lack sleep and are not getting enough rest, your vocal cords, lungs, and other singing-related anatomical parts could be susceptible to injury.

Not only does it allow muscle cells and various other bodily systems to recuperate from exhaustion, but it also helps in recovery from vocal fatigue.

The vocal cords are a muscle, after all. A voice and swallowing expert named Lori Ellen Sutton, even said in an article that a lack of adequate sleep could affect the voice in a lot of ways. If you are tired, you will not have the energy to inhale and exhale air properly while singing.

Also, exhausted singers tend to increase caffeine intake, consequently resulting in mucus buildup on the vocal folds and dehydration. Yawning is typically triggered by fatigue, sleepiness, or exhaustion. Some yawns are quick, lasting only a few seconds.

Excessive yawning is when you yawn more than once per minute. While excessive yawning can be normal for some people, usually as a result of fatigue or lack of sleep, it may also be a manifestation of an underlying medical condition.

Health professionals call it vasovagal reaction or increased activity in the vagus nerve. This nerve is located in the chest area, running from the brain down through the throat to the abdominal cavity. When this nerve becomes more active or stimulated, various bodily organs are affected, including the heart, blood vessels, intestines, and more.

Furthermore, it may cause excessive yawning, not only when you are singing but also when you are doing other activities. You may also feel lightheadedness, cold sweats, and nausea, in addition to excessive yawning.

You may be at risk for low blood pressure and fainting episodes because the heartbeat slows down, and the blood vessels widen. Other conditions that may result in excessive yawning are hypersomnia and narcolepsy. These are two disorders that involve a constant feeling of sleepiness. Narcolepsy causes sudden, brief sleep attacks. Rather, it could be a sign of good throat position.

Proper vocal technique across a wide variety of styles including classical, folk, and pop, all of which I'm trained in has a singer open their throat and raise their palate in the rear, similar to the motion you make while yawning. This helps keep the sound from being overly nasal. Of course, yawning while singing is not really a great thing if it affects your singing.

There are several things you can do to help. Firstly, learn to sing through a yawn. You'd be surprised how, with a little training, you can sing straight through without losing tone while you're yawning.

Another thing you can do is learn what exactly triggers you to yawn while you sing and modify your tongue and throat position slightly -- you want your mouth and throat to be shaped similarly to a yawn, but it's possible you're going a bit too far and actually triggering a yawn unintentionally. Proper breath support can also help decrease our propensity to yawn while singing, though, as I mentioned, I'm very reluctant to say that yawning is caused by poor breathing.

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