Early this morning I listened to Chapter One of Breath while walking through downtown Toronto. As the heat tumbled in around me author James Nestor explained that aeons ago human mouths, throats and noses became less robust through the eating of softer, cooked foods and although this proved to be a better adaptation for speech it has affected our prowess as breathers.
The yawning practice core to my work could be an antidote to the day’s high temperatures through cooling our overheated frontal lobes (so much to process, always!) but for sure it releases the limitations we’ve placed on our upper airways and pharyngeal space, and renders throat, mouth and nasal passageways more open and flexible.
Here are teasers from Reclaiming Calliope’s two chapters on yawning.
IF A STUDENT asks for homework, I suggest that they investigate yawning, sighing, belly laughing, sobbing, and orgasm. I remember blurting this list for the first time in the late 1990s as an off-the-top-of-my-head answer to a student’s query. Over time, it has become increasingly clear that each of these ecstatic diaphragm-, sinus-, and voice box–releasing activities is not only good for the body, but food for the soul. These five intrinsic human activities have so much to reveal about breath, emotion, vocalization, and the body’s ability to restore itself.
When I first became obsessed with yawns there was very little research available to the general public. Most online articles—written by doctors or medical researchers—ended with some version of “and we don’t really know what they are for.” I would often rail aloud: “Isn’t the fact that they make you feel better information enough?” To encourage my students to take the yawning plunge, I had to rely on what I witnessed in my studio or gleaned from alternative health practitioners as well as the occasional scientific tidbit.
1. Tight jaw hinges and gripped voice boxes find relief through regular yawning.
2. Once a yawn has completed, increased mouth space encourages greater vocal resonance.
3. Our eyes, nose, and mouth moisten, which is good for a singer’s mucous membranes.
4. Yawns bathe the cells of the body in chemicals that are deeply relaxing.
5. Most yawns occur as we transition from one activity to another.
6. In primate studies, when the big baboon yawns all the other baboons get to yawn as well.
Now there are countless articles about the virtue and science of yawning – even Gwyneth Paltrow has jumped on the band wagon.
I have observed decades of yawning through encouraging 10 minutes of “group-gob-gaping” as part of my “Slipper Camp” practice. (Think of rest and digest rather than a boot’s fight or flight.)
Here is a bit from the end of my Mouth Orgasm chapter.
I go to each student one last time, tracing the curve of their neck bones right up to the occipital joint, where skull floats on vertebrae. This cue encourages our ten minutes of dropped belly breath to transition seamlessly into yawning.
“Our studio has become a safe harbor today, especially given the temperamental weather outside. Yes, the geography of piano, books, and art is well-known terrain for your body, but the coziness you are feeling comes primarily from your own breath cycle’s increased receptivity. The climate of trust now hovering between you and your classmates’ bodies further invites the releasing height of a yawn. When dropped belly partners with yawning’s upward suspension an important relationship is fostered within each of you, that of levity with gravity.”
I yawn into my next thoughts, priming my students’ nervous systems through “impolitely” smearing my own words.
“Fully inhabit yawning by flying in the face of physically encoded taboos. Unfortunately, social repression can be even stronger than a yawn’s deeply wired contagion. If you are resistant today to the pull of another person’s yawn, or even to your own … well then, lustily fake a few. Let your mouth gape wide. Haul in a little ragged air. Shrug your shoulders for no good reason in case they are holding your yawns in check. In no time your yawning will become real, sincere, authentic, and yours.”
As my students follow their yawns, their torsos twist and their hands reach wide. The wave of each delicious pandiculation spreads through the entire body, stretching open more than just ribcage. We aren’t making our physiology do anything; we are becoming devotees of what it wants to do.
If you want to know more about yawning or what a pandiculation is, there is plenty of juicy information in my book! Also, please tell your friends about it through liking AND sharing this post.
ENDORSEMENT:
“Reclaiming Calliope is an eloquent and practical gift for the beginner vocalist to the consummate singing professional. It is also an exciting read for those simply curious about the compelling life of a brave singer who has generously, extensively, and uniquely shared their ever-growing knowledge.”
—ERIKA BATDORF, MFA graduate program director, Department of Theatre, York University, Canada