In 2005, the popular Discovery Channel TV show, “Mythbusters,” found determined that yawning IS contagious. Mythbusters, a science-based television program whose purpose was to test myths and urban legends to “bust” the false ones confirmed that yawning if in fact contagious.

The V-formation that birds fly is is just one example of “limbic resonance”

Despite that most people can say they’ve experienced a yawning contagion, many argued this fact because it seems to go against rationality–it doesn’t make sense that one should get an involuntary impulse just because someone else around has that impulse. How can it be that our bodies activate in this way? It’s a phenomenon called, “limbic resonance;” it’s the subconscious syncing between people.

If we look in the animal kingdom, we see it often. That birds are able to take turns flying at the front of a V without communicating, that certain fish only ovulate when there are male fish around, that meerkats can all be scuttling around without bumping into each other are all examples of limbic resonance.

Amongst humans this appears in how two close friends will have similar facial expressions when they talk, a mother and baby will sync hearbeats during embrace, and probably the strangest of all, women living together for an extended period of time will time their periods together. Yawning being contagious is just the tip of the iceberg.

Limbic resonance is one of the most important phenomena for our survival. Us modern humans often forget that we are pack animals. The big cities we live in are just technologically advanced tribes. We tend to sync up emotionally with people we’re close to because it’s more effective for a tribe to want to do the same thing at the same time. One person laughs with joy, everyone might as well. If one person is yawning with fatigue, the whole group. If one person is running from a predator…well you get the idea.

What’s most important to recognize that just about every feeling you have is being transmitted to others. In the next post we’ll talk about how to use this to your advantage.