Here is What To Know If Your Eyes Water When Yawning

At first, I really feel confused—certain, the present has its emotional moments, however it’s a comedy. What am I doing that makes her assume I am upset? After which I notice: She most likely thinks I am crying. “Oh yeah, I am good!” I reply rapidly. “My eyes water after I’m yawning.” Whereas it’s the reality and I do know she trusts me, I fear she thinks I am mendacity to avoid wasting face. In any case, doesn’t it appear sort of random that yawning mainly makes you cry?

If this has occurred to you, relaxation assured that it’s not as bizarre (or worrisome) as it might sound. Principally, when your eyes scrunch up throughout a yawn, they push out tears. “[The] tightening of the facial muscle tissues across the eyes after we yawn causes the pool of tears that usually coat our eyes (i.e. our tear movie) to ‘overflow,’” explains Dagny Zhu, MD, a Harvard-trained specialist in cornea, cataract, and laser refractive surgical procedure and a surgeon with Nvision Eye Facilities. “Facial muscle tissues additionally put stress on the lacrimal gland, which ‘squeezes’ out tears.”

Whereas the tearing doesn’t have a transparent evolutionary objective, Dr. Zhu did share an attention-grabbing scientific indisputable fact that might be behind this. “Some research present yawning is a manner for our brains to ‘cool off,’ which could be achieved by [the] secretion of tears, just like sweating,” she says.

Why it won’t occur each time, or to each particular person

Nevertheless, you might be studying this and considering, “Why do not my eyes water when yawning?” or “This solely occurs to me every so often—what does that imply?” A few honest questions! Personally, I’ve observed the eye-watering is worse at sure occasions, and for seemingly no cause.

In response to Dr. Zhu, there’s no definitive clarification, however she does have some theories. “Some individuals with autoimmune ailments have impaired tear manufacturing as a consequence of inflammatory harm inflicting dry eye,” she says. “Counterintuitively, different individuals with dry eye illness may very well tear extra as a reflexive response: As a result of their eyes are at a continuing state of dryness, their tear manufacturing is at all times in overdrive.”

For reference, the opposite indicators of autoimmune ailments embody issues like fatigue, swollen glands, digestive points, joint ache, and extra. So far as dry eye illness, you might discover extra signs similar to eye burning or itching, eye redness, sensitivity to gentle, feeling like one thing is caught in your eye, and blurred imaginative and prescient. A number of different causes of watery eyes which are unrelated to yawning, however probably nonetheless at play, are allergy symptoms, seasonal modifications, make-up, and issues with contact lenses.

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In any case, it’s greatest to speak with a trusted health-care supplier in case you’re involved that your eyes watering is perhaps one thing greater than an occasional factor. In any other case, there’s not likely a cause to fret, no matter whether or not your eyes water (or not) mid-yawn.

Are you able to cease your eyes from watering when yawning?

Whereas it’s not an issue, let’s face it: Eye-watering (and yawning) could be ill-timed, somewhat awkward, and annoying, even in probably the most comfy of conditions. Is there a solution to stop it? “There’s no actual solution to cease our eyes from tearing when yawning, however it’s typically a great factor to maintain our eyes lubricated,” Dr. Zhu says. So, normally, I suppose it’s extra a matter of reframing your perspective than fixing a bodily situation.

Nevertheless, in case you expertise extreme, fixed tearing; eye burning; or different eye issues like those listed above, “it may be an indication of illness and needs to be evaluated by an ophthalmologist,” Dr. Zhu provides. In different phrases, control it (pun totally meant) and you need to be simply high quality.