Mailbag: Do you briefly lose your hearing when you yawn?

Hi Darlene, Thanks for your question, and thanks for listening! According to Sciencefocus.com, yawning does make you deaf, for a moment. Here’s what happens: a muscle in your middle ear called the tensor tympani is attached to the small ‘hammer’ bone that transmits sound from the eardrum. The muscle automatically contracts to reduce our hearing sensitivity in response to a sudden loud sound like thunder. It also contracts as we chew, so we aren’t deafened by the sound of our own jaw muscles. Yawning also involves jaw movements, so yawning triggers the tensor tympani. So, so a side effect of yawning is that we lose our hearing briefly during the yawning action.