Yawning at its nature is caused when the body goes from a state on inactivity to activity or vice versa, and is a natural reflex. If you have ever gone from driving 30 minutes and ending up in the gym, it’s likely that on your first set of weights or the first three minutes on the treadmill, you have experienced a yawn. Unfortunately, the amateurs of body language reading perceive a yawn as a sign of boredom, selfishness or as a wish to finish the evening.

Because we know it’s widely publicized that a yawn is socially a sign of rudeness, we feel the need to hide it - completely understandable. I have tried yawning with my mouth closed, which is possible, but the other can still tell if they are looking directly at you. The best way to hide a yawn is to put both hands over your nose and mouth, keep your mouth as closed as possible, maybe look up, and when finished just explain to any on-looker that you were about to sneeze. Reflex replacement is the best policy, or at least the perception of it by the other. Of course turning your head can be effective, also as long as you are not in the middle of direct conversation.

The typical yawn can also be joked away if you are caught in a full-on yawn. Even if you are at a table with people you have just met, a well-placed, witty remark can turn your yawn into others’ laughter. Others tend to take sarcasm as humorous as they do a joke. To exemplify, I was at a loss in one instance when in a conversation with people I had just met and was caught in a closed-mouth yawn. To my surprise, someone called me out on it and I redirected a comment to the funniest loudmouth at the table and said, “If he wasn’t so quiet, I might not be getting tired of you guys.” This was a redirect that was obviously sarcastic and so ridiculously untrue that my seemingly social infraction was buried in laughter and another round.

There are other easy ways to explain away a yawn, too - just cover your mouth and blame the allergy medication. Usually people will forgive a yawn as people know that it does not necessarily mean that you are bored beyond belief. Usually a yawn is more uncomfortable for the one doing it than for the others anyway. There are ways to “play off” anything you might do in an embarrassing situation, but for the most part these things won’t keep you off the ‘A’ list at the next engagement, so don’t worry too much about it. By the way, yawning is contagious: how many times have you yawned so far while reading this?