A participatory cultural-change movement
CREATE CHANGE.
MAKE IT CONTAGIOUS.
What could happen if your organisation, school or community shared one simple experience within days rather than waiting years for culture to shift?
The Great Big Yawn brings people together through one remarkably simple shared experience and asks: what changes when people participate in something differently — together?
THE CHANGE HAS ALREADY STARTED
58,210
moments of participation have already happened.
58,210 isn't the target. It's the evidence.
58,210
Moments counted
5,293
Participants
124
Organisations
5,257
People in the room (Crucial Crew)
Every moment adds to the story.
This is not simply a counter. It is a growing record of people taking part in something together, in schools, workplaces and communities.
One person joins. Another follows. A team takes part. An organisation adds its count. The number grows because participation grows.
Society needs something radical to make change happen. This is our answer.
Culture does not only live in policies, strategies and mission statements. It lives in what people repeatedly experience together.
A classroom. A team. A workplace. A family. A community.
Something happens inside a room when people share a simple moment of connection. Rapport builds. Barriers soften. A kind of understanding passes between people that goes beyond language, job title or hierarchy.
If you want faster connection and stronger rapport with colleagues and clients, this could well be your way in.
SMALL GROUPS CAN START BIG CHANGE.
Don't take our word for it.
Try it free.
This year, schools, businesses, colleges, organisations, families and communities can experience a Yawnathon with us for free.
Come on your own. Bring a colleague. Bring your team. Bring a classroom. Bring your organisation. Experience it first and decide for yourself what you notice.
All we ask is that you participate, count your yawns and help us add to the growing global tally.
9
November
Monday
10
November
National Yawning Day
11
November
Wednesday
Free 20-minute Yawnathons on Zoom across all three days. Yawns counted in these sessions feed straight into the same global tally.
Something everyone already knows how to do.
Shared, it changes the room.
It costs nothing. It needs no special equipment. Nobody has to be an expert.
And yet it is something we have learned to hide and apologise for. That makes it surprisingly interesting, because permission is powerful.
We give away the HOW. You already know how.
We are interested in exploring the WHY with you.
What could we learn about your organisation in one week?
And what might begin changing when virtually everybody gets to participate?
Instead of sending a handful of people away on another wellbeing day, imagine giving your wider workforce one shared experience within a working week.
We begin by training 4–6 people from your organisation as Great Big Yawn Ambassadors. Across the remaining three days, staff move through a dedicated space in groups of approximately 20. Sessions last around 30 minutes, or 60 minutes where operationally possible. One group comes in. They participate. They leave. The next group arrives.
Across the week, a large proportion of the workforce can share the same experience. Participation can also contribute to the organisation's own yawning tally and, where appropriate, the wider Great Big Yawn global count.
DON'T JUST SEND SIX PEOPLE ON A WELLBEING DAY. GIVE THE WIDER WORKFORCE THE EXPERIENCE — AND LEAVE PEOPLE INSIDE THE ORGANISATION EQUIPPED TO CONTINUE IT.
Faster connection. Real rapport. In minutes.
If you want faster connection and rapport with colleagues and clients, this could well be your way in. Here is what teachers and assistants reported straight after short sessions held during Crucial Crew in Bury and Bolton.
4,927
Children took part
366
Staff took part
121
Named schools
132
Teacher & assistant forms
96.6% – 100%
said the room felt safe
Bury 96.6%, Bolton 100%
90.8% – 95.6%
left relaxed and calm
Bury 90.8%, Bolton 95.6%
96.6% – 97.8%
learnt something new
Bury 96.6%, Bolton 97.8%
74.7% – 75.6%
were also engaged
Calm, but not switched off
10
Only 10 people across the whole project said they had ever been congratulated for it before. Most of us have learned to hold back. Permission changes the room.
Source: Live4Energy research brief, Crucial Crew Safe Rooms (Belle Vue, Bury and Bolton). Percentages are from the 132 teacher and assistant forms. A large real-world field dataset, not a controlled laboratory trial.
The experience is only the beginning.
We gather structured feedback, observe themes and look for patterns across participating groups. We then provide a bespoke Cultural Snapshot showing what emerged. The organisation tells us how accurately the findings reflect the workplace they recognise. Then we decide together whether there is anything worth exploring more deeply.
Possible report areas
A Cultural Snapshot is a reflection of what participants reported. It is not a diagnosis or a clinical assessment.
This is not a campaign. It is already happening.
Ambassadors
Crucial Crew
Ambassador
Crucial Crew
Volunteer
Crucial Crew
Project
Project
The Great Big Yawn
A grassroots mental wellbeing & cultural change movement — helping people move from boredom, apathy and exhaustion to hope, creativity and connection.
Our Safe Room at Crucial Crew
Crucial Crew is a multi-agency child safety campaign delivered annually to Year 6 children across Bury, Bolton and beyond. Greater Manchester Police, Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service, drug awareness and road safety teams run real-life safety scenarios — and The Great Big Yawn provides a calm, consent-led Safe Room where children can pause, breathe and reset between sessions.
58,073
Recorded yawns
5,257
Children & teachers supported
121
Schools across Belle Vue, Bury & Bolton
132
Teacher & assistant feedback forms
📋 What Schools Told Us (132 forms from Bury & Bolton)
97%
Learnt something new
93%
Left relaxed / calm
98%
Felt safe in the room
90%
Yawning observed by staff
🥱 Help Us Reach More Children
Add your yawn to our Safe Room research — a quick survey that helps us take this work to more schools.
Where Your Money Goes
Real photos from the land we're regenerating together — with room for more projects to come.
Present Projects
Present · raking
Present · on the plot
Present · together
Past Projects
Past · on site
Past · clearing
Past · community
Add your yawn to the Great Big Yawn count
The Great Big Yawn is a free, participatory cultural-change movement. Tap once to add your yawn to the global yawn tally and join people in schools, workplaces and communities taking part in National Yawning Day and the contagious yawning research.
Tap to Yawn
0
your yawns
We're not just training people up.
We create a contagious yawn of relief around the globe — showing people how to pivot quickly into hope, creativity and possibility, individually through the yawn, then as a community with projects on the land, and globally by connecting together.
Land owners who are overwhelmed but want to share what they have with their local community — to stop isolation, boredom and exhaustion and bring in support that truly makes a difference. We are growing food together, sharing it, cooking it together and clearing spaces that are overgrown, overlooked and underestimated — just like the yawn — into spaces expanding naturally together.
"I wonder what else you could bring to the table for us to enjoy together — do get in touch and let us know."
Regeneration is About Restoring Belief
Regeneration is not only about planting trees or restoring land. It is also about restoring people's belief that their presence matters.
Many people have spent years feeling overlooked, underestimated, overworked or disconnected from their own creativity. When people feel safe enough to participate again, something changes. They begin offering ideas. They begin helping each other. They begin noticing what the land needs. They begin imagining a future they actually want to live in.
Not through shame. Not through more pressure. Through permission, witnessing, participation and meaningful action.
You Do Not Have to Save the World Alone
The beautiful planet we want to live on will not be created by one heroic person doing everything. It will be created by thousands of people making smaller, braver choices together.
Regenerate Your Thoughts. Create New Behaviours.
You do not need to know exactly where you fit before making contact. Tell us what calls to you, what experience you already have and what you would love to contribute or learn. We will help you find your place within the growing ecosystem.
Permission to pause. Space to reconnect. Courage to create what comes next.
Regenerate yourself. Regenerate community.
Regenerate the world around you.
What if the part of you that has always wanted to help could finally become part of something bigger—without having to become someone else first?
The Great Big Yawn is bringing together ordinary, extraordinary people who are ready to turn overwhelm into possibility, ideas into action and individual gifts into real community regeneration.
Whether you train as an Ambassador, offer your time as a volunteer or bring your skills as a facilitator, your contribution becomes part of a living ecosystem—supporting people, restoring places and helping new thoughts grow into healthier behaviours.
Every conversation matters. Every seed planted matters. Every person witnessed matters. Every yawn of relief matters.
One Living Ecosystem
The way we think affects the way we behave. The way we behave affects our families, workplaces, communities and the land around us. When people are constantly overwhelmed, exhausted or disconnected, they often repeat the same patterns simply because their nervous systems cannot see another way forward.
The Great Big Yawn creates spaces where people can pause, reconnect and begin again. Through Yawnology, community projects, woodland retreats, education, citizen research, volunteering and shared experiences, we help people turn tired thoughts into fresh possibilities—and fresh possibilities into new behaviours.
A person feels safer → a family communicates differently → a community begins working together → a neglected space begins to thrive → the wider ecosystem responds.
This is regeneration from the inside out.
Help us turn yawns into hope
The Great Big Yawn is powered by people, not profit. Your donation keeps the woodland open, the community yawnathons running and the daily wellbeing drops reaching people who need them — moving boredom, exhaustion and apathy towards creativity, connection and hope.
Every yawn, every pound — it all adds up to hope.
One person. One group. One organisation. One community. One moment at a time.
CREATE CHANGE.
MAKE IT CONTAGIOUS.