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You have just confronted your boyfriend about his cheating on you. You were planning to be calm, decisive and dignified as you walked out of this relationship. Instead you ended up a snivelling wreck, blowing a bubble out of your nose, and sobbing on his undeserving shoulder.
Your cat has been missing for three days and you really thought it had been run over or stolen. And suddenly it walks in – hungry, but otherwise fine. You are so happy to see it, the next thing you know you are crying.
You’re watching something really sad on the TV, and the next minute you’re in floods of tears.
In short, we could cry when we’re feeling any sort of intense emotion.
Why do we cry?
Well, babies cry because of everything. That is their most effective way of communication. They cry because they’re hungry, hot, cold, they can’t see their mom or dad, or nanny, they feel ill, they have cramps, they’re tired – simply because they can. Parents learn to interpret the different types of crying in trying to decipher what it is that the babies want.
But all of us cry right throughout our lives, and for very different reasons. Some people once a day, others once a year. And crying, like many good things, comes in all shapes and sizes. There is the slight tearing up, to the silent crying, to the not-so-silent crying to the weeping, wailing and sobbing. Often, the intensity of the emotion we are feeling determines how we cry. A real expression of grief can leave you quite breathless.
We are all wired very differently, and often boys are discouraged from crying, because they are told they must not be weak. Nobody really knows why humans cry, but it is thought think it might be some form of non-verbal communication to make other people take care of us and signals that we need help from them. Or a signal to ourselves that there is something in our lives that needs to be addressed.
Some people see crying as a sign of weakness, others know that it’s just something we need to do as humans on a regular basis. According to a study published in the Journal of Research in Personality men cry 1.3 times per month on average, and women 5.3 times. Researchers think women are biologically wired to cry more often than men do, as their tear glands are much smaller than men’s are. Also, whether right or wrong, it is seen as more socially acceptable for women and girls to cry, and unlike males, they don’t get ridiculed for it nearly as often.
Crying can make observers feel uncomfortable – as if they are expected to do something about it, and they don’t know what that is. Often people try to stop someone’s crying, not because the emotion has been expressed or dealt with, but because of the discomfort it brings about in the bystander. Some people use tears to manipulate others into giving them what they want.
What are tears?
What exactly are tears? They are a salty fluid containing mostly protein, water, mucus and oil. There are three types of tears produced by our tear glands:
• The tears that keep our eyes lubricated every time we blink (basal)
• The tears we produce when you get shampoo in your eyes and your body is trying to get rid of it (reflex)
• The type produced by any strong emotion, such as anger, sadness, shock, joy, disbelief (emotional). More about what these consist of later.
What happens in our bodies when we cry?
The lump you feel in your throat before you cry is an intense stress reaction – the kind that shuts down your digestive system and all other unnecessary processes, and gets you ready to fight or flee. Blood and oxygen flows to the necessary muscles, and the throat is opened wide so that you can breathe more deeply. This makes swallowing difficult and that is where the lump in the throat feeling comes from.
When you feel strong emotion, your brain registers the feeling, and then releases hormones, causing tears to form. The chemical composition of tears produced because of intense emotion is different to that of the other two types. Proteins, hormones indicating high stress levels, and an endorphin that reduces pain and works to improve mood are all found in emotional tears.
These tears can either run down your face, or they drain into your nasal cavity, which explains why you get a runny nose when you cry.
Does a good cry actually help to make us feel better? The jury is still out on this. Some people say it just makes us feel good to have acknowledged our emotions. We also feel better, because we expect to feel better. But others say there is actually a release of stress hormones and toxins from the body during a good crying session. Interestingly enough, people who suffer from anxiety and depression report that crying does not make them feel better – on the contrary.
What happens when we don’t cry?
For a variety of reasons, some people will suppress their tears. The problem with that is that it often also means that the emotions that evoke tears are suppressed. People may become increasingly unaware of what is really going on inside themselves.
There is a saying attributed to British psychiatrist Henry Maudsley: “The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.”
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