What is the use of crying?

All human beings with normal psychophysiological functioning (within the average) will have cried and will do so multiple times throughout their lives. In fact, when a baby is born it is the first thing expected of him and the first sign that her body is working properly.

We all know that crying is natural and what happens to us when our eyes sting or when we are sad, but next we are going to ask ourselves what mechanisms and what utility is behind this.

Types of tears ...

First of all it will be necessary differentiate physiological tears from emotional or psychological tears.

Physiological tears

The physiological tears are those that serve to protect our visual system (eyes), there are you reflex Y lubricants.

The lubricating tears are those that originate in the cornea, clean and protect the eye from external environmental agents (dust, batteries, etc.). A quantity of lubricating tears of approximately 1 ml are produced per day. The reflex tears are those that protect from external attacks such as gases or irritating chemicals, are those that appear when peel an onion for example, these contain a large amount of antibodies that will protect the eye from attacks bacterial.

Emotional tears

Finally we have the emotional tears, which we are going to focus on.

They appear before a strong emotion, The hypothalamus intervenes in the emotional interpretation and is the one who sends the orders to the ocular organs for the manufacture of tears. According to a study (Walter & Chip, 2006) with a sample of more than three hundred people, on average men cry shedding emotional tears once a month, and women at least five times a month, the difference between both sexes is explained by hormonal variations during menstruation.

Why do we cry when something moves us?

And what is the use of producing tears in a situation of emotional intensity? They usually occur in a painful situation, in this case secreting tears appears to have an analgesic and pain-relieving function.

As William H. Frey, a biochemist at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota, the emotional tears we shed at a dramatic situation of our own or someone else's get out of the body a good dose of potassium and manganese chloride, endorphins, prolactin, adenocorticotropin, and leucine-enkephalin (a pain reliever natural).

The brain when we cry

Also, when crying the brainit uses up a large amount of glucose and when we finish doing it we feel tired and more relaxed as if we had done sports, which can promote body rest in stressful situations. In addition, the mere fact of crying will make us gather in ourselves, introspect and allow us to cover the need to listen and take care of ourselves for a few moments, leaving aside the other external things that concern us in the day to day.

The social function of crying

Of course, shedding tears has an adaptive social function very important, when we see others crying we know that they may need help or a different treatment than usual.

Thus, if we add the biological function with the intrapersonal and the relational, shedding tears after a loss for example, will help us to go through the emotion in a better way.

And why do we sometimes cry when we are happy?

When we experience an emotion of extreme joy, our body sometimes interprets it as "excessive" and our emotional system as a loss of control, in these circumstances, crying helps to restore emotional balance.

What if I can't cry when I'm sad?

Some people suffer from an autoimmune disease, the Sjören's syndrome, in which there is permanent dryness in the tear duct.

But putting aside the possible physiological problems for tear production, some people have problems to cry when they have a loss or strong emotion, usually this is accompanied by the inability to feel sadness. This can be the result of multiple causes and in many cases it has to do with a bad emotional management experience at a certain point (for example, having suffered a severe depression or having a close person who suffers from it), through which an irrational fear of crying is triggered.

Social norms also influence in certain cultures where crying is "frowned upon", in many cultures, something as natural and innate as crying is "repressed" and it is important to relearn how to cry when it is necessary, as it has been commented a few lines above, it has multiple advantages for our emotional health.

Bibliographic references:

• Díez Baths, March pujol. Ocular pharmacology. Univ. Politèc. from Catalonia; 2004.
• Walter, Chip. Why do we cry?. Scientific American Mind. 2006 Dec; 17(6):44.
• William H. Frey, Muriel Langseth. Crying: The Mystery of Tears. Minneapolis: Winston Press; 1985.