Tears …. of “laughing till I’m crying,” tears of grief, tears of change, onion tears, and others ……
I differentiate between "watering" eyes and "tears of sorrow" - when your eyes water no emotion triggers this state - but sorrow , frustration, anger, rage, embarrassment, shame, blushing, laughter, joy are all emotions that "bring tears to the eyes" –
Crying though repressed in many masculine societies relieves stress by entering into the emotion instead of denying the situation with a "stiff upper lip" that was always the English Condition –
Funerals allow for "group sorrow" and allows the group to share and alleviate the pain of bereavement - "I laughed so much I cried" is the sign of a good comedian - laughter might be the best antidote to tears - Western Culture with its denial of emotions needs to reconnect to their emotions
Your body produces three different types of tears. There’s the basal variety, which are made as a form of lubrication and protection for your eyes. These are constantly secreted in tiny quantities (about one gram over a 24-hour period) and coat your eyes when you blink.
You also produce reflex tears. These are another form of protection and are released in response to irritants, such as wind, dust, smoke, or cut onions. The third form of tears – emotional or “psychic” tears as they’re sometimes called – are arguably the most talked about and the most mysterious.
Your tears, no matter what the form, are a combination of salt water, oils, antibodies, and enzymes.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so to see the photos for yourself. What is perhaps most intriguing is the different forms tears take depending on the emotions behind them.
It is a learned thing that crying is wrong. In fact it is very natural to us humans or else we would not have the ability to do so.
Women in particular have very strong hormonal cycles and as we all know these can also affect mood. If the chemical mix gets too strong it seems way more sensible to me to have a good cry to release this imbalance than to try to manipulate it into something other than what it is.
Yes in an ideal world it would be lovely to not have these emotional imbalances but until we stop being human and become automatons, in the meantime lets get rid of the negative cultural programming that says its wrong and just let it out without embarrassment or guilt whenever we need to. I don't cry often, but am not embarrassed to, even in public and always feel a great sense of relief afterwards
Tears Are an Important Form of Communication
Crying is an especially important form of communication for infants, who use tears to show they’re in need of comfort or care.
However, tears also convey emotion into adulthood. Not only do tears tend to heighten the facial appearance of sadness, but they may also make others more willing to provide you with support. As reported by the American Psychological Association (APA):
“‘Tears add valence and nuance to the perception of faces,’ says the study's lead author, Robert R. Provine, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Tears become a sort of social lubricant, he says, helping to ensure the smooth functioning of a community by helping people communicate.”
Tearing up or crying can be “used” to build and strengthen personal relationships because it signals to others that your defenses are down, you’re less of a threat, and it may evoke feelings of empathy in others. Researcher Oren Hasson explained:
"My analysis suggests that by blurring vision, tears lower defenses and reliably function as signals of submission, a cry for help, and even in a mutual display of attachment and as a group display of cohesion."
Interestingly, crying may even play a role in helping you identify your own feelings.
Among people with Sjögren’s syndrome, which makes producing tears difficult, 22 percent said they had significantly more difficulty identifying their own feelings than a control group. The researchers noted:
“The hampered ability to cry in patients with Sjögren's syndrome may affect their ways of dealing with emotions.”
· American Psychological Association February 2014, Vol 45, No. 2
· Evolutionary Psychology 2009; 7(3): 363-370 [Free Full-Text PDF Report]
· Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2012 Jul-Aug;30(4):492-8.
Why Do Women Tend to Cry More Than Men?
There are differences between crying and gender, too. Women cry 30 to 64 times a year compared to men’s six to 17 times. Women also tend to cry for about twice as long as men during an episode (about six minutes per crying session for women compared to two or three minutes for men).
The reason women cry more often than men may be purely physiological. Most women have shallower tear ducts than men, which means they overflow faster and easier than men’s.
It’s also been suggested that hormonal differences may be to blame; testosterone appears to inhibit crying while prolactin, found in higher levels in women, promotes it. There are also marked cultural differences when it comes to crying. According to the APA:
“A study of people in 35 countries found that the difference between how often men and women cry may be more pronounced in countries that allow greater freedom of expression and social resources, such as Chile, Sweden, and the United States. Ghana, Nigeria, and Nepal, on the other hand, reported only slightly higher tear rates for women.
Lead study author Dianne Van Hemert, PhD, a senior researcher at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, says that people in wealthier countries may cry more because they live in a culture that permits it, while people in poorer countries — who presumably might have more to cry about — don't do so because of cultural norms that frown on emotional expression.”
· Am J Phys Anthropol. 1969 Jan;30(1):85-8.
I was always told that tears contain minute amounts of neurochemicals and are therefore also a way of releasing and rebalancing the brains moods; a kind of safety valve when emotions get too strong. Because the amounts are small the effect can be homeopathic so when you cry from emotion you should hold a small amount under the tongue to rebalance whatever emotion was the cause of the tear.
If you have a heavy crying session, this seems to happen naturally as the tears go down the back of the throat through the nose, but it is interesting how sometimes people naturally taste the tears as they run down to the mouth. I'm sure everyone knows that they taste salty and so must have tasted them at some time.
Your thoughts …………………?
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Thank you … Women cry 30 to 64 times a year compared to men’s 6 to 17 times… as I mentioned.
I hope some of that crying is tears of joy. Otherwise, something is seriously wrong with our society as a whole if that is the average. No one should be crying once a week out of misery. That indicates unresolved problems.