Why Do Humans Cry When They Are Sad?
- The Guardian, Sept. 19, 2021. *Readers reply: why do humans cry when they are sad? The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts.
- I understand that tears flush away foreign objects from the eye. But what advantage does crying have when one is feeling sad (or happy)? Perhaps it is to signal an extreme of emotion, but then why would a solitary sad person cry when there was no one around? David Dobbs
Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.
Readers reply
- Does anyone remember crying as a kid and your parents told you: “I’ll give you something to cry about!” And you expected an almighty beating, but instead they just ruined the housing market? OhIAmSuchASadGit
- Tears (especially “emotional” tears, rather than when you get something stuck in your eye) contain stress hormones such as cortisol, and so remove these hormones from the body. This helps you calm down. According to some researchers and scientists, crying is important for enhancing immune resilience. Laughing is too. Crying can trigger the release of opioids, which can influence the activity of immune cells, which may help our immune system become more effective. It could be regarded as an important mechanism that better protects our bodies when dealing with stressors, both internal and external. Lady_E
- In terms of why we cry alone, I find sometimes people don’t know how to respond when others have cried in front of them, when they have been upset. It can be awkward, as many people can feel uncomfortable with the display of tears. I think when you are alone, you can release emotion freely through crying, you often feel better afterwards, and you don’t have to give a second thought to how others around you might respond. Amy
The human body is essentially a full functioning chemistry production facility. There are many triggers for a medley of different chemical responses. Many people are familiar with adrenaline activating during times of fear or excitement or dopamine triggering good feelings during times of accomplishment or relief.
Sadness has a chemical response as well, and it can be observed in the simple act of crying. There are differences between crying and lacrimation (that’s when you produce tears to clean or hydrate your eye), and those differences help us understand the purpose of tears.
So what exactly are those distinctions? The most relevant difference is that crying produces leucine enkephalin. There isn’t a simplified term for it, so let’s call it L.E. for now...
- More,
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/19/readers-reply-why-do-humans-cry-when-they-are-sad
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