Why do we cry?

Question

When we get sad, we get tears. Why is that? I know that when we get something in our eye, tears help get rid of it, but other than that, what's the purpose?

Answer 1

Technically, if you're less than two months old or so, you're not really crying—if you define crying as shedding tears. Babies don't start crying tears until they're about two months old. But screaming gets results, and the tears get connected later.
Actually, there are three kinds of tears. BASAL tears lubricate your eyeball. Your eyeball is really not very smooth, so without tears to smooth it over, you wouldn't be able to see very sharply. Various tear glands produce about 5-10 ounces of basal tears daily. These tears flow over the eye and into the LACHRYMAL ducts in the inside corners of your eyes and then into your nasal cavity.
REFLEX tears protect your eyes against irritants, such as onions, and foreign objects or blows.
Now get this. There's a big difference between EMOTIONAL tears and these other kinds of tears. Emotional tears contain 20-25 percent more protein, including various hormones! So what does this mean? WE DON'T KNOW, BUT IT IS VERY INTERESTING.
Actually, some scientists think tears are a way for the body to get rid of wastes, as is sweating or defecation.
On the other hand, maybe crying is a functionless byproduct of increased autonomic activity in distressed individuals. WHAT?! Pat Carter is an evolutionary physiologist here at WSU. He studies how our bodies came to do the things they do over the course of time. He is very careful about trying to guess why something like crying developed. Maybe it developed as the result of something that we're not aware of.

http://www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/cry.html

Besides protecting your eyes, the tear glands produce more fluid when your eyes are irritated. These extra tears are called reflex or irritant tears. And, when something makes you happy or sad, your tear glands will produce emotional tears. Used tears then drain down into two tiny openings on the brim of your upper and lower eyelids at the inner edge of your eyes, which lead to the nasolacrimal tear ducts next to the bridge of your nose. From there, they are channeled into your nasal cavity where they are swallowed or blown out with other nasal fluids. If there are too many tears, they will overflow your lower lid and run down your cheeks.

http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/newton/tear.html

The psychic tears (or emotional tears) require an emotional response, or trigger to be activated. This response can be caused by an outside source, either pain or loss of love, etc., or from an inside source (self-realization of one's life and others). When emotions affect us, the nervous system stimulates the cranial nerve, in the brain and this sends signals to the neurotransmitters to the tear glands. Thus, we cry .The largest tear gland, the lacrimal gland produces the tears of emotion and reflex. Many believe that the body, in times of emotional stress, depends on this gland to release excess amounts of chemicals and hormones, returning it to a stable state.

There are many culturally acceptable reasons to cry in society .The first accepted reason to cry is probably death. Grieving includes crying and often times it was believed that if someone did not cry, they would suffer physically because they did not release their pain. Experiences in life and love are other reasons society allows us to cry. Women have been allowed to cry more than men traditionally, but the benefits of crying seem to suggest that men need to cry more. Cultures around the world have crying out of obligation, for show, and for grief and pain. Each culture defines where and when it is acceptable to cry. Cultures, in some parts of the world, sometimes determine the length of crying and mourning. For example, in the Zuni culture, a chief allows the mourners of the dead to cry for four days after which the chief says that the death occurred four years ago, and now the mourning may end.

http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/CryinLaughing.htm

No other animal sheds emotional tears (as opposed to tears of irritation). Charles Darwin, who confirmed this in his book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, acknowledged that crying could be useful to infants for attracting attention from caregivers, but ultimately concluded that tears were more or less useless; like the appendix, an exception to the rule that purposeless behaviour and body structures will not be maintained during the course of evolution.

Why we cry: Women do it 64 times a year, men just 17. Actors and politicians do it on demand. But why does crying happen in the first place?

Bill Clinton was laughing and joking with colleagues at a funeral when he noticed he was being filmed, immediately became serious and welled up.

In Russia, the former prime minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, who also cried on camera, was forever after derided as the "weeping Bolshevik". But many others have turned tears to their advantage, including Oliver North in the Contragate hearings, and Jim Bakker, the fraudulent TV evangelist.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663846142.html

Answer 2

Crying from emotional pain, such as over the death of a husband or wife, is a physical and mental health need: the tears contain stress chemicals....the crying allows these stress chemicals to safely drain. Crying cleanses the system of these stress chemicals.
It is good to cry.
Grown men do not cry in public...it would be very rare. But when we are alone, and nobody is looking, we go ahead and cry. We just don't cry in public, except in certain circumstances.
Crying is good for the soul. Evangelical Christians, such as myself, believe that crying is a very deep and passionate form of praying and God sees our tears and gets our message. I am a member of the Miracle Mountain Church in Phoenix, Ariz.

Answer 3

I cry more when I am happy than when I am sad. I think crying is just an expression of being overwhelmed whether it is by something overly positive or overly negative.

Answer 4

human life is supposed to be sensitive. god made us that way. if none of us cried, we would have no feelings. and feelings is why we live..

Answer 5

we cry when we think we can do a lot, but we dont .....only because we care(excluding when someone dies or betray u).

Answer 6

so we can cope