Why do humans cry?

Answer 1

~Generally for three reasons: they're happy, they're sad or they're peeling onions. Once in awhile, it's just wind or a really nasty fart.

Answer 2

Crying may result when we try to use an undeveloped or empty part of the brain as a result of some situation. the brain runs out of options and you cry out of helplessness. Babies have more of these undeveloped empty regions and so have more opportunities to cry.

Answer 3

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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 4

Because we are experiencing pain and fear.
Dogs whimper when they experience pain and fear, most other animals cry out too. Babies cry cause they're experiencing a pain or a fear as their first instictual reactions.

Answer 5

a surge of emotions that sometimes we cannot control. crying is like an outlet that you pour your hearts out just to lighten your feelings and sometimes they say....its necessary for you to clean your eyes once in a while

Answer 6

y do yall ask wierd and obvious questions it's really annoying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!