Anything from moist eyes to full-scale sobbing is crying. Women seem to be more susceptible to tears than men, with statistics revealing that women cry 5.3 times a month, while men cry about 1.3 times a month on an average. Why? Biologically speaking, men have more testosterone, which inhibits tears. On the other hand, women have more prolactin, which stimulates tears.
But it’s not just these two hormones that decide whether you cry or not, since there are three types of crying, all involving different mechanisms and chemicals.
Types of crying
A protein-rich antibacterial liquid is constantly secreted by the lacrimal gland present in the outer edge of the eyeball. When we blink, the liquid is released, which then lubricates the entire eye surface. These are called basal tears and their function is to lubricate and protect the eye at all times.
Notice how you ‘cry’ when chopping an onion? These are reflex tears. Reflex tears protect the eyes from irritants such as wind, smoke, and chemicals. They also help flush out random speck of dirt or any object that gets into the eye.
Another type of crying is emotional crying, in which tears are produced in such large quantity that they overflow, overwhelm the nasal canal of the tear duct and fall down our cheeks. This type of crying occurs in response to stress, frustration, sadness, and happiness, and any other emotion that evokes tears.
Hormones / neurotransmitters at play while crying
Apart from prolactin and testosterone modulating your crying, other hormones and neurotransmitters play a role as well.
Love makes you cry
Serotonin influences a variety of physical and psychological functions. It has a big role in mood balancing, bowel function including suppression of appetite, aids formation of blood clots in wounds, reduces libido, and decreases bone density. That’s why persistent high levels of serotonin increase the chance of osteoporosis. So, what does it have to do with crying? Studies have shown tryptophan, which is the precursor of Serotonin (5-HT), is reduced in women in the postpartum period, which is characterised by emotional instability and proneness to high-crying. Being in love is also accompanied by low 5-HT levels, which makes you more prone to crying. Researchers believe that 5-HT levels might increase the threshold for crying.
Flush out the stress
ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) is released from the pituitary gland and it signals the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, the fight-or-flight-response hormone. Cortisol, as we know, increases blood pressure and blood sugar, making us hyperventilate, and triggers other physiological changes to charge us up for action. This causes stress. One way to alleviate stress is through crying. We have all experienced the feeling of calm and being spent after a good cry. This is because excess ACTH is flushed out through the tears and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone.
Another natural stress buster in the body is the chemical enkephalin, an endorphin that reduces pain and improves mood. It is very similar to opiate drugs that we take as painkillers. The neurochemical enkephalin works by blocking the pain signal in the spinal cord.
Crying at different ages
All babies are born with basal tears. New born infants don’t have tears when they cry, the fluid comes later when they are slightly older. They cry for their basic needs to be fulfilled – hunger, sleep, feeling pain, irritated or simply uncomfortable.
As they grow and develop, say about 10 months, their crying changes to more manipulative ones to get attention. These are called ‘fake’ tears.
Testosterone and prolactin kick in during the adolescent years. This is when girls become more weepy and boys crying comes down drastically.
Men tend to cry only when they suffer major losses. Women, however, cry even when frustrated. They cry more loudly and with copious tears. Scientists believe the size of the tear glands to be one of the causes. Men have smaller tear glands than women, so they can’t tear up volumes at one go. The other view is tear ducts in men are larger than those of women, so overflowing of fluid in women is faster than in men.
Crying pattern changes as we reach our middle ages because of changing testosterone and progesterone levels. Men begin to cry more and get less angry. Women, on the other hand, cry less.
How much crying is normal for adults?
Babies cry for one to three hours per day. That is natural. If they cry for more than 3 hours per day, and more than 3 days a week, they may need medical attention. It could be colic or some other health condition.
There is actually no magic number on the amount or time for crying in adults. The amount of crying also depends on one’s conditioning. Men are conditioned since childhood to not cry. Boys don’t cry! In western society, crying is still ‘allowed’ but in many Asian countries, crying among boys/men is seen as weakness.
Although crying can be a great stress buster, many of us don’t feel good after crying. Researchers believe that there could be many reasons for when and how much you cry. It depends on:
Situation in which you cry
- Number of people around you when you are crying, as many people feel okay crying in front of one person, but they are not comfortable crying in front of two or more people
- Reaction of the onlooker, which decides if you are empathized with or if it leaves you feeling embarrassed.
How much you cry is also determined by mental health factors. Too much crying can be a sign of depression. Again, too little crying or no crying, is a sign of severe depression.Again there is a conflict of evidence regarding this. For example, researchers from Netherlands found ‘surprisingly little evidence for the widespread claim that depression leads to more frequent and/or easier crying’, nor did they find much support for the claim that severely depressed individuals lose their capacity to cry.
When crying can indicate something else
Crying is not limited to your emotions. Sometimes crying, or rather overflowing tears, can indicate that something is wrong somewhere in your body.
Your tears may overflow when your tear ducts are blocked for reasons such as aging, injury, infection, inflammation, or even a tumour. You have no control over these tears, that’s why it is called pathological crying.
Certain diseases, such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Lou Gehrig’s disease can cause uncontrollable crying. Researchers found that these excessive crying episodes can be triggered by almost any kind of emotional stimulus, say, happiness, excitement, sadness, just being looked at or talked to, the sight of a doctor, etc. and can even occur without any obvious external or internal stimulus. They attribute this to partial destruction in the serotonin pathway in the brain leading to less production of the chemical serotonin.
All in all, unless crying is pathological, in which case you would have to go for treatment, a good cry now and then has great healing power. It is a sort of catharsis, a way to purge pent up emotions, to help you stay healthy and release stress.
No comments:
Post a Comment