TEARS

It is a very vague topic for discussion, but tears hold a very important significance in our lives.

What are tears?

Tears are produced by tear glands thus keeping the surface of your eyeball clean as well as moist and also help in protecting our eyes from damage. All tears are mainly composed of water and salts, with accompanying biological substances like antibodies and antibacterial enzymes. Studying tears and the process of crying is intricate.

 What makes eyes water?

There are several reasons why eyes produce more tears than are usually needed as eyes are very sensitive. There are two types of tears.  Irritant tears help wash eyes of dust, dirt and impurities.  It could be something that has got stuck in the eye, like an eyelash or a speck of dust and then it irritates the eye. It could also an irritation caused due to smoke, fumes or from cutting up onions. You may be suffering from hay fever or a cold. You may have an eye flue etc. Scientifically speaking, there are three types of tears: basal tears that are released continuously in small quantities to keep the eye lubricated and reflex tears that are secreted when the eye is irritated by foreign particles like sand or onion vapours etc.  Emotional tears are created and released in response to emotional stimulus and physical pain. The most often and frequent is when you feel emotional and that is what we call as crying. All tears contain proteins, salt and hormones, among other substances, but emotional tears have higher levels of protein. Emotional tears can be differentiated as tears of happiness or tears of sorrow and psychic tears from crying or weeping due to strong emotions, both positive and negative.

Why do we cry?

We cry for lot of different reasons in different emotions. Babies cry to communicate their basic needs as hunger or thirst, maybe they are wet and uncomfortable, or it could also be that they could be in pain etc. Children often cry for many reasons such as, if they have been scolded or if they are hurt, if they get a bad report card or they fear of being punished etc. When we are sad or upset about something, or get a bad news, watch an emotional or a sad movie etc., can make any adult cry too. Even when we are afraid or hurt or are in pain, tears flow down one’s cheek. When we feel angry or lonely, separation from loved ones, losing a game or win a game these tears are not left behind. We may even cry when we feel happy or proud and sometimes we laugh until we cry. This is all so unusual. Tears of Sorrow or Tears of Happiness.

Human beings are the only species that cries emotional tears and this making it difficult to study its internal mechanics for it is also not easy to stimulate crying in a controlled research environment. 

Crying is a normal physical reaction to a variety of emotions, and just about everybody cries at some point or another.  We are often powerless when it comes to crying, especially women, who are biologically strengthened to shed tears more than men. But do women really cry more than men, as most people think? Studies have shown that cells of female tear glands look different than men. The male tear duct is like having a big fat pipe to drain in a rainstorm, wider but smaller in size than the female's, therefore women tears spill much quicker and in large quantity than in men, who have smaller tear glands in their comparison, so when they do cry, they cry fewer tears than women do. Secondly, since the very childhood, boys are taught over and over again not to cry and this attempt of suppressing crying becomes their good controlling habit. Up until puberty, boys and girls cry in equal amounts but when adolescence hits, the rise in testosterone in boys causes the crying to lessen, while rising estrogen levels in girls might bring them to tears more often.

To teach acting students to cry they are asked to consider their childhood when they used to cry before building barriers to prevent themselves from crying. The trick is to imagine a character's pain and sadness, and then to connect with the barriers that character would have built. The realistic way to portray crying isn't to let tears flow, but to show the struggle not to cry. "Only actors want to cry."

Women are more apt to also cry when they're tired, stressed out or frustrated. Crying also helps you to feel less stressed. No matter you pretty awful while you are crying but you're bound to feel better after you've finished. You also have a sound sleep after crying which relaxes your brain.

Tears formed through crying are associated with strong internal emotions, such as sorrow, elation, awe, or pleasure. Laughing or yawning may also lead to the production of tears. Tears of different emotions are made up of a different chemical component and have different microscopic structures. Studies even show that emotional tears from women reduce sexual arousal in men.

Tears of Joy........what is the emotion behind these tears? Is there some sort of emotional catharsis? They're all completely different emotions...So there are three different types of tears

Psychic tears (happiness, sadness) are caused by extreme emotions containing different molecules. They're altogether three different things coming from the same origin! But how do tears of joy and tears of sorrow, which come from the same place, end up looking different? Because of circumstance. Even though they're the same, how you cry and so forth can affect how it looks up when closely watched under a microscope. You can see more tears here.

Here's what tears of grief that accompany a wide range of feelings, including elation, sorrow, frustration, and rejection

We cannot be sure if one particular emotion is responsible for tears of joy. It may be several overwhelming emotions that brings on tears, like tears of happiness when a child is born which brings mixed emotions of happiness with a sense of responsibility which comes with being a new parent, excitement for the future, and an over-abundant sense of exhilaration. Mere words cannot describe one, two, or even three emotions, and because of such a surge one feels in times of extreme happiness, the person breaks down and cries. 

Knowing what you're feeling opens the door to your creativity, your wisdom, your intuition, and your health. These emotions are not so much painful as they are a strong feeling that we seek to stop, which ultimately creates way more pain than allowing the energy to move freely.

Some say that crying is a physiological function that reduces stress. If we are very upset, we are obviously much stressed, it is then when crying releases this stress: it has been explained as:  "an excretory process which removes stress-related toxins". It is possible that happy situations are also stressful situations - the idea is that just because something good is happening does not mean that it is not stressful, because it is still possibly life-altering or sudden, such as getting married, as well as more neutral events, such as changing jobs. All these things contribute to stress, and it could be that this is why we cry when we are joyful. Tears of joy usually occur over things that we perceive to be overwhelming, sudden, unexpected, or life-altering (physically or emotionally).

SEVEN Good Reasons to Cry: The Healing

1. Tears help us see.

Starting with the most basic function of tears, they enable us to see. Tears not only lubricate our eyeballs and eyelids, they also prevent dehydration of our various mucous membranes. No lubrication, no eyesight.  It has been said: “Without tears, life would be drastically different for humans — in the short run enormously uncomfortable, and in the long run eyesight would be blocked out altogether.”

2. Tears kill bacteria.

No need for Clorox wipes. We’ve got tears! Our own antibacterial and antiviral agent working for us, fighting off all the germs we pick up on community computers, shopping carts, public sinks, and all those places the nasty little guys make their homes and procreate. Tears contain lysozyme, a fluid that the germ-a-phobic dreams about in her sleep, because it can kill 90 to 95 percent of all bacteria in just five to 10 minutes! Which translates, I’m guessing, to three months’ worth of colds and stomach viruses.

3. Tears remove toxins.

Biochemist William Frey, who has been researching tears for found that emotional tears–those formed in distress or grief–contain more toxic by-products than tears of irritation (onion peeling).  Tears are not toxins but they actually remove toxins from our body that build up courtesy of stress. They are like a natural therapy or massage session, but they cost a lot less!

4. Crying can elevate mood.

Do you know what your manganese level is? No. But chances are that you will feel better if it’s lower because overexposure to manganese can cause: anxiety, nervousness, irritability, fatigue, aggression and emotional disturbances etc. The act of crying can lower a person’s manganese level. And just like with the toxins, emotional tears contain 24 percent higher albumin protein concentration — responsible for transporting many small molecules — than irritation tears.

5. Crying lowers stress.

Tears really are like perspiration in that exercising and crying both relieve stress. For real. Bergman explains that tears remove some of the chemicals built up in the body from stress, like the endorphin and prolactin etc., the hormone overproduce because of pituitary tumor that affects mood and stress tolerance. Bergman further writes, “Suppressing tears increases stress levels, and contributes to diseases aggravated by stress, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, and peptic ulcers.

6. Tears build community.

Writer Ashley Montagu argued in her article that crying not only contributes to good health, but it also builds community. It means that you might ask the woman bawling her eyes out behind you in church what’s wrong or if you can help her, but certainly you’re not going to invite her to dinner.”

7. Tears release feelings.

Even anyone goes through something traumatic or is severely depressed, they accumulate conflicts and resentments and sometimes they even gather it inside the limbic system of the brain and in certain corners of the heart. Crying is cathartic as it lets the devils out before it wreaks all kind of havoc with the nervous and cardiovascular systems. “All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.” Brother Bradford!

CONCLUSION

Why I chose this topic was to create an awareness that no human beings are different from each other, be they of any gender. It is a natural human tendency that whenever we see any one crying, especially a woman, we treat her with sympathy and compassion, judging the cause as a defaulter. Today crying in public is considered as a good move and it is also now a part of our cultural motif, not just in personal moments of anguish or exhilaration, but on public occasions too. It becomes handy indeed when you want to appeal through an emotion rather than a reasoning.  

People who cry are often judged as weak and out of control. Tears signal a vulnerability that is authentic and powerful. When watching someone cry, others may cry in empathy, meaning the walls are down and the person is undefended and in need. It is an opportunity for intimacy. It’s a signal that something of importance is taking place for it is believed that tears are very difficult to fake, so they’re often a sign of honesty to others. Universally people recognize tears as a sign of distress, where in earlier times, this may have been seen as a sign of weakness. In today’s world, where it is a way of communicating upset, there on the other side, it is the most effective tool for a quick, natural response from other to offer help or comfort to someone who is crying.

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are the rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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