Tears are produced for various reasons, including emotional and physical pain. There are three types of tears: basal, reflex, and emotional. Prolactin, a hormone present in tears, may play a role in mood regulation. Crying is more accepted in some societies than others, and gender can also play a role in how tears are perceived. The reasons for crying are complex and may involve evolutionary, cultural, and physiological factors. Crying can be emotionally beneficial as long as the person does not feel guilty about expressing their emotions.
Humans produce tears for a variety of reasons. Some of these have nothing to do with why people cry. If you’re chopping an onion or have seasonal allergies, your eyes may be watering. This is not emotional crying but is instead the act of the eyes producing tears to lubricate the eyes. In fact, there are three types of tears: basal, reflex and emotional, which all occur for different reasons.
Basal tears are released regularly to keep the eyes lubricated. Reflex tears are those produced when irritants bother our eyes. Emotional tears are produced in the grip of extreme emotions: sadness, anger, and sometimes even laughter. We also tend to produce emotional tears when we hurt ourselves, and some researchers suggest that the body doesn’t really distinguish between emotional and physical pain, even though the mind can.
There are many theories as to why people cry emotional tears. One of them is that there are proteins in tears, which are the same components as some hormones. One of the major of these is prolactin, present in higher levels in women than in men. Women use prolactin in large quantities when they breastfeed, and in the first few days after having a baby, breastfeeding that baby can produce a very strong emotional response as prolactin levels rise massively. Women also report feeling very calm, sleeping, or distancing themselves during the first few weeks after giving birth to a baby due to high levels of this hormone.
Prolactin not only stimulates lactation but also tends to have a general calming effect. It may be the case that prolactin and other similar hormones are part of a mood regulation system. When we feel physical or emotional pain, these hormones can build up and produce more tears. So people cry, and this release can be calming too, helping to reset the mood.
You should also keep in mind that crying is the baby’s natural province. Babies come into this world and most immediately start crying (although they don’t always produce tears immediately), and they will use this pre-language communication device to communicate all their wishes. But studies also show that boys’ cries may be ignored for a little longer, and especially in some cultures, girls’ cries are taken into consideration immediately. We can be taught from birth that there are immediate rewards for crying, or that it is of little use, depending on our gender.
Whether or not people cry as adults may have a lot to do with how their society treats tears. In many societies, tears in men are only acceptable on a few occasions, perhaps a funeral. This is really a shame; especially when baby boys are told not to cry on a regular basis and many men have felt cut off from expressing hurt emotions that could help them heal from emotional wounds. Instead anger becomes the emotion of choice because it is more “masculine” and men may need to work very long and hard to access the pain behind anger.
Women, by contrast, may cry more easily not simply because they release more prolactin, but because their society conventionally accepts their crying. When people cry, especially women, they can be seen as “emotional” as if this is a negative characteristic. On the other hand, most therapists will point out that crying is probably a great way to release an emotional response and get your mind back to a quieter place. The man who bottles up her emotions in the end may be more negatively emotional than the woman who lets her emotions out in the release of crying.
Despite these theories, there is no single answer as to why people cry in emotional and physical pain. Having tear ducts filled with unshed tears is much easier to explain when something is bothering your eyes. There is a suggestion, however, that there are both natural and educational reasons why people cry. Women may have more prolactin, but in some cultures, men may be found crying and sobbing openly like women. There may be evolutionary, cultural, and physiological components all combining to explain our tears. What is understood is that crying, especially in times of pain or strong emotion, is often emotionally beneficial, as long as the person does not feel guilty about having expressed such emotion.
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