Crying
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A child crying.

The term crying (pronounced [ˈkraɪɪŋ] from Middle English crien or Old French crier ¹) most commonly refers to the act of shedding tears as a response to an emotional state in humans. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, without any irritation of the ocular structures"²

A neuronal connection between the tear duct and the areas of the human brain involved with emotion was established. No other animals are thought to produce tears in response to emotional states³, although this is disputed by some scientists.⁴

According to a study of over 300 adults, on average men cry once every month, and women cry at least five times per month⁵, especially before and during the menstrual cycle when crying can increase up to 5 times the normal rate, often without obvious reason such as depression or sadness.⁶

Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tear. They contain significantly greater quantities of hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, Leu-enkephalin⁷ and elements potassium and manganese.⁸

Function

The question of the function or origin of emotional tears is still open. Theories range from the simple such as response to inflicted pain to the more complex including nonverbal communication in order to elicit helping behaviour from others.⁹

No other species on the planet can shed emotional tears. As a result scientists believe that crying must be caused by some especially complex human behaviour. Over a hundred years ago Darwin said that crying was used to attract attention, particularly in children. He said that tears act like a red flag to signal distress. ¹⁰

In Hippocratic and medieval medicine, tears were associated with the bodily humours, and crying was seen as purgation of excess humours from the brain.¹¹ William James thought of emotions as reflexes prior to rational thought, believing that the physiological response as if to stress or irritation is a precondition to cognitively become aware of emotions such as fear or anger.

William H. Frey II, a biochemist at the University of Minnesota, proposed that people feel better after crying due to the elimination of hormones associated with stress, specifically adrenocorticotropic hormone.¹² This, paired with increased mucosal secretion during crying, could lead to a theory that crying is a mechanism developed in humans to dispose this stress hormone when levels grow too high.

Recent psychological theories of crying emphasize its relationship to the experience of perceived helplessness. ¹³ From this perspective, an underlying experience of helplessness can explain why people cry in most situations; for example, a person may cry after receiving surprisingly happy news, ostensibly because the person feels powerless or helpless to influence the events that are taking place.

Disorders related to crying

• Bell's palsy, where faulty regeneration of the facial nerve causes sufferers to shed tears while eating.¹⁴
• Cri du chat
• Familial dysautonomia, where there can be a lack of overflow tears (alacrima) during emotional crying.¹⁵
• Pathological laughing and crying

References

Further reading

• William H. Frey, Muriel Langseth (1985), Crying: The Mystery of Tears . Minneapolis. Winston Press.
• Lutz, Tom (1999) Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears. New York. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04756-3.
• Walter, Chip Why do we cry?. Scientific American Mind Dec 2006, Vol. 17 Issue 6; p. 44.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Crying

• "Boys don't cry?" - Damian Corless examines the taboo that still surrounds public crying, Irish Independent, August 8, 2008
• Why we cry by John-Paul Flintoff, The Age, 30 August 2003.