If you love to watch late-night drama films, then you’d probably experienced the weird feeling of sadness and excitement crawling all over your body. This feeling will leave you wondering how our body reacts to watching such films, and then suddenly, you find yourself crying all by yourself as you watch your favoritetelevision show while covered in tears. This phenomenon is a fantastic example of how our body works, and mainly, would pop up the question, why do we tear up when we cry?
We’ve all experienced crying ever since we were a baby. In fact, babies are more bound to cry as it is their way of saying that they want something, mainly when they are hungry. Although, throughout the years as we grow older, it is not a surprise that we still experience to cry for several different reasons. And crying always comes with tears.
However, tears are not only present when we are sad or when we cry. It is also present when we laugh too hard or sometimes when we are angry. That’s why it is better to say that tears are present when we are emotional.
Apart from the fact that our eyes produce tears, it is also a question of why our tears taste salty. With all of these queries, our tears hold much mysteries than it looks, and as useless as it seems, our tears have several benefits than what we can perceive.
In this article, let us take a look at the importance of tears, as well as its other interesting facts.
Why do we tear up when we are emotional?
All of us experienced to burst into tears and cry. What is the science behind this?Before we dig deeper, let us first know more about tears.
Tears are essential in our eyes, and it is not only present when we are emotional. Furthermore, there are three types of tears present in the human eye.
The first type of tear is what we call the basal tears, which acts as our eye’s maintenance. Every time we blink, our lacrimal glands or tear duct produces small amounts of basal tears, which will coat the surface of the eye with thin fluid. This fluid helps in washing the eye and keeping it moist to avoid irritation.
Next, we have the reflex tears, which is common when we are cutting onions. Ever tried to cut onions? When you cut onions, it will release its fumes, and when they touch your eyes, you will feel a mild sting around the eyes; then suddenly, tears would come out. This tear is what we call the reflex tears, and foreign objects such as dirt, smoke, and fumes are what triggers it.
Lastly, we have the emotional or psychic tears, which we will focus more on the article. Emotional tears are the main reason why we burst in tears whenever we are sad, happy, or angry. From the name itself, it is apparent that our emotions are what trigger this type of tear.
Meaning to say, whenever we are emotional, our lacrimal glands or tear duct, produce a more considerable amount of tears in response to this strong emotional state. Furthermore, psychic tears don’t only have more fluid; they also come along with a natural painkiller called leucine encephalin, as well as high levels of stress hormones.
Charles Darwin regarded emotional tears as useless or purposeless. However, different studies over the years seemed to show signs of the importance of emotional tears. There a more than one specific purpose of emotional tears that we know today, and various studies show several health benefits of tears to our body.
What are some health benefits of tears?
Now that we already established the importance of tears and the reason why we cry, we now know that it gives us various health benefits. Sometimes after a good cry, you would notice that you feel better. One reason for this is our body releases oxytocin and endorphinswhen we cry, and these are hormones responsible for producing and giving us a good feeling. They are the reason why we feel better after crying.
The same thing goes to our stress hormones. There are studies made in relation to our stress hormones that every time we cry due to stress, our body releases stress hormones in response. After crying, the tears flush out the stress hormones, which will lead to reduced stress levels.
Why do our tears taste salty?
Crying a lot, especially as a kid, will surely make us experience our tears rolling down from our eyes to our cheeks, then to our mouth. This experience may be quite funny since, after a good cry, you would suddenly have a taste of your tears. Once you do, you can notice that the tears taste a bit salty. Now our big question is, why?
There is no complicated reason why our tears have a salty taste. The main reason why it has a salty taste is that it came from our body fluids. Our body has several types of fluids for various purposes, and these fluids contain salt or electrolytes. That is why our lacrimal glands produce tears, including electrolytes, which explains why it has a salty taste.