I thought this was interesting information...go on and have a good cry-you may be balancing your hormones!
Thursday, July 7, 2005
The CRYING Game
There really is such a thing as a 'good cry.'
By STUART KELLOGG/Staff Writer
In Chapter 4 of "Oliver Twist," as the beadle, Mr. Bumble, is taking 9-year-old Oliver to be apprenticed to an undertaker, a tear runs down the orphan's cheek:
"It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's, he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers....
" 'I will be good indeed (Oliver sobbed); indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so - so - '
" 'So what?' inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.
" 'So lonely, sir! So very lonely!' cried the child."
Several months later, Oliver is beaten up by five people: two men, a woman, a slatternly girl and a superlatively nasty boy.
But once he is alone, Oliver falls to his knees, weeps and gains the courage to run away from the undertaker's.
These episodes illustrate two reasons why we cry: as an involuntary response to strong emotion and also as a way to release stress.
Writing in Gibbs magazine, Wendy Norlund said: "First of all, there are really three different types of tears.
"Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated constantly. Reflex tears are produced when our eyes get irritated, like with onions or when something gets into our eyes. The third kind of tear is produced when the body reacts emotionally to something.
"Each type of tear contains different amounts of chemical proteins and hormones."
According to "Have a Good Cry" by Victor M. Parachin, who has studied the efficacy of tears since 1966, "As far back as 1957, it was known that emotional tears are chemically different from tears that result from eye irritation. Emotional tears contain more beta-endorphins, some of our bodies' natural pain relievers, and protein."
In "Crying: The Mystery of Tears" (Minnesota: Winston Press, 1985), William Frey II a biochemist and research director of the Dry Eye and Tear Research Center at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota wrote:
"Emotional tearing may be similar to the other excretory processes, which remove waste products or toxic materials from the body. My formal study of crying began with the theory that emotional tears play a precise and central role in helping restore the chemical balance of the body by excreting substances produced by the body in response to stress."
Indeed, emotional tears contain higher concentrations of manganese and the pituitary hormone prolactin.
Almost like lancing a boil, bursting into tears reduces the levels of manganese and prolactin, thereby helping to restore chemical and hormonal balance and keep depression at bay.
When Frey asked subjects to keep diaries of when and why they cried, he found that:
Sadness prompted 49 percent of tears;
Happiness, 21 percent;
Anger, 10 percent;
Sympathy, 7 percent;
Anxiety 5, percent; and
Fear, 4 percent
Whatever the emotion, it stimulates the cranial nerve, which causes the lacrimal glands to tighten up, squeezing out tears.
As for the lovely experience of having your nose run when you cry, this is caused by tears flowing into the lacrimal sacs at the inside corners of the eyes, and thence to the nasolacrimal ducts and into the nose.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/2005/112074131315281.html
