why we cry

With the post-gym sweat still drying on my neck, beer in one hand and screw-driver in other, I felt surprisingly masculine for a boy who moisturises. How is it then, that 30 seconds of a television documentary about a cat befriending an old blind dog, produces that fatal ‘watery glaze’ over my eyes, and suddenly, desperately unable to rescue the situation, I have a tear in my eye.

Crying is part of our human emotional package – love it, or hate it. Of course, women are definitely better at it than men, with the number of cries per year estimated at 50 and 10, respectively. It begs the questions how does it all work, and what triggers our waterworks when we are both sad - and happy? Get your tissues at the ready, it’s all about tears this week.

Crying can be scientifically defined as the shedding of your tears in response to an emotional state; very different from ‘lacrimation’, which is the non-emotional shedding of tears. With that said, your plumbing apparatus that makes your tears is all the same. So before I dazzle you with the fact that we have more than one type of tear, let us explore the science of tear production and how it links to the emotional centre of your brain. To do this, we are going to use the classic example: the break-up.

“What do you mean it’s over?” you whimper, quivering lip in full frenzy.

With the ‘beginning of the end’ of the relationship, the production of your tears can begin. It is all down to your lacrimal system (think of it like your inbuilt Thames Water supply) that sits next to your eyeball. It is both a secretory system that produces your tears, and an excretory system, that drains them.