Origin of Tears
When we watch a sad movie, when we are overwhelmed by stress, after staring at a computer monitor, our bodies release tears. Why?
Crying comes from 2 aspects: biology & emotions. From the biological aspect, it assists us to : keep the eye moist, remove irritants on the eye, and promote tissue repair. From the emotional aspect, it assists us to : produce a range of emotions, from sadness & grief to extreme happiness and relief.
While it may seem obvious why our bodies developed tears for lubricating, healing, and protecting the eye. Emotional tears are less clear. Emotions are prominent in humans, sobbing can be frequent, but the emotions of animals are less visible to us.
Emotional tears assist humans to build social bonds through displaying vulnerability and helps humans recover from incidents through the release of stress hormones from the body.
Socials bonds are key to surviving on Earth as a human. It permits you to obtain resources from others that would be inaccessible if alone. For example, you want a plastic container to hold your salmon you cooked tonight. Well, a human had a to synthetize the plastic, shape it in a factory, then ship it to you. And synthetizing plastic ain’t easy as a single humans with only dirt and trees around you.
In addition, social bonds allow you to to have shared experiences with another and to express your inner challenges to another . This is beneficial for your physical and mental health. From the chemicals that are released to the sense of relieve and relaxation one feels.
What would life be without tear ducts?
Without tears ducts in our ears, life would be challenging. Each time you open and close your eyes, you will feel your eye lid scrap against your eye as a ball and sandpaper. Bacterial and foreign particles would enter and infect your eye until your eye is destroyed. And you would have no natural way of repairing the eye.
A condition that may humans are familiar with these days is dry eyes. This is a condition where the tear ducts do not function properly, resulting in a limited amount of tears reaching the eye.
Hypothetically, if your dry eyes get so bad that you can no longer cry. What would life be like?
For myself, the lack of social bonds, the inability to share my vulnerability with my body language, the intense friction on my eye, and the feeling of my eye being attacked. This would be too much for me to handle. I would feel my mind and body go through intense struggle.
So while cryness may mean your sad. There are so many benefits and reasons why crying is essential for a high quality of life.
