Man : Stone Eyes (Crying)

§  Crying (also called sobbing, weeping, wailing, whimpering, bawling, and blubbering)

• Is shedding tears  as a response to an emotional state in humans.

• The act of crying has been defined

o   as "a complex secretomotor  phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lachrymal appratus,

o   without any irritation of the ocular structures".

• A related medical term is lacrimation, which also refers to non-emotional shedding of tears.

§  In many cultures, it is more socially acceptable for women and children to cry, and less socially acceptable for men to cry.

          §  Tears are continually produced in small quantities by the Tear Glands,

o   which are located on the outer side of each eye, slightly above the eye and underneath the eyelid.

§  Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tears. They

o   contain significantly greater quantities of the hormones prolactin,

o     adrenocortic hormone, Leu-enkephalin and

o    the element pottassium and manganese

Function

• Response to inflicted pain

• A nonverbal commuinication  to elicit "helping" behavior from others

• A  biochemical purposes,

o   relieving stress

o   releasing toxins from the body

• Crying is believed to be an outlet or a result of a burst of intense emotional sensations, such as agony, surprise, or joy.

Effect

§  A common side effect of crying

·         Feeling a lump in the throat of the crier, known as a globus sensation.

·         A response to the stress experienced by the sympathetic nervous system 

o   shutting down unnecessary body functions, such as digestion, and

o   increasing blood flow and oxygen to necessary muscles

o   experiences emotions such as sorrow, the sympathetic nervous system still responds in this way.

·         An increased function by the sympathetic nervous system is breathing, which includes opening the throat in order to increase air flow. This is done by

o   expanding the glottis, which allows more air to pass

o   requires closing the fully expanded glottis to prevent food from entering the larynx. .

o   The glottis, however, attempts to remain open as an individual cries. This fight to close the glottis creates a sensation that feels like a lump in the individual's throat.

Frequency of crying

o  20% of bouts of crying last longer than 30 minutes o  8% go on for longer than one hour o  70% of criers make no attempt to hide their crying o  77% of crying takes place at home o  15% at work or in the car o  40% of people weep alone

o  6-8pm is the most common time for crying o  88.8% feel better after a cry o  47: average number of times a woman cries each year o  7: annual number of crying episodes for a man o  39% of crying occurs in the evening, the most popular time compared with morning, afternoon, and night (16, 29 and 17 per cent respectively

Lacrimal system

§  There are three types of tears : basal tears, reflexive tears, and psych tears.

§  Basal tears

·         Produced at a rate of about 1 to 2 microliters a minute, and are made in order to keep the eye lubricated and smooth out irregularities in the cornea. .

·         Tears, which are spread evenly over the front surface of the eye during blinking, clean and lubricate the eye.

o  An important component of tears is lysozyme, a chemical that inhibits bacterial growth on the eye's surface.

o  Some of the tears evaporate, but the remainder are drained into the nose through the Tear Duct, keeping the nose moist.

o  Lysozyme from the tears prevents bacterial growth in the nose as well.

§  Reflex tear

o   When some dust particle or micro organisms enters our eye, it responds by producing reflex tears.

o   Different chemical composition from the basal tears. Dust particles leave the eyes more quickly than the basal tears. While

o   cutting onion, suffering and seasonal allergies our eyes brim with tears and produces reflex tears to get rid of the sufferings.

o   Amino acids sulfoxides are present in onion which is a kind of organic molecule. After cutting the onion skin, allinases (a type of enzymes) forms a mixture with sulfoxides to get sulphenic acid.

o   When it comes in contact with the oxygen the sulfenic acid forms syn-propanethial-s-oxide and thiosulfinates which irritates our eyes and finally the eyes produce reflex tears.

§  Emotional tears

o   produced when extreme grip of a particular emotion like sadness, anger or sometimes happiness too.

o   our eyes produce emotional tears when we are physically injured because our body cannot differentiate between physical and emotional pain.

o   contain more manganese which highly affects our temperament and also have the enough prolactin, a hormone which is responsible for the regulation of milk production in the body.

o   are one of the sources of communication - babies to communicate and inform their parents that they are feeling pain or something is disturbing them - in adults crying creates a bond with the other person e.g. during funeral crying shows the extremity of sadness.

§  The lacrimal system 

•  Is made up of a secretory system, which produces tears, and an excretory system, which drains the tears.

•  The lacrimal gland is primarily responsible for producing emotional or reflexive tears.

•   As tears are produced, some fluid evaporates between blinks, and some is drained through the lacrimal punctum. The tears that are drained through the punctum will eventually be drained through the nose. Any excess fluid that did not go into the punctum will fall over the eyelid, which produces tears that are cried.

§  Hard times, more than any others,

•  Reveal to us the truth that the signature of our humanity is our emotional nature.

• What differentiates us from stones and butterflies is the degree to which what happens to us affects us on an emotional level. 

•    We don’t just experience things — get a divorce, lose our house, watch our dog die from eating poison — we have feelings about these events.

• It is the depth and degree of our feelings — of our joy, sorrow, anger, and fear — that give texture to our humanity.

§  Sorrow and grief are the emotions that apply

• when we experience loss, and

• crying is the body’s mechanism for expressing grief. It may seem self-evident that

• we should cry when we’re in pain, but it’s surprising how much we resist our tears. 

• Often it is only when we’ve been overtaken by them that we finally discover how terribly aggrieved we are.

§  We live in a culture that’s afraid of grieving; we don’t know how to cry.

•    When our lives fall apart in one way or another, we usually try to take control of things and solve them, forget them, or deny them — rather than experience them, accept them, or see the meaning they may hold for us.

•     That’s because underlying many of our responses to difficulty is the unstated assumption that we should be able to engage in life, liberty, and the unbridled pursuit of happiness without ever having to grieve — over anything.

•    It’s almost as if we believe that pain, suffering, and challenge are bad and should never be a part of our path.

§  The truth is that pain is

•    one of our greatest teachers,

•    hurt can be a  starting,

•    our sufferings are the portals to change.

§  This being true,

•    we need to know how to grieve,

•      to mourn, to shed our tears,

•     because grief is the cure for the pain of loss.

•    Tears are the medicine of grieving.

§  When life is hard, when you’re in a crisis, you should cry not because you’re weak but because crying holds the power of healing.

•   Tears, in fact, are the vehicle for transformation.

•   When you cry, your loss moves through you to the point of exit.

•  What was holding you up and eating you up, what was stuck inside your body, gets released and moves outside your body.

•    Your physical structure is quite literally cleansed and, like a blackboard sponged clean, is available to receive the imprint of whatever wants to come next.

•   That’s why, when you have cried, you will be reborn, free to begin again.

§  Crying out of fear

o     It softens the heart.

o     It is a quality of the righteous.

o     It is a distinct character of human kind.

o    It is the way leading to the pleasure of and attaining love.
 

§  Tears of sadness and tears of joy

o      Sadness; results from bad thing or missing out on something that one loves, both of which took place in the past.

o      The later (fear) is from things expected in the future.

o       Sadness due tears of joy are tears with coolness to the heart

o       While the tears due to sadness are hot and the heart is grieved. 

§  The wrong kind of tears

o       Hypocrisy, imitation, paid to cry of course deserve not a mention …

Things that brings joy;

“Delight (or coolness) to the eye”

Thing that brings sorrow;

“heat to the eye”