Babies and toddlers crying loudly. They cry because they are hungry, cold, afraid or in pain… They cry at school, at home, in the park and in the supermarket. Many of them cry all the time or several times a day. It is clear that in the absence of oral language, the mechanism of crying allows children to demand the necessary attention for their care or to express a discomfort , having well established an adaptive function by obtaining as a result, the help of the adult who satisfies their most basic needs.

This adaptive advantage, which guarantees the survival of the species because it is a demand for help, especially in human babies, was already pointed out by Darwin in his research on the adaptation of species, as a universal phenomenon.

Why do adults cry?

The human being has the capacity to cry from birth until death, however, throughout socio-emotional development, the mechanism of crying modulates its evolutionary function of survival, according to the capacity of independence that it gains. That is, it is less frequent for an adult to cry because he is cold or hungry , because his adaptive mechanism will have moved on to more complex and resolute mobilization functions, channeling his resources to the active search for his own food or shelter.

But then, and especially in the first world, why do adults cry, if their basic needs are met, do we cry less as adults because it no longer serves us, why are some people more prone to crying and others who have not cried for years, does it do us good to cry or is it the unhelpful expression of simple discomfort? What is clear is that we are not talking about a mere biological effect, but a complex mechanism in which physiological, psychological and social functions converge.

The Biological Function of Tears

Biologically, tears are necessary for the maintenance of good eye health (lubrication of the eye, cleaning or protection from external agents) but they are also associated with powerful stimuli of an emotional nature, and not exclusively negative ones such as sadness, anguish, pain or frustration…but we also cry out of joy or surprise.

Crying and its relationship to emotional health

The understanding of crying in the adult human being and its relationship to emotional health has aroused great interest among experts and researchers. Some of the hypotheses that are being considered (even without empirical support) are that through crying a certain hyperactivity is released , helping to establish a balance or reduce specific stress. It is true that many people express feeling more relaxed after crying, but this assessment cannot be generalized since many others do not notice changes in their emotional state or may even feel worse.

Research has shown that the components of tears are different depending on the agent that produces them, so that the tears we secrete when we peel an onion are chemically different from the tears we generate from emotional stress. In addition to typical tearing there are other physical changes associated with emotional crying, such as redness of the face, sobbing, hyperventilation … “Emotional” tears are formed mainly by water, lipids, and other substances and differ from the others in that they contain a greater amount of hormones, which are usually associated with stress (prolactin, adrenocorticotropic and leucine encephalines).

The importance of the autonomic nervous system

The control of crying depends on the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for restoring a bodily state of rest or relaxation after a major effort, stress, danger or bodily function (e.g. digestion). It has a complementary and antagonistic function to the sympathetic branch.

In the face of an alert or high levels of tension, the sympathetic branch would be activated, preparing the organism for a possible fight or flight , understanding that in that moment it is not intelligent to stop and cry, but to react to save life or to solve a problem.

For its part, the parasympathetic acts by inhibiting itself at that moment and, later, recomposes itself to the normal state after the alarm. It is when the danger has passed that we can afford to relax and collapse. This explains why many people put up with powerful stressors and strong emotional shocks to which they react seemingly well, and after a while that is when the emotional low comes and crying starts.

Crying can help you relax

So can we say that crying helps to relax? For many people, we can say yes. It really is a form of emotional release that is necessary at times, very healthy and not at all harmful, which many prefer to reserve to do alone. Other people prefer to cry in company. Although their demand does not allude to the material resources of the other person, crying allows them to express and make a request for help that usually gets an emotional support response from the environment.

Crying activates in others their capacity for empathy and emotional protection, reinforcing certain personal relationships and attachments (any shoulder is not good for crying).

Despite the important role of crying, it still remains in society, a barrier that protects us from this emotionality, as if it were something negative or something that should be eradicated. Many people perceive themselves as vulnerable, weak, defenseless when they cry, having a negative effect on their self-image, which can be made worse if they do not also get the comfort they expect or need.

Socially we are not very tolerant of crying

Socially, we can say that we are not very tolerant to the crying of the other . We know that they suffer and we are hurt by their crying. The natural reaction of comfort is to want to prevent the other party from this expression, either by gender “men don’t cry”, “don’t be a crybaby”, “crying is for babies”, or by right “don’t be like that”, “don’t cry”, “tell me what you need but stop crying”, “it’s not worth crying about”. These expressions, so common, only reflect the discomfort that it represents for one, the emotional expression of the other and the inability to sustain facing such intensity, such a request for help and emotional support that an adult needs.

Let us leave a space and a time to cry, let us assume that its presence is necessary, let us not feel committed to having to make the origin of the crying disappear, let us not try to argue the reasons for not crying, let us simply accompany this natural reaction and normalize its function and effect .