Chapter 64 64．Is crying a disease?

Q mouse Biao asked Why do I love to cry so much?A lot of times, I'm actually not that moved, and my heart is even saying, there's nothing to cry about, but I still shed tears.This kind of time includes: when watching the five-star red flag rise in Tiananmen Square on TV, when watching athletes win gold medals in the Olympics (mainly, I don’t think gold medals are so awesome at all), when the New Year’s bell rings ( Damn, I'm one year older, what's there to be excited about)... What is the physiological mechanism of crying?Crying is not directly related to psychological touch, right?Is there any way to cure my crying disease?What a shame.

A Seren A mouse Biao Crying is a question that interests me especially, because I myself am a person who seldom sheds tears.From a very young age, I have wondered, why do people cry?Why do some people cry frequently, while others, like me, find it difficult to shed tears no matter how sad a novel or movie they read? However, the first thing I discovered after I picked up this question was that I was surprised: there is far less scientific research on a human behavior as common and profound as tearing than I thought .I'm not alone. William Frey, a professor at the University of Minnesota, once said in an interview: "There is so little research on emotional factors and what kind of physiological role it has in our lives. Believe me." However, in the reading of the scales and claws, I finally have a little more understanding of tears.

What is your Chinese dream? It is said that a person has an average of 1460 dreams a year, which already takes up a lot of time, and I don't need another dream.You can ask my cat, it also dreams. Human tears are divided into three types: "basal tears" (basal tears) It is the fluid that our lacrimal glands constantly drain.It's not just salt water.Tears contain many different kinds of chemicals, including small molecules, lipids and proteins.Many important hormones are also found in tears.These tears moisten our eyeballs day and night, wash away dirt and dirt, and can inhibit bacterial infections.Although we often can't feel its existence, its effect on eye health is extremely important.Another kind of tears is called "reflex tears". This is the tears that are released in large quantities when we cut onions or when the eyes are blown into gravel. When the eyes are "attacked", they wash the eyeballs and eye sockets. Taking away harmful substances can also protect the windows of our soul.

The third type of tears, mentioned in the question, is the one we care about the most, but the one that has been least studied: emotional tears.This kind of tears is considered by many scholars to be unique to human beings, and it is related to our most basic emotions.The limbic system in the brain controls these ancient human emotions and also controls our tear ducts.And various hormones related to psychology and emotion also play an important role in regulating tears.Interestingly, scientists have compared the chemical composition of emotional tears, reflex tears, and basic tears, and found that the former contains only a lot more proteins and specific hormones than the latter.So some people think that the reason why many people feel good after crying is that tears take away some hormones related to psychological stress and depression.

In addition to decompression, tears also have the function of communication and communication. Although tears may have different meanings in different cultures, they all play the role of showing people's inner emotions.Before we learned to speak, we relied on crying to express our grievances and get the attention of loved ones.In the adult world, tears often reveal our sadness and helplessness, arouse the sympathy of others, and exchange for comfort and support.However, this simple "communicate, get attention" theory is far from enough to explain why we cry - many people only cry when they are alone, and many babies don't shed tears at all when they cry.In recent years, an article published in the "Science" magazine linked women's tears with reduced male sexual arousal-the study showed that after sniffing women's tears, although male subjects did not know these liquids at all What, they did show lower libido and androgen levels.Brain imaging showed that they also had reduced activity in areas of the brain associated with sexual arousal.The authors believe that women's tears may contain certain chemical signals (chemosignals) that produce this effect.

Perhaps it is precisely because tears are related to too many human emotions, including sadness, pain, fear, panic, and even joy, satisfaction, and surprise, so its psychological and physiological mechanisms are particularly intricate, and the frequency and intensity of each individual's tears Also so different.And, while emotional tears are linked to emotions and encounters, genetics also appear to play a role in controlling tear frequency.Studies have shown that identical twins with identical DNA sequences are more similar in crying frequency than fraternal twins who share only 50% of their DNA.

While tearing to some degree may be a normal psychological and physical response, the frequency of tearing or crying in some people does differ from others.For example, more than one study has shown that people with deep depression cry less, and interestingly (or sadly), another study has found that antidepressants themselves may also reduce the frequency of tears.Of course, this does not mean that people who cry less have depression (the author of this article is one of the many counterexamples), but the relationship between the frequency of tears and mental illness provides an interesting insight for the few studies on tears. direction.

At the end, I still can't explain why some people love to cry and some people don't, and I can't provide an exact answer to "why we cry".But there is no doubt that, no matter how much or how little, emotional tears are an important and unique human characteristic and a valuable experience for each individual.