Crying - by Edward Willett

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who cry at movies and those who don't. I freely admit I'm one of the former. I even cry during TV sitcoms. Heck, sometimes I even cry during commercials (only the really good ones, though).

Just why some people cry more easily than others isn't well understood. In fact, why we cry at all isn't well understood, especially since, so far as we know, only human beings release tears in response to strong emotion. In other words, all animals tear up in response to pain, but only humans get dewy-eyed in response to It's A Wonderful Life.

Charles Darwin closely studied crying children, and noted that they contract the muscles around their eyes during prolonged screaming. He thought that involuntary behavior helped to protect the eyes, and tears were just a by-product.

Dr. William Frey of Minnesota, on the other hand, suggests that crying makes people feel better because emotional tears help rid the body of chemicals that build up as a result of stress. Irritant tears (which Frey produced in his subjects with onion vapors) are chemically different from emotional tears (which he produced by showing sad movies).

Emotional tears have more protein in them, including various stress hormones. Other researchers theorize that crying may stimulate the release of endorphins, substances that elevate our mood and relieve pain.

Frey also determined how often people cry. He found that crying frequency for womenaverages 5.3 times a month, while crying frequency for men ranges averages 1.4 times a month.
In addition, women's crying is far more likely to send tears rolling down their cheeks. When men cry, 70 percent of the time all that happens is their eyes fill with tears.

This difference crops up around age 12 or 13, which supports the idea that hormones are involved. Prolactin, for instance, involved in the menstrual cycle, breast development and lactation, may also help stimulate tears: drugs that reduce prolactin levels have can reduce excessive crying caused by neurological disease. Male hormones, such as androgen or testosterone, may have the opposite effect, actually inhibiting crying. Differences in the levels of these hormones among individuals could help explain why some people cry more than others.

None of this really explains why humans cry emotional tears when other animals don't. The most likely explanation is that we've discovered crying is a powerful form of communication: specifically, it makes other people want to help us.

Most people say they feel better after they cry. Some researchers feel that's only true if other people comfort you when you cry; they say you probably won't feel better after crying by yourself. Frey doesn't buy that, but other research, in which 150 women were shown brief tear-jerking clips from the movie Steel Magnolias, discovered that, far from reducing the level of stress, seemed to enhance it, as measured by heart rate, sweat gland activity and skin temperature: the more the women cried, the more upset they became. That would seem to indicate that, indeed, crying is more important as a signal to others that we need help than as a means of relieving stress.

It's definitely true that we cry more readily some places than others. Few people cry at work, instead, they save it for between 7 and 10 p.m., when they're home with their "significant other."
Children instinctively use crying as a form of communication. Everyone has seen children fall down and bump their head who don't cry when they think there's no one around, but burst into tears the moment someone looks at them. It's not as manipulative as it seems: they're on the verge of crying anyway, and the presence of someone just encourages them to let go.
For some people, the fact that crying is seen as a plea for help is reason enough not to cry: it shows vulnerability. But not crying has its own consequences. Whether you cry or not, your stress level still goes up. If you cry and get help or sympathy from those around you, you calm down faster than if you don't cry. Stewing in your own stress juices can harm your health in the long run.

Socially, crying is more acceptable now than it once was. Edmund Muskie lost the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 after he cried in public; Bill Clinton cries all the time and nobody seems to care.
So go on, have a good cry. It's all right.
Wonderfully written science columns have that effect on me, too.