Health Check— Benefit of Tears (Lets Cry Often!)

When was the last time you cried?

They said that:

Tears are made of 1% water and 99% feelings

Proganda picture

So I cried recently (small matter). Something I need to do to calm myself. This is how my body works I guess. It needed to reboot itself through crying. We all did it at some point since we were babies. As an adult, it becomes less ritual and more contained. We put our body in a self-controlled mode, just to prevent our self to cry. Some sleep over its worries, some eat over it.

Women shed tears much easier than men, but I am not here to talk about this differences. What I am going to highlight is how these tears benefit our body scientifically. We've all done that. Relationship issues, family issues, exam's result, frustration at work, financial issue and so forth must have got us to cry at some point.

Our eyes create tears by this 3 methods:

Basal: Is the liquid constantly present in the eye, which ensures that the cornea is always wet and nourished.

Reflex: Reflex tears clear debris, like smoke and dust, from your eyes. These are tears triggered by irritants such as wind, smoke, or onions. They are released to flush out these irritants and protect the eye.

Emotional : Human response to a range of emotions. These tears contain a higher level of stress hormones than other types of tears.

I am no shrink but I know nothing wrong with crying. To make you feel better, I’m going to point out few good things about our tears that weigh beyond emotional reasons.

• Crying can improve your vision

Tears cleanse away your eye and keep it moist. Our tears are like the ocean which contain salt water. Most of the time membrane in our eyes will be dehydrated causing blurry vision. Think of it like drinking water. It keeps dehydration away, in this case, various mucous membranes. And that gives you the reason to dehydrate your eyes naturally rather than to use eye drop.

• Tears can kill bacteria

Tears contain lysozyme that works as an anti-bacterial to protects our eyes from infection. Studies found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which we accumulate during stress. Lysozyme is an antiseptic protein that can rupture bacteria cell wall.

• Aids sleep

Talking by experience, normally I fell asleep after crying so there is a connection between tears and sleeping. A study in 2015 found that crying can help babies sleep better. You can check them here. In an adult, there is no research done yet.

• Restores emotional balance

Crying does not mean that we are sad. Happiness, stress or scared can also cause you to shed some tears. Crying is your body’s way to recover from experiencing such a strong emotion thus restore emotional equilibrium.

Finally, a reason to cry. Crying is a normal human response to a whole range of emotions that have a number of health benefits. It is part of our body mechanism or I called it "miracles" in our body that works within our body system which we took them for granted.

Check out what else I blogged about ok!

• Addicted to Travel—Is It Time For Your Next Trip?
• Steepshot: Vertorama
• Steepshot: Chinese Painting

Jen.