This maybe be TMI but I found myself curious recently about why the body produces an increased amount of mucous, specifically snot, when one cries. The harder I cry, the more I find myself blowing my nose and eventually I end up exhausted and with a headache probably from that act alone. I actually googled (that is a word now, right?) "why crying produces more snot" and variations of that and did not find my answer quickly enough so I have yet to learn why. I did however learn that crying evolves as a communication tool for humans from infancy through adulthood and that there are different types of tears. The three types are defined below (abridged) in Wikipedia:
Basal tears: Lubricate the eye and keep it clear of dust and fight against bacterial infection in healthy mammalian eyes.
Reflex tears: Result from irritation to the eye by foreign particles, or substances such as onion vapors, tear gas or pepper spray. These tears attempt to wash out irritants that may have come into contact with the eye.
Crying or weeping (physic tears): Due to strong emotional stress, depression or physical pain. Not restricted to negative emotions; many people have been known to cry when extremely happy or when they are laughing. In humans, emotional tears can be accompanied by reddening of the face and sobbing — cough-like, convulsive breathing, sometimes involving spasms of the whole upper body. Tears brought about by emotions have a different chemical make up than those for lubrication. The tears contain hormones and 25% more proteins than the other types of tears.
I found the last tear tier to be the most interesting of all partly because it is what brought me to my research and because the content of the tears is so different from other tears. I'll need to continue looking up snot but at least I learned something both from my tears and about them.
BTW -- The title of this post is from an Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint song off of their album River in Reverse and is a great tune.
2 comments:
According to Yahoo Answers at http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061207114958AAIWAWV:
Actually our eyes have a lacrimal system ( tear production) that keeps the eyes wet to prevent from infections. These tears are drained to a small opening( just pull your lower lids down in front of the mirror and you ll see the small opening)located on the lower lid with every blink. This is connected to nose via a system of ducts that opens in the nose( nasolacrimal duct). Its funtion is to drain your tears produced by lacrimal glands situated above your eyes behind upper eyelids to nose. When you are emotionally excited or crying its funtion is overwhelmed and it tries its best to drain the excessive production of tears.
Thank you "emotional snot". So, I cry because I'm overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes essentially produce snot when they are overwhelmed by my being overwhelmed. Overwhelming.
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