10 unnecessary ridiculous facts about crying
Honestly: it's actually crazy things, those salty drops leaking from your eyes. Whether it's from sadness, joy, emotion, or because you're chopping that damn onion, tears come in all shapes and sizes. Time for some weird facts.
1. Strange but true: if you cry from joy, the first tear comes from your right eye. If you cry from sadness, the first tear comes from your left eye.
2. Weuw. When an astronaut cries in space, the tears stick to their face.
3. What those eye drops consist of might surprise you. Chemically, tear fluid is almost the same as saliva. Both mainly consist of hormones, proteins, water, and salt.
4. Oh, and if you're wondering: the term ‘crocodile tears’ comes from the sound of children's cries that crocodiles produce when luring prey. Aha.
5. Women cry an average of 20 to 50 times a year, while men ‘only’ cry 5 to 20 times.
6. Which is quite bizarre, because if you calculate that out, women cry an average of 16 (!) months of their lives. It seems to be due to the hormone prolactin. In men, the hormone testosterone actually counteracts crying fits, which is why they cry less.
7. But why do we often cry when we're alone? Well, tears are self-soothing, just like a gentle massage or a shower can trigger your body to produce endorphins when tears are streaming down your cheeks. Yes, a pain-relieving hormone. In other words: tears are ‘self-hugs’. Aah. I'm almost looking forward to it.
8. Pretty cute, because in the first weeks, babies want to cry non-stop, but they simply don't have any tear fluid yet. That starts being produced somewhere between 3 to 12 weeks on earth, and only then can they officially join in ‘it's my party and I cry if I want to’.
9. Research shows that viewers who cry during an emotional movie experience a dip in their feelings, but feel better afterward than before they started the film.
10. Do you also cry when you see a loved one sniffing? That's due to mirror neurons in our brains, which mimic the same kind of action. When we see someone crying, we feel their pain. How sweet we actually are, huh?
