20 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Tears | Amazing Facts 4U
- Everyone starts life with that first cry. As you grow up, you still produce about 200 ml of tears a day, even if you never or rarely cry.
- Although babies have the same instinct to cry to satisfy their needs, each culture’s socialization processes lead to different ways of crying as an older child or adult.
- The film of tears on the eye is a complex system, in fact consisting of three layers of oil, water, and mucus. The water layer is the thickest and contains electrolytes like sodium and potassium, proteins (mostly enzymes), glucose, and other substances. Various facts in the outer oil layer slow evaporation.
- The specific composition of tears may change day today.
- The lacrimal glands that secrete tears are located on the outer portion of the upper eyes. They are peanut-sized. blinking spreads the tears across the eye surface. Tears drain into the tiny openings in the eyelids, called puncta (one on the inside corner of each lid), and then through ducts to the nasal cavity, where you either swallow them or they become part of nasal fluid.
- Besides lubricating the eye and flushing away debris, tears also serve the function of delivering oxygen and nutrients and removing waste products. Tears also improve the image that forms on the retina by smoothing any irregularities on the surface of the eyeball.
- Tears also serve as a defense mechanism. The antibodies, enzymes, and other immune components in tear help protect the eyes against microorganisms.
- There are three types of tears. Continuous (or basal) tears are produced for basic eye function, such as lubrication. Reflex (or irritant) tears occur when the eye is exposed to excessive light, the cold, wind, a foreign body, or irritating food like cut onions. Psychogenic tears are shed for emotional reasons.
- Crying is a way to communicate needs and elicit attention from others, at least in early life, and maybe a means of releasing emotional tension. As per research, psychogenic tears differ in composition from other tears, and crying may be a way to rid the body of stress-related chemicals.
- Boys and girls cry in equal frequency. Women reportedly cry more than men.
- When a person cries and the first drop of tears comes from the right eye, it’s happiness. But when the first tears come from the left, it’s pain.
- Emotional tears actually contain leucine encephalin, a natural painkiller.
- A baby who cries for more than 3 hours a day, more than 3 days a week, for more than 3 weeks may have abdominal colic.
- The ducts that drain tears from your eyes can become blocked due to aging, infection, inflammation, injury, tumor, or cyst causing symptoms of excessive tearing and watery eyes.
- In certain neurological conditions, crying along with laughing can be uncontrolled. The condition is called pathological laughing and crying (PLC). Laughter or sobbing can occur at inappropriate times. PLC can appear as a symptom of stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS).
- All vertebrates i.e. animals with backbones that spend time on land have continuous tears and perhaps reflex tears. Humans are the only animals that also have emotional tears. There are also reports of elephants shedding tears in grief.
- Syn-propanediol-S-oxide is the chemical released by onions in the air which irritates the eyes making lacrimal glands release more tears. New Zealand researchers have been able to produce tearless onions by inhibiting the gene that makes this chemical.
- If tear production declines or tears evaporate too quickly, the result is dry eye. Inflammation may play a role. Besides causing burning or grittiness, dry eye syndrome can cause blurry vision and can potentially damage the eye.
- Tears have the same composition as saliva made up of proteins, salt, and hormones.
- A woman’s tears amazingly send a particular chemical signal to men which causes a dip in male sexual arousal, which is an involuntary yet interesting means of nonverbal communication between the sexes.
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