Positive tears: what they are, and why crying can also be a good thing

What are positive tears and how do they influence our psychological well-being?

We usually associate crying with negative events and feelings of sadness or melancholy, but this is not always the case.

The tears we shed are sometimes produced by positive emotions and even when they are not, they can also have a beneficial effect. Let's review all these issues to discover the importance of positive tears..

What are positive tears?

The concept of positive tears has to do with the types of crying that are generated by pleasant emotions or by situations in which tears, despite coming from unpleasant events, have a positive effect on the person who is crying. Let us not forget that crying has an evolutionary function in human beings.It is an event that only occurs in our species.

Why we cry has been the subject of research for a long time. Scientists have discovered three basic forms of crying. The first is basal, which is produced automatically as a means of keeping the eye lubricated and eliminating any foreign body that may have come into contact with it. The second is reflexive and occurs when we are exposed to certain gases or substances released by onions, for example.

The third is the most important of all, and refers to psychic crying. This type of crying is produced by a variety of emotions. We usually associate it with negative emotions such as sadness, grief, melancholy, anger, frustration, fear, etc. But we must keep in mind that it is perfectly possible to have a psychic cry provoked by much more pleasant emotions, such as joy, laughter, love or gratitude, among others.such as joy, laughter, love or gratitude, among others.

Positive tears would be all the latter, but also those that come from negative emotions if this crying contributes to the person to feel better, as it is a form of emotional catharsis that helps to cause an improvement in the mood of the person, self-regulating to an experience that is causing very intense emotions.

What are the benefits of positive tears?

We have already formed a general idea of what positive tears represent. Now we must go deeper to know what are the main benefits we can get from them.

1. Emotional regulation

Surely the first thing that comes to mind when we think of positive tears are those coming from a very happy situation, in which the emotion overflows us, and therein lies the key to the first benefit. And this is the key to the first benefit. would be acting as an escape valve to regulate that emotion and help us to digest what we are living, because even if it is a pleasant event, even if it is not a pleasant event, it is not a good one.Because even if it is a pleasant event, it can be too intense.

This intensity can cause a saturation of our emotional assimilation systems and that is where the mechanism of positive tears comes in, which help us to lower this intensity and thus be able to assimilate what we are living in a simpler way for our body.

But the most important thing about this phenomenon is that it does not have to do with the direction of the emotion, that is to say, if it is positive or negative, but with the intensity of the emotion.. Therefore, positive tears also occur when we experience an unpleasant emotion such as those mentioned above, since in these cases they will also be acting as a form of regulation in the face of the intensity.

Thanks to crying we are able to assimilate more quickly intense situations that would otherwise overwhelm us. Hence, emotional regulation is the first of the benefits of positive tears and surely the most important of them all.

2. A form of communication

Positive tears have other uses. One of them is to communicating and transmitting to others our emotional state.. Sometimes words are not enough and must be complemented by non-verbal language. This is where crying would come in, which would act as a form of body language to make our interlocutor see what our current state is and what we need in this regard.

This communication brings with it empathy, since the simple fact of seeing someone crying already provokes in the other person a reaction to try to calm and comfort the one who is suffering this emotional overflow. In this sense, positive tears would be a way of communicating to others that we are experiencing a situation that overwhelms us and that we need help or attention in order to feel better about it.

3. Overcoming Pain and stress

We talked in the first point about the ability of positive tears to reestablish a balance in our emotional state.. This, in certain situations, is accompanied by another effect, which is the reduction of stress and pain that we may be suffering. This is due to a series of substances that our body releases during crying. Some of them are leucine-encephalin, ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), potassium or prolactin.

These elements modulate our state, acting as if they were an analgesic. As a result, the pain we feel, which can be physical or emotional, will decrease, thus providing us with the calm we need. This mechanism also works in stressful situations that have managed to overcome us.

According to some studies, crying generates a more pleasant sensation than the one we had previously felt.. The data indicate that 73% of men and 85% of women perceive this effect in this way, which supports the hypothesis of the power of positive tears as a determining factor to reduce our discomfort and thus reduce the possible stress or pain that we were suffering.

4. Improved sleep

Among the benefits of positive tears we find another not inconsiderable one. And it is that this type of crying has an influence on the quality of our sleepmaking it better. It is a chain effect, because by regulating our emotions and softening the state of stress in which we find ourselves, we also free our mind from a series of disturbing thoughts.

By having a clearer head in this aspect, it will be easier to fall asleep and complete cycles, thus achieving a better rest. We cannot forget how important it is for our health to enjoy quality sleep. When we lack this element, we suffer repercussions at all levels of our life, so being able to count on a tool such as positive tears is a real advantage.

5. Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge is another of the rewards that make positive tears so useful. It may seem strange, but the simple fact of being able to observe ourselves crying in a given situation can provide us with a lot of information and help us to know ourselves more deeply. Because no matter how old we are, we can always get to know ourselves better..

If a certain event causes us such intense joy or sadness that we begin to shed tears, we can go a step further and analyze the situation, inquiring about the components of that event that have managed to shake us emotionally in such a way that our body has had to resort to crying to restore its balance.

Obviously there are situations that are very negative or very positive in themselves and it is tremendously logical that they trigger a certain response in us, but other times we are faced with much more subtle events, such as a certain scene in a movie, a conversation with someone or witnessing an everyday act, which manages to move us.

It is these scenes that will open a door of exploration into ourselves, giving us some clues about what we keep in the deepest part of our being, such as those experiences or people who have touched us.We can also look for those experiences or people that marked us at some point, although we have never stopped to think about it.

6. Better humor

Finally, another of the contributions that positive tears have for us is the improvement in our mood. We have made a tour through different benefits of this mechanism and all of them have something in common, that they generate a welfare and a regulation in our state. All this results, as it can not be otherwise, in our mood and our mood..

Thanks to the escape valve of crying, once we have recovered normality, we will feel better, more relaxed and with more resources to face the situations of our daily life, having left behind an emotional overflow that was temporarily blocking us.

Once we know all these advantages, we will be aware of the importance of positive tears in our daily life.

Bibliographical references:

• Arias, M. (2011). Neurology of laughter and humor: pathological laughter and crying. Journal of Neurology.
• Levav, M. (2005). Neuropsychology of emotion. Particularities in childhood. Argentine Journal of Neuropsychology.
• Together we cry: Social motives and preferences for group-based sadness
• Porat, R., Halperin, E., Mannheim, I., Tamir, M. (2016). Together we cry: Social motives and preferences for group-based sadness. Cognition and Emotion. Taylor & Francis.
• Walter, C. (2006). Why do we cry? Scientific American Mind.