From a very young age, we have learned more or less to distinguish the emotions that are going through us, especially using simple diagrams. Very early on, we are taught for example that when we laugh, it is because joy or euphoria invades us. Conversely, tears occur when pain or sorrow takes over. Nothing could be simpler.
Problem: nature follows its own logic and likes us to prove us wrong. While we split the pear and laugh to the fullest, we sometimes start to cry. Cry with laughter, certainly, but cry anyway! Simple fortuitous coincidence or too long buried that rises to the surface? None of this.
Emotional machine
Righting with throat deployed until you cry is not a paradox, it is even a very natural phenomenon. Nothing to do, either, with hidden sadness. This reaction actually stems from a physiological phenomenon that could not be more normal, triggered by a rise in too intense emotions, which transform you into a real washing machine mixing white and colors.
When this emotional spinning mode is launched, crying with laughter would be a means for the brain to rebalance too strong and positive emotions, researchers from Yale University argue. In other words, when you are overwhelmed by a laughter, you reach an emotional peak such that your body instinctively seeks to calm this excitement to return to normal. And the only way he found is to make you cry. Just to disturb you a good blow and calm all these beautiful people. You shouldn’t be happy too long either!
If, by this funny ploy, your body is more easily recovered (and faster) from your emotions, other phenomena implemented at the time of a laugh also explain these tears that suddenly occur, without crying. When we laugh intensely, the facial muscles contract strongly and physical pressure can stimulate the lacrimal glands – this responsible for the production of tears. In the brain, it’s the same: crying and laughter activate neighboring areas. Crying and laughing are therefore intimately linked, like two somewhat bizarre cousins.
Under high tension
Not so fast! Did you think we had finished with this explanation? Far from it. Laughing and crying have another common point: they are both regulatory functions of stress. In a period of intense tension, cry hot tears or nervous laughing acts as a kind of outlet. Bidding and chouining merge, once again, to release this accumulated tension. Not easy to see clearly in their game.
Even better: these two reactions also release neurotransmitters such as endorphins, dopamine or even serotonin. Substances that provide a feeling of well-being, but which can also trigger involuntary physical reactions, such as … cry. In short, it is the snake that bites its tail and at the end, we cry.
If you look more closely, laugh, even in a very intense way, do not necessarily induce that tears occur. This is one of the most fascinating characteristics of this phenomenon: crying with laughter is an intimate experience, which we do not share with everyone. It is a moment of vulnerability, which can strengthen the complicity between individuals. A kind of vector of social ties, where emotions mix in a slightly chaotic, but not so unpleasant gloubi-boulga.
Smiles and tears
What if we looked at things even closer? By “closer”, we mean … under a microscope. Does a tear of laughter resemble, like two drops of water, to a tear of sorrow, or to a tear caused by a slightly too spicy onion? The answer may surprise you: no, they are not identical.
Even if all the tears come from the lacrimal gland, their composition depends directly on what triggered them. The human body actually produces three main categories of tears: basal tears, produced continuously to protect the cornea; Reflex tears, triggered by irritation; And finally, emotional tears, caused by a strong emotion. Each has a different function and therefore a composition that varies (slightly) too. For example, emotional tears would be richer in protein than reflex tears, because they contain hormones naturally produced by the body to soothe pain and reduce stress.
