eli5: In terms of body function, Is there a difference btw crying tears and happy tears?
In: Biology
Whether happy or sad or just have dust in your eye, it’s the same physiological process. The nervous system activates the lacrimal glands to make tears for crying during movies in the same way it also produces tears to lubricate (basal tears) and/or flush the eyes of irritants (reflex tears).
However, emotional tears have different chemical makeups, containing all sorts of stress hormones and painkillers. The type of emotion does indeed change the chemical makeup of this “cocktail”. Sadness tears contain more cortisol, electrolytes, things meant to soothe us after. Anger tears contain more adrenaline.
For more you may want to look into the research of Dr. William Frey of the Ramsey Medical Center at the University of Minnesota.
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