Why do we cry, and why does our nose run when we are sad? What’s the explanation behind it?
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Your nose runs because tears don’t just leak out your eyes, they also drain through your nose. And these tears can mix with mucous and then you get gross snotty discharge when you cry.
As for why we cry at all, it’s sort of difficult to know for certain what evolutionary goal was being achieved when the earliest humans started to cry. But shedding emotional tears triggers a cascade of hormones that can improve your mood and relieve stress.
There’s also a theory that their function is to alert friends and family that we’re upset. The logic behind this is that humans are an incredibly social species and in the earliest humans this was their most valuable asset. We didn’t have claws, or massive jaws with teeth or venom. We could throw things and we lived in cohesive families where teamwork was essential. So crying might have been a way to signal to provoke support or help.
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