Who Sheds Emotional Tears?

The article, “The Misty Science of Why We Need a Good Cry,” by Dana G. Smith, appeared on the front page of the New York Times on November 16, 2024. My letter, “Emotional Tears,” was written in response to her piece. It was published on November 30th and appears below.

Opinion

Letters

Nov. 30, 2024

Emotional Tears

Who sheds emotional tears? We do, but elephants seem to also. These pachyderms, the largest of land mammals, become seemingly distressed after one of their own dies. Filmed by wildlife filmmakers, they appear to show grief-related behaviors like trying to cover their dead and shedding tears.

For humans, however, tears are not all the same, as Dana G. Smith writes. They come in three basic kinds: 1) basal tears that keep eyes lubricated, protecting them from drying out; 2) reactive tears that wash out irritants in the eyes like onion vapors; and 3) emotional tears that flow in narrow rivulets or gush out in uncontrollable streams, and that come from intense feelings.

We cry when we grieve the loss of a loved one, when we’re moved by a sunset or standing in the redwood forest, when we’re astounded with joy, and even when we convulse with laughter.

To cry, to shed emotional tears is the body’s way of externalizing intense emotion. Their biochemical composition is different from basal or reactive tears. Emotional tears contain leucine enkephalin, a neuropeptide in the brain that is related to endorphins. It’s why we usually feel better after we cry.

Dorothy P. Holinger
Brookline, Mass.
The writer, a psychologist formerly on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, is the author of “The Anatomy of Grief.”

But what about the tears themselves? The three images below highlight the differences between different types of tears. Rose-Lynne Fisher photographed the shapes, patterns, and textures of tears elicited by different emotions—such as sadness, laughter, and grief. These images, while “not a controlled scientific study,” seem to indicate that tears shed in grief show a different pattern than tears from change and tears of possibility/hope.