An Introduction to Crying

Crying is a mysterious and often misunderstood phenomenon.  As an introduction to crying, it can be defined as a way to express grief, pain, anger, joy or other emotions by tears, voice or both.

We humans secrete a host of fluids that no one wants to see. Tears are pretty much the only secretion that people around us will tolerate; and even then, their acceptance of our crying behavior depends upon many complex factors.

You’ve heard people say, “Crying is normal.” Yet, every day people are chastised, criticized, ridiculed and put down for their display of tears—or lack of them. How much do we really know about this human response? Who cries and why?  Who doesn’t cry and why?

Crying is Complex

According to researchers Balsam, Cracanin, & Vingerhoets (2019), crying behavior includes: vocalizations, tear production, facial musculature, subjective emotional experience, emotion regularity behaviors, and social behaviors. Human infants share distress calls with the young of most other mammals and birds. The researchers conclude: “Human emotional crying is a complex and important behavior that has surprisingly received relatively little attention for scientists.”

Despite this, we wrote The Crying Handbook to help you gain some insight into the mystery of tears.  We provide you with some of the research on what we know and are still learning about crying.

And we have chosen to look at crying from the other side of the tissue box—the lighter side. We don’t think that reading this will cause you to cry, but if you do, go for it. We both have shed our own rivers of tears and invite you to join us on this journey.

Descriptions of Crying

L.B. Lofgren provided an interesting description of crying:

At the beginning of the process the person may look away, blink and show a sniffling jerk. If the process continues, the person’s chin may tremble and the lips may purse. The person may be unable to talk or the voice may quiver. With further progression, respiration begins a series of short, irregular, deep and gasping expirations.

The face shows crinkling of the features, puckering of the brow and downward force of the mouth. The shoulders may slump forward and redness and puffiness may fill the face.

Or you might enjoy this description we came up with based upon our years of experience watching people cry:

At the beginning the person may have a faraway look, like the kind you see when you forgot the answer to a simple question, such as “What is your name?” This is followed by the nose moving upward toward the eyes giving a snout-like appearance. This causes squinting, blinking, clouding vision and an overall attempt toward blindness to the incoming bad news.

The chin and lips may vibrate at 5-6 cycles per second as the intended words “What’s happening” come out as “Whaa-whaa-whaa.” As the brain feels its blood drain, its need for oxygen kicks in, causing gasping for breath. If crying continues to its crescendo, the person’s wailing brings people walking by to stare and wonder, “What’s going on?”

Excerpted from The Crying Handbook: Bob Baugher, Ph.D., Darcie Sims, Ph.D.: 9780963597564: Amazon.com: Books