Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
The science of laughing and crying
Q: Does laughing really help people?
Krishna:
My reply is going to surprise you.
You might have heard this…
In modern society, fierce competition and socioeconomic interaction stress the quality of life, causing a negative influence on a person's mental health. Laughter is a positive sensation, and seems to be a useful and healthy way to overcome stress. Laughter therapy is a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapies that could make physical, psychological, and social relationships healthy, ultimately improving the quality of life. Laughter therapy, as a non-pharmacological, alternative treatment, has a positive effect on the mental health and the immune system. In addition, laughter therapy does not require specialized preparations, such as suitable facilities and equipment, and it is easily accessible and acceptable. For these reasons, the medical community has taken notice and attempted to include laughter therapy to more traditional therapies. Decreasing stress-making hormones found in the blood, laughter can mitigate the effects of stress. Laughter decreases serum levels of cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone, and 3,4-dihydrophenylacetic acid (a major dopamine catabolite), indicating a reversal of the stress response. Depression is a disease, where neurotransmitters in the brain, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, are reduced, and there is something wrong in the mood control circuit of the brain. Laughter can alter dopamine and serotonin activity. Furthermore, endorphins secreted by laughter can help when people are uncomfortable or in a depressed mood. Laughter therapy is a noninvasive and non-pharmacological alternative treatment for stress and depression, representative cases that have a negative influence on mental health. In conclusion, laughter therapy is effective and scientifically supported as a single or adjuvant therapy (1).
But the truth is - laughter isn’t always positive or healthy. According to science, it can be classified into different types, ranging from genuine and spontaneous to simulated (fake), stimulated (for example by tickling), induced (by drugs) or even pathological. But the actual neural basis of laughter is still not very well known – and what we do know about it largely comes from pathological clinical cases. Laughter is a communal activity which promotes bonding, diffuses potential conflict and eases stress and anxiety. But it loses its momentum quickly when indulged in alone (solitary laughter can have ominous connotations). And certain mental conditions make people laugh and cry at the same time.
A study(2) found patients laughed at “frankly inappropriate” moments, including watching news reports about natural disasters, or seeing a car parked badly. One recalled a relative laughing after a loved one badly scalded herself. Dementia patients were likely to find satirical or absurdist comedy less funny than slapstick, such as Mr Bean, the study found. After the patients were diagnosed, respondents said that they noticed “a shift in patients’ comedy preferences toward the fatuous and farcical”. The study found that an increasingly twisted sense of humour and laughing at inappropriate times could be an early indication of dementia!
There are a number of other specific conditions that may also be associated with abnormal brain wiring. Gelotophobia is an intense fear of being laughed at and denotes depression). Gelotophilia is the enjoyment of being laughed at! The related condition katagelasticism is the joy of laughing at others.
There is a myth that laughing works well always. But that is not entirely true according to latest research. Sometimes, when you are emotionally distressed, crying helps! Laughter does have the power to override other emotions momentarily – but not fully.
Emotional tears starts in the cerebrum where sadness is registered. When you are sad, crying can actually make you feel physically and emotionally better. According to some scientists, chemicals build up in the body during times of elevated stress. These researchers think that emotional crying is the body's way of ridding itself of these toxins and waste products. One study collected both reflex tears and emotional tears (after peeling an onion and watching a sad movie, respectively). When scientists analyzed the content of the tears, they found each type was very different. Reflex tears are generally found to be about 98 percent water, whereas several chemicals are commonly present in emotional tears. First is a protein called prolactin, which is also known to control breast milk production. Adrenocorticotropic hormones are also common and indicate high stress levels. The other chemical found in emotional tears is leucine-enkephalin, an endorphin that reduces pain and works to improve mood. Of course, many scientists point out that research in this area is very limited. Some scientists think that crying is beneficial and that crying could be a safety mechanism of sorts because it rids the body of stress-related toxins. Whether or not you buy into this theory, most psychologists say that holding your emotions in can be dangerous over the long-term. In fact, some research indicates that stifling emotional tears can cause elevated risk of heart disease and hypertension. Psychologists recommend that people suffering from grief express their emotions through talking and crying, rather than keeping their emotions in check and laughing artificially.
Experts list these benefits of crying (3):
Crying helps release stress hormones from the body
On a physical level, emotional tears help relax the body and allow it to release stress. When we shed tears of the emotional variety, we are quite literally expelling stress hormones and other toxins from our body, which promotes a feeling of release and calm. In fact, scientists are finding that emotional tears actually contain additional hormones and proteins that aren’t found in the other two types of tears at all. While research is still ongoing, all you need to know is this: “Emotional tears help to release stress hormones from the body when we are upset” . “Typically, after crying, our breathing, and heart rate decrease, and we enter into a calmer biological and emotional state.”
Crying helps us process our emotions and ultimately, heal
“We cry when we are upset because it is our body’s way of processing and releasing stress”. “You don’t want intense emotions to build up in your body—such as anger, depression or grief—and crying helps you heal and process these emotions.” If you’ve ever repressed your emotions for too long (probably because of societal stigma), then you know how terrible it feels when everything eventually, and inevitably, boils over. “You don’t want to hold tears back. Crying makes us feel better, even when a problem persists” . “In addition to physical detoxification, emotional tears heal the heart.”
Crying releases endorphins in the body
At the same time that stress hormones are being expelled from the body, other feel-good hormones are being released inside of it. These include oxytocin, also known as the love hormone, which helps us feel connected to others. After a bout of crying, endorphins—the body’s natural pain reliever, also called the bliss hormone—are also stimulated and released within the body. This is part of the reason why a vigorous crying session “can be exertional, almost like a workout” . “It helps to dissipate energy.” According to the American Academy of Opthalmology, emotional tears also contain higher levels of Leu-enkephalin, an endorphin that helps mitigate pain and improve mood.
Crying helps us bond with others
You might think that bursting into tears would push someone away, but on the contrary, experts say that crying’s very function is actually to bring us closer together. “Crying helps us to bond interpersonally and acts as a way to non-verbally communicate with others” . “Among all the theories about why humans cry, the most widely accepted is that it is a way to enhance our ability to communicate at an advanced level. It helps us communicate our desire for help, connection, or share in moment with others, whether sadness or joy.”
So in Japan some people have taken the notion of "a good cry" to the next level. They hold organized crying clubs where they watch sad movies and television shows and read tear-inducing books to actually cry!
Now decide for yourself whether you want to laugh or cry! :)
References:
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What are emotional tears? The reasons why crying may be a nonverbal signal
All humans cry. Some of our tears are meant to keep our eyes moist and healthy. Others clean out the eye from dust, pollens and other pollutants.
Emotional tears play another role. Although triggered by strong feelings such as anger, pain, fear, or disappointment, there are aspects of these tears that have not been fully studied.
In a paper called "Emotional tears: What they are and how they work", researchers examined an unexplored territory in the world of emotional tears. The work is published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour.
The paper concluded that tears are nonverbal signals that communicate the value a person places on acts, ideas, and events. Tears are—more or less—honest signals of how a person perceives a state of the world—from the most joyous to the darkest.
Tears accompany great achievements and severe loss. They occur when in love, when grateful, and when angry. The ubiquitous nature of tears might seem to resist a functional explanation. However, the researchers suggest that tears, much like yelling, shouting, and screaming, convey the intense amplitude of a felt state.
Tears signal internal evaluations to targets as a means to an end—as a bid to adjust the target's own evaluations and behaviors in ways that would favor the tearer," the authors wrote. "For example, tearing up may cause your spouse to stop doing something you dislike them doing."
The researchers argue that people tear up more when their aggressive formidability or ability to generate benefits is low; that is, when people are of low leverage in a given social situation.
To some degree, that explains why women tend to cry more than men and children tend to cry more than adults. In our society, most men still hold a superior status—both physically and in terms of power, she said. Thus, women in a situation that involves conflict with a man tend to cry, but in the same situation with another woman, they may not.
The capacity for anger and the physical imposition of costs would not have been foreign to ancestral women, who would have engaged in female–female physical conflicts and also dealt with less formidable children and juveniles," the authors wrote. "But male–female conflicts posed great threats to women, and so the ability for women to shift from direct aggression to tears would have been adaptive. In contrast, tears and other signals of low formidability would have had more adverse effects on a male's fitness."
Of course, tears might also occur even in individuals who have extreme leverage in a given situation, for instance, when expressing the intensity of the pride they feel at their own accomplishments. As an amplitude signal, tears can be shed by all.
The study found that criers tend to cry emotional tears near people who can empathize with their plight and comfort them. That explains why a child may fall but only start crying when they reach their parents or caretakers. The intensity of the crying signal required to obtain consideration can provide tacit information about which individuals care and how much. In some situations, a person may cry around people who tend to care about them, and if a few tears do not work, then they may sob. The mind strategically determines how much crying is necessary.
Criers are perceived as less physically formidable. A crier, in negative contexts, is signaling that they have assessed a situation as imposing undue costs. Whereas women, for whom tears are more frequently used in social negotiations, might understand that tears are associated with perceived costs, men might interpret such signals as general weakness and suggest the person is physically and potentially mentally incapable of handling a situation. This may be translated into perceptions of incompetence. Pregnant women tend to cry more than nonpregnant women because they are more needy and more vulnerable.
Although the paper only briefly touches on tears and various psychopathologies, the researchers mention that sensitivity to another's tears varies between people. While most people understand tears to mean "I am hurt" or "I need help" or, more generally, "I am experiencing a cost," clinical groups like psychopaths and narcissists, who lack empathy, do not interpret tears in this way. It is almost like they are immune to the manipulative effects of tears yet have no trouble using tears themselves to get the supply and investment they seek.
Daniel Sznycer et al, Emotional tears: What they are and how they work, Evolution and Human Behavior (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106652
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