Why do we get teary when we're tired or sick?
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Loading... - Ishan Arya
- 10 Jun 2022
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It's been a big week and you feel exhausted, and suddenly you find yourself crying at a nice nappy commercial. Or maybe you are struck with a cold or the coronavirus and the fact your partner used up all the milk just makes you want to weep.
You may indeed feel sad about being sick or tired, but why the tears? Why can't you hold things together?
Tears serve multiple psychological functions. Tears act as a physical indicator of our inner emotional state, occurring when we feel intense sadness or intense joy.
Inside our brains, strong emotions activate the central autonomic network. This network is made up of two parts: the sympathetic system (which activates our “fight or flight” response when we perceive danger) and the parasympathetic nervous system, which restores the body to a state of calm.
Strong emotions activate the sympathetic part of this system, but when we cry, the parasympathetic part is activated, making us feel better.
What happens when we're stressed or tired?
We are trained from a young age to control our emotions, with socially sanctioned times to express emotion, refraining from physical displays of negative emotion. For example, crying during a sad movie is fine, but crying at work is usually seen as less acceptable.
The prefrontal cortex, or the cool, thinking part of our brain, responds to the emotional signals released by the central autonomic network, helping us regulate the emotional response to deal with our emotions in controlled ways. The prefrontal cortex is like the main processor of your computer, managing tasks to keep the system functioning well.
Unfortunately, the more stressed and tired we are, or if we experience extended periods of physical or emotional pain, the sympathetic system remains activated. The prefrontal cortex becomes overwhelmed, like a computer that has too many programs running all at once.
The brain becomes less able to regulate our emotions in the expected ways, resulting in visible emotional responses, such as tears or angry outbursts. We might not even realise how overwhelmed we are until tears are running down our face after a seemingly minor incident or experience. Read More...
