The Science of Tears

Scientific studies have found that after crying, people actually do feel better, both physically and physiologically—and they feel worse by suppressing their tears. You don’t want to hold tears back.

Biochemist William Frey has spent 15 years as head of a research team studying tears. The team found that, although tear production organs were once thought to be vestigial (left over from evolution) and no longer necessary for survival, tears actually have numerous critical functions.1

Emotional tears are a response which only humans have, for only people can weep. All animals that live in air produce tears to lubricate their eyes. But only people possess the marvelous system that causes crying.

Man Ray

Tears are secreted by your lacrimals—tiny, sponge-like glands which rest above the eye against the eye socket. The average person blinks every two to ten seconds. With every blink, the eyelid carries this miracle fluid over your eye’s surface.

Another important function of tears is that they bathe your eyes in lysozyme, one of the most effective antibacterial and antiviral agents known. Lysozyme, from lysos, to split, and enzyme (it is an enzyme which chemically splits certain compounds) is the major source of the antigerm traits of tears. Amazingly, lysozyme inactivates 90 to 95 per cent of all bacteria in a mere five to 10 minutes.4 Without it, eye infections would soon cause most victims to go blind.

Tears act as a safety valve by releasing excess stress hormones such as cortisol. If left unchecked, chronically elevated levels of these hormones can cause physical ailments and play havoc with mood. As stress often precedes a good cry, the sense of calm often felt afterward is at least in part due to hormonal release.

Scientists have discovered that the chemical composition of emotional tears differs from those caused by external stimuli such as slicing onions. Emotional tears contain higher levels of certain stress hormones such as adrenocorticotropic hormone, prolactin and the painkiller leucine enkephalin. Adrenocorticotropic hormone and prolactin levels rise with stress. Emotional tears also contain more manganese than those from irritants, and manganese helps regulate mood. Chronically depressed people often have high levels of manganese in their systems.

A good cry from either happy or sad events releases high amounts of stress hormones, protein, and manganese. Thanks to these chemicals leaving your body, you often feel relieved and relaxed.

“Tears are just one of many miracles which work so well that we have taken them for granted every day", and the phenomenon we call “crying” heal us physiologically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Read more HERE ~  HERE ~ HERE

Victorian tear bottles (lachrymatory)

Victorian-era lachrymosa, also called lachrymatory, tear catchers, or tear vials. Sometimes worn on a necklace, sometimes merely held, they were used the gather the tears wept by mourners at funerals. One type of lachrymosa had a special top which allowed the tears to evaporate (signifying the time to stop mourning), others had a sealed top to allow the tears to last for a year, at which point they would be poured on the grave of the person whom the tears were wept for.

 

It's difficult to say exactly when the first tear bottles came into being, however, we can be certain that the legends began in antiquity. Think of antiquity as the time significantly before Christ. Tear bottles dating from 100 A.D. are still in existence today and are occasionally sold by antiquities dealers.

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In Ancient Persia
In ancient Persia, when a sultan returned from battle, he checked his wives’ tear catchers to see who among them had wept in his absence and missed him the most.

In The Bible
In the Old Testament of the Bible, in Psalm 56.8, as David prays to God, he is referenced to say “Thou tellest my wanderings, put thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy Book”

In Roman Times
Tear Catchers were commonly used during Ancient Roman times, with mourners filling glass bottles with their tears, and placing them in tombs as a symbol of their respect for the deceased. It was also used to show remorse, guilt, love, and grief. The women cried during the procession, and the more tears collected in tear bottles meant the deceased was more important. The bottles used during the Roman era were lavishly decorated and measured up to four inches in height.

Tear bottles were designed with special seals, which allowed the tears to evaporate. By the time that the tears were assumed to have evaporated, the mourning period was considered over.

In Victorian Times
In the 19th century during the Victorian era in the British Empire tear bottles made a comeback among the wealthy. These were more elaborate than their Roman predecessors and were often decorated with silver and pewter.

The tear bottle tradition has historically been a mourning tradition. Only in contemporary times have tears of joy and inspiration been captured. In current music and literature, tear bottles have once again been romanticized. References to the power of the tear bottle tradition occur in contemporary music videos, novels, and poetry. Contemporary tear bottles are created by glass artists around the world and a few successful manufacturers.

Today, lachrymatory bottles may also be called a tear bottle, tear catcher, tear vial, unguentaria, or unguentarium. There are also several less common spellings for lachrymatory, including lachrimatory.

Dan Gerhertz has been created a beautiful painting, titled "The Tear Bottle". In this piece, a seated woman leans over an elegant lavender-colored glass bottle, allowing her tears to fall silently into the lachrymatory.

Read More:

• History ~ HERE
• Tears used in health studies - Oxidative Stress Measures of Lipid and DNA Damage in Human Tears ~ HERE
• In Women’s Tears, a Chemical Signal - Researchers found that men who sniffed drops of women’s emotional tears became less sexually aroused than when they sniffed a neutral saline solution that had been dribbled down women’s cheeks.   ~ HERE
• Like the ocean, tears are salt water. Our bodies produce three kinds of tears: reflex, continuous, and emotional.  Each kind has different healing roles.  HERE
• You can die of 'broken heart syndrome' - That is the conclusion of a study published in Open Heart that shows the long-term risks of losing a loved one.Freud is at pains to show that the two forces are in a rather delicate balance with one another, easily disrupted by reality, especially trauma, which causes one to spill into the other. HERE

DNA HELIX

Shed cells~DNA in tears

• There are some nucleated cellular materials found in Human tears that might be used in forensic investigations. I.E. Tears may contain loose cells (which contain DNA), but it is mostly just water and dissolved salts.
• Folklore ~ Herbal ~ Magickal Uses: JOB’S TEARS (also known as Coix lacryma-jobi) are the pearly seeds of an Asiatic grass. Job`s Tears are a potent magical tool within the hoodoo spiritual tradition. In groups of seven, they can be used to help make wishes come true.  ~ HERE
• Witchy Elements ~ There are happy tears, tears of pain, tears of anger and tears of sadness. And if you cry as a reaction to certain strong emotions, The power in those emotions are captured by your body until releasing tears. The teardrops are charged with that emotion and energy. Tears are a powerful substance, you can use them for spells in magic. 
• Salty Tears ~ Salt can be found in every cell in our bodies. We sweat and this depletes the body of salt, which must then be replaced. Most crucially, salt helps keep the balance of our bodily fluids that carry nutrients and oxygen around our bodies.The average adult human body contains about one cup of sodium chloride - good old salt.

Everything about us is magic. 

Imagination helps us to translate the enchantment inside. 

Stay curious and in awe of your very being. 

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo