Why We Cry

The strange science and history of our tears.

Two Women on the Shore (1898) | Public Domain

When I lost him, I didn’t cry. Maybe because he wasn’t really gone. I felt him pulling on my bones like a phantom limb. The pain kept him knotted inside me.

But that’s the purpose of tears. A flood of oxytocin and endorphins eases our suffering. We cry to release the pain.