The most likely explanation for crying when in emotional or physical distress is that the brain is experiencing an overload in the production of endorphins.
Sadness can also promote cognitive and behavioural changes that allow us to process and adapt to loss. “Sadness demotivates further action in the face of loss or failure,” says Koval.
It has been hypothesized that depression is an evolutionary adaptation because it helps prevent infection in both the affected individual and his/her kin. First, the associated symptoms of depression, such as inactivity and lethargy, encourage the affected individual to rest.
Emotional information is stored through “packages” in our organs, tissues, skin, and muscles. These “packages” allow the emotional information to stay in our body parts until we can “release” it. Negative emotions in particular have a long-lasting effect on the body.
Sadness and grief
Sadness affects the Lungs,61 the Liver,62 and the Heart and may influence the functional relationship between these organs. Sadness and grief induces Heart and/or Liver Blood Deficiency and may also impact the functions of the Uterus.
Previous research had established that sadness and other emotions involve the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass found in each side of the brain. And there also was evidence that the hippocampus, which is associated with memory, can play a role in emotion.
According to the evolutionary theory of emotion, our emotions exist because they serve an adaptive role. Emotions motivate people to respond quickly to stimuli in the environment, which helps improve the chances of success and survival.
Oren Hasson of TAU's Department of Zoology shows that tears still signal physiological distress, but they also function as an evolution-based mechanism to bring people closer together. "Crying is a highly evolved behavior," explains Dr. Hasson.
The popular answer is the evolutionary one — that emotions have helped us survive. When we lived in the wild — with monkeys and mastodons and tigers — we needed emotions in order to react quickly to dangerous stimuli.
According to evolutionary theory, different emotions evolved at different times. Primal emotions, such as love and fear, are associated with ancient parts of the psyche. Social emotions, such as guilt and pride, evolved among social primates.
The area of the brain known as the limbic system is highly involved in emotion. One structure in the limbic system, called the amygdala, plays a particularly important role in regulating emotion. Researchers believe that sensory information about emotion-evoking events moves along two pathways in the brain.
Darwin concluded that the facial movements, bodily gestures, sounds, and other physiological changes that accompanied and expressed emotions were largely instinctive, vestiges of behavioural modifications that had occurred in our animal ancestors, and that had originally given competitive advantage.
Darwin treated the emotions as separate discrete entities, or modules, such as anger, fear, disgust, etc. The German physician Wilhelm Wundt proposed an alternative view of emotion about a decade later. Wundt wrote about variations in dimensions or continua of pleasantness and activity or intensity.
Emotions are not innately programmed into our brains, but, in fact, are cognitive states resulting from the gathering of information.
Evolutionary theorists believe that all human cultures share several primary emotions, including happiness, contempt, surprise, disgust, anger, fear, and sadness. They believe that all other emotions result from blends and different intensities of these primary emotions.
It serves a logical evolutionary purpose. Fear alerts us to possible danger in our immediate environment. Millennia ago, when humans lived in caves and had to be wary of large predators, an inability to feel or recognise fear would most likely have ensured an early death.
Reflex lacrimation occurs when the sensory nerve endings on the ocular surface respond to changes in the environment resulting in a rapid secretion of fluid by the lacrimal gland to wash away and chemically neutralize potential threats to the tear film.
We are most likely to cry in response to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Crying is a social trigger for empathy – a communication system that signals to others 'I need your help and support'.
The inability to cry can have numerous possible causes. Antidepressants, depression, trauma, personality factors, social stigma, and certain medical conditions can all inhibit us from tearing up. Fortunately, many of the reasons we can't cry can be successfully treated and reversed.
There are four kinds of basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, which are differentially associated with three core affects: reward (happiness), punishment (sadness), and stress (fear and anger).
Feelings arise from an emotional experience. Because a person is conscious of the experience, this is classified in the same category as hunger or pain. A feeling is the result of an emotion and may be influenced by memories, beliefs and other factors.
The expression "neuropsychological theories of emotion" refers to the set of theoretical models that have accompanied and oriented clinical and experimental studies aiming to clarify the relationships between emotions and the brain.
Eight Primary Emotions
Joy: enjoyment, happiness, relief, bliss, delight, pride, thrill, and ecstasy. Interest: acceptance, friendliness, trust, kindness, affection, love, and devotion. Surprise: shock, astonishment, amazement, astound, and wonder. Disgust: contempt, disdain, scorn, aversion, distaste, and revulsion.
Ultimately, love is learned, it is a skill that every person can have, and no one is born with it. This skill is learned through attachment. The feelings of love that are shown, for example, in a smile, a gesture of approval, or a touch, come from a response learned in our relationships with others.