Having not achieved many of the landmark life events yet (as I am still just a student) I would have to say the cliche things like weddings, animals being rescued, people doing random acts of kindness, military families being reunited etc. But I would also imagine that if you ask me the same question in 20 years time my answer might expand to also include relationship landmarks, having children, etc.
But why do we cry when we’re happy? Why is it that in these moments of pure joy we express the same external emotion as we do when we are in our deepest moments of sadness…
Crying is generally viewed as a self soothing behaviour (1) with evidence highlighting cryings ability to relax the body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and increasing oxytocin levels (2), explaining the relief often felt after an episode of crying. So why is this mood enhancing, soothing activity occurring when we actually feel happy?
Jordan Gains Lewis, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn state college of medicine explains why this might be happening. She explains how our hypothalamus simply can not tell the difference between intense happy, or sad emotions (3). What happens is the hypothalamus experiences a strong neural signal from the part of our brain that detects strong emotion (the amygdala) and responds by activating the automatic nervous system (3) causing us to cry.
So ultimately, the reason we cry when we are happy is due to the intense feeling of emotion in effect ‘confusing’ our biology…
Written by Francesca Giannachi-Kaye
Biological Sciences graduate from the University of Exeter
References:
- Gracanin, A. et al. Is crying a self soothing behaviour? Frontiers in psychology. 2014. 5. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00502/full (accessed 4/9/23)
- Cooke, S. A good cry. New Scientist. 2017. 224(3062). Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407916600398 (accessed 4/9/23_
- Lewis, J. Why do we cry when we’re happy? [internet]. 2013 [cited 4 Sep 2023]. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-babble/201308/why-do-we-cry-when-were-happy
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