The Joy of Crying

At the Ramsey Clinic’s Dry Eye and Tear Research Center in St. Paul, Minn., William H. Frey II studies the biochemistry of emotional tears, hoping to quantify the human mystery of crying. His findings: There’s a huge gender gap.

Boys and girls up to age 12 cry with the same frequency, but afterward, girls cry more. After age 18, women cry almost four times as frequently as men.

“At a certain age, boys learn to disengage,” Frey says. But he believes that there’s a biological basis as well. Emotional tears contain the hormone prolactin, which aids milk production and is released in response to stress in both men and women. By age 18, women have 60% more prolactin in their blood than men.

In his studies, Frey found:

* Women cried an average 5.3 times a month; men, 1.4 times a month.

* Women (85%) and men (73%) said they felt better after crying.

* Men (71%) reported “watery eyes only” and women (47%) reported “flowing tears.”

* Women (6%) and men (45%) said they didn’t cry at all.