Is it true that if a person cries from joy, the first tear falls from the right eye, and if from sadness, from the left?

A claim has gone viral on the Internet that there is a relationship between the reason a person cries and which eye the first tear drips from. We decided to check if this is true. 

Information that tears of joy and happiness are released first from the right eye, and grief and pain from the left, can be found in various collections scientific facts. This topic interested visitors sites questions And answers. Users of social networks also write about this (“VKontakte", Facebook*, TikTok) and blogging platforms (“Zen", MyPage). 

Human tears are divided into three types.

1. Basal tears. This is a fluid that is constantly present in the eye to lubricate the cornea and protect it from dust, dirt and debris that may enter from the environment. In other words, in the usual sense, these are not even really tears.
2. Reflex tears. This is a fluid that is secreted by the eye in large quantities in response to external irritants, such as smoke or foreign bodies. Unlike basal tears, reflex tears contain a larger amount of antibodies that help fight bacteria.
3. Emotional tears. This type of fluid is released from a person's eyes in response to strong experiences - negative or positive. 

Mechanism The formation of any type of tears in the eye is the same: the lacrimal glands located above the eye produce liquid, and when blinking it is distributed over the surface of the eye. Then the tear fluid flows into tiny holes in the upper and lower eyelids, collects in the ducts and enters the nose through them. There the tears either evaporate or are absorbed. However, if too much fluid is released (in the case of reflexive or emotional tears), it overloads the lacrimal system and in this case, tears pour out of the eyes, falling in drops on the cheeks, and sometimes dripping from the nose. That is, exactly what people usually mean by crying happens. Let us note that, from a scientific point of view, the mechanism of tear secretion—whether reflexive or emotional—is the same for the right and left eyes. 

Mechanism, which causes emotional tears, is somewhat more complex than the other two types because it involves the limbic system, an area of ​​the brain associated with emotional arousal. It is she who ultimately gives the tear glands signals to produce fluid. This kind of tears inherent only to humans, therefore, in the absence of the opportunity to conduct research and experiments on animals, it has not yet been fully studied. However, it has been established that emotional tears contain stress hormones, which are thus eliminated from the body, which allows a person to feel better. In addition, emotional tears play and social role: they signal to others that a person is experiencing strong emotions and needs help or support. One might assume that the difference between which eye the first tear falls from could give others an additional signal as to what is causing the crying, but for this they need to see the person at the very beginning of this emotional state. In addition, the environment, context, and facial expression of a person are much more informative in this sense, so it is doubtful that there would be any evolutionary reason for the formation of such a mechanism.

“Verified” was unable to find any studies that confirm or even hypothesize the relationship between the nature of the emotions experienced by a person and the amount of fluid secreted by the right or left eye. But it is the volume of tear fluid, as we have already found out above, that determines the “loss” of tears outside the eye, that is, if there was a relationship, there should also be a mechanism that stimulates the tear glands to work more actively in one eye or another, depending on the emotions experienced. Our colleagues from the project Check Your Fact The American Academy of Ophthalmology contacted the American Academy of Ophthalmology for comment and was told that there is no scientific evidence to support such a claim.

However, for some people, tears actually come out of only one eye, but this is not at all connected with the emotions they experience, but with pathologies - for example, the lacrimal gland on one side works worse for some reason or the lacrimal drainage system is blocked, so on one side the tears do not have time to naturally drain into the nose. Only an ophthalmologist can determine the exact cause. 

Thus, to date, there are no studies that could confirm the existence of a relationship between which eye the first tear falls from and the nature of the emotions experienced by a person. The mechanism of tear formation also does not imply any difference between the appearance of tears from the right and left eyes. Reputable medical organizations also claim that this widespread scientific fact is nothing more than fiction. In some people, one eye may actually water more than the other, but the reason for this is not due to certain emotions, but to congenital or acquired anomalies in the structure or functioning of the eye organs. 

*Russian authorities think the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: pexels.com

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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