From Bawling to Balling 😎

I'm not much of an anime person. A lot of the emotions are overexaggerated, everything is just loud, and the stories are often cliché. The characters are also usually far too young to be having such deep conversations, so it's a bit unrealistic.

I'm also not much of a crier when it comes to movies or shows, but recently, over the Christmas break, after recommendations from my brother, I decided to binge all 22 episodes of the romance series Your Lie in April.

I've never bawled harder in my life.

It was not wholesome, unlike other movies and shows that may evoke tears––only soul-crushing. Plus, it was my first ever anime and romance series.

Everything about the final episode was perfect: the music, the tone of the narrators, the vibrant animation, the script, the music, did I mention the music?

I constantly re-watched it, especially the last 10-15 minutes. My heartache and tears lasted for around a week until school started up again so there wasn't time for me to think about it, but it still resonates with me even as I'm writing this.

Interestingly, this emotional release, while seemingly disadvantageous to a person, can actually have some surprising health benefits. This idea has gone as far back as the Classical era, where thinkers and physicians of ancient Greece and Rome posited that tears work like a purgative, purifying us.

Today, psychological thought emphasizes the role of crying as a mechanism that allows us to release stress and emotional pain. In fact, they believe that there are three different types of tears: 1. Reflex tears

2. Continuous tears

3. Emotional tears

The first two, being 98% comprised of water, are important for removing debris like dust from our eyes and lubricating them. The third one, however, releases oxytocin and endorphins, feel-good chemicals that help ease both physical and emotional pain.

In other words, while tears are often associated with depressing times, ironically, the very act of emotionally crying can enhance one's mood––it's cathartic.

Moreover, science understands that stress activates the sympathetic nervous system while crying can precede an uptick in the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to bring people to relax.

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It's interesting to me to see the way tears have evolved.

I'm sure that, millions of years ago, the earliest hominids did not cry often, at least emotionally. Yet, along the way, tears have become more than a biological necessity, becoming a gateway to intense emotion and social bonding.

The notion of our identity and the ability to feel the sadness of others––these ideas today now play a critical role in what makes us truly human. Recent research has even discovered that certain brain circuits are unconsciously activated when we see another in emotional distress, allowing us to create ethics based on empathy and compassion.

We love to cry, but we also cry to love.