Tearful Serenity: Crying Away the Stress    Nomi Kaim

Tears, stupid tears! Always coming when you least want them. Now everyone on the street is looking at you and your eyes are so blurry you trip over the bumper and stumble into the street. What a klutz. How humiliating! Why do you always have to cry like this? But everybody cries. For its capacity to signal physical or emotional distress, crying has left an indelible mark on the slate of human history. Where would art and poetry be without tears? In fact, where would we be? In truth, crying plays an essential role in our biology as well as our social and cultural experiences. We can't stop the tears from flowing, but we can investigate why they flow ?and why crying might not be, after all, such a bad thing to do.

Tears are body excretions, just like sweat and mucous and urine. We don't usually like to think about body excretions, but when we do, we bear with them because we know they have important functions. Sweat removes excess salts from the body and cools us; mucous traps surrounding pathogens; urine and feces expel unneeded, toxic waste products that would harm the body if they remained within it. All three contribute to the body's self-regulatory or homeostatic nature, readjusting for balance. Tears, too, must serve a biological, homeostatic purpose. But what? In fact, there are three known answers to this question.

Scientists distinguish three kinds of tears, which differ from each other by function and also, probably, by composition. Basal tears actually form continuously. We don't experience these minute secretions as tears because they don't "ball up" as we are used to tears doing; instead, every time we blink, our eyelids spread the basal solution out over the surface of our eyeballs(1). Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated, important in preventing damage by air currents and bits of floating debris(2), (3).
Basal tears, like all tears, have numerous components. A little bit of mucus allows them to adhere to the eye surface without causing harm. The main part of a tear contains, predictably, water and salts (like sodium chloride and potassium chloride). The ratio of salt to water in tears is typically similar to that of the rest of the body, so there is no net change in salt concentration; nonetheless, if the body's salt concentration climbs too high, it will take advantage of the tear solution and instill it with extra salt. Tears also have antibodies that defend against pathogenic microbes, and enzymes which also contribute to destroying any bacteria the eye encounters(1), (4). A thin layer of oil covers the tear's outside to discourage it from falling out of the eye before its work has been done(5). Our eyes produce irritant tears when hit by wind or sand (or insects or rocks). Irritant, or reflex, tears have the same constituents as basal tears, and work toward the same goal: protecting the eyes(1), (6). However, since they are designed to break down and eliminate eyeball-intruders like airborne dust, these tears tend to flow in greater amounts and probably contain a greater concentration of antibodies and enzymes that target micro-organisms. Thus, irritant tears are not just basal tears in greater quantity; different biological processes precede the excretion of the two types of solution.

The voluminous tears that so rapidly move us to frustration or pity are, of course, emotional tears(7). Secreted in moments of intense feeling ?sometimes joy, but more often sorrow ?these tears aren't there to cleanse the eyes of irritating microbes or debris. Yet they do serve a purpose; the function of emotional tears can be inferred from their constituents. Emotional tears contain much more (maybe 25% more) than basal or irritant tears of a certain important ingredient: proteins(8).

What do proteins do? Well, what can't they do? We know very well they can be involved in anything and everything. The proteins found in emotional tears are hormones that build up to very high levels when the body withstands emotional stress(9).

If the chemicals associated with stress did not discharge at all, they would build up to toxic levels that could weaken the body's immune system and other biological processes. But here, as in other areas, the body has its own mechanisms of coping. We secrete stress chemicals when we sweat and when we cry. Clearly, then, it is physically very healthy to cry, regardless of whether or not it feels awkward or embarrassing socially. The reason people will frequently report feeling better after a well-placed cry is doubtless connected to the discharge of stress-related proteins(10); some of the proteins excreted in tears are even associated with the experience of physical pain, rendering weeping a physiologically pain-reducing process(8). Conversely, the state of clinical depression ?in which many of the body's self-healing processes appear to "shut down," including, often, emotional tears ?is most likely exacerbated by the tearless victim's inability to adequately discharge her pent-up stress. Psychologists refer to freely weeping as an important stage in the healing process. But although this notion may appear to be psychological in origin, involving the confrontation of one's own grief, it also just applies physiologically: crying can reduce levels of stress hormones. Rejuvenating!

One major stress hormone released from the body via tears, prolactin, is found in much higher concentration in women's bodies than in men's. (This makes sense when you consider that the hormone is also implicated in the synthesis of breast milk.) (7), (10) Interestingly, prolactin appears to not only be secreted in tears but also to play a role in the formation of tears. Levels of prolactin in the body correlate positively with frequency of emotional crying(5); as a whole, women cry more often than men (perhaps four times as often, according to one study) and also have a whole lot more prolactin (60% more) (8).

From an evolutionary perspective, why does it make sense for women to cry more often than men? Clearly, this phenomenon plays no minor role in our social interactions; culturally, greater female weepiness is taken for granted in perhaps every area of the world. But why should it be so biologically? Don't men get as stressed out as often as women? Don't they need to release their tension just as much? Perhaps prolactin plays a double role in terms of increasing a person's vulnerability to feeling stress as well as her tendency to cry to discharge that stress. If this is the case, men may not be inclined to get as stressed out as women, who harbor more of the "stress-sensitive" protein prolactin. Thus, women's increased reliance on tears for stress-release may be their bodies' way of maintaining homeostasis. They take in more stress, they pour out more. The fact that men's tear glands are, as a whole, structurally smaller than women's supports the notion that they are used less(10).

But this theory seems faulty. I have seen many men become just as overwhelmed as women by the fast-paced, demanding culture we live in. Prolactin is not the only stress hormone, after all. In all likelihood, men have higher concentrations of other stress-related hormones than women. It could be, instead, that men discharge of their stress by different channels. Men tend to sweat more than women, and sweat contains many of the same chemicals as tears. Perhaps their sweating reduces men's stress in a fashion comparable to women's crying. Men might also urinate more, another way to rid the body of built-up waste products. In fact, it makes sense evolutionarily that men would benefit from discharging stress chemicals in ways other than crying; heavy crying blurs the eyes and prevents vision, antithetical to tears' most basic eye-preserving function. Men, traditionally the hunters, would need to be able to see their prey to survive. But hunting has got to be stressful! Either the age-old trials and tribulations of hunting molded men into organisms less vulnerable to stress (which would support the original hypothesis involving prolactin as the stress-hormone), or men have been releasing their stress through alternate pathways. Sweat, which does not usually impede vision, would be a functional alternative. (Men's evolutionary tendency for increased excretion efficiency over women is evidenced by the way they urinate. In the heat of the jungle, pursuing a wooly mammoth, it pays not to have to sit down to pee.)

If blurry eyes were a nuisance to prehistoric men, they could not have been a great boon for women, either. With their annoying propensity to cut off vision, how did emotional tears survive the test of time? None of the body's other natural processes involve the suppression of one of its basic senses. We need our eyes to see!

Perhaps, once again, our bodies take care of this problem implicitly. Tears, along with saliva, stomach acids and other secretions, are generally only produced when the body is in a state of quiescence or calm. These functions are under the control of the parasympathetic nervous system, a system that operates most efficiently when there's nothing too exciting going on to stimulate the body(11). After all, it would be unreasonable for your body to focus its energy on digesting your breakfast when you're being pursued by, say, a saber-toothed tiger! Same goes for emotional tears ?and, indeed, for the feelings associated with them. We don't fully realize our fear and sadness until after the fact, when we get the chance to sit down, cry, and de-stress. Maybe, in the course of our evolution, our ancestors could afford to lose their vision to tears sometimes so long as they limited their crying to after the trauma. Nonetheless, it seems odd to me that a process which so blatantly interferes with one of the senses should survive until today. It's a good reminder that evolution is a work in progress!

One of the reasons emotional tears so fascinate people is that we don't see them in other species. All animals go to the bathroom; many animals sweat. All animals lubricate their eyes with basal tears. However, discounting a few unverified tales of weepy gorillas and elephants (which may well prove, someday, to be accurate), it seems humans are the only ones to cry(10). Why?

Emotional tears may be a piece of the equation that renders human beings biologically and culturally unique (or so we think...). We know our enlarged cerebrums and manual dexterity afford us thoughts and social liaisons as yet unwitnessed in other species. Our faces also hold the key to wonderful communication; we can smile, and we can cry. Smiling clearly developed chiefly for social purposes; crying, on the other hand, may have begun as a solely biological mechanism (for reducing stress) and then acquired an important social meaning. And so crying evolved for the dual purpose of physically dissipating tension and conveying profound emotion.

It may seem, when you cry in public, as though your body has failed you; a mistake, you think; should have been saved for later; sort of like peeing in your pants. It is more likely, however, that you have reached a level of stress that is detrimental to your health. You should let it out. It's okay to cry.

It is good to cry. 

End Note:
Though emotional tears are likely unique to humans, all animals secrete irritant tears, and some secrete them in greater volumes than human beings. It is interesting to note that sea animals, including birds, rely most heavily on tears for removing salts from their bodies(10). Do these animals harbor especially high levels of salts because they originated in the ocean? But so did humans. Is it because they eat salty sea-foods? Or perhaps the vicious ocean winds cause increased irritant tearing in these animals, so they evolved to make good biological use of their bountiful tears?

 最近喜欢掉书袋,在fashion版,看mm们争论真水晶还是假水晶,忍不住又唐了一把,也转过来备份,增加点人气.赫赫,我知道在fashion版说水晶基本就是铅玻璃很刹风景,不过还好,这次我辨析地相当客观,纯科普.没有兜售我主观的,钻石就是碳,不值得花那么多钱的个人意见.

玻璃还是水晶？

都是翻译惹得祸，谁要传统汉语里面没有这些词呢？要真弄清楚区别，还得还原到英文词：
英文里面的crystal, 就是Lead crystal， lead glass Lead crystal, (also called crystal), is lead glass that has been hand or machine cut with facets. Lead oxide added to the molten glass gives lead crystal a much higher index of refraction than normal glass, and consequently much greater "sparkle". The presence of lead also makes the glass softer and easier to cut. Crystal can consist of up to 33% lead, at which point it has the most sparkle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_crystal
wiki百科里面，这个词对应的中文翻译是水晶。 无论中英文，叫铅玻璃，显得多么没有品味，叫Crystal或水晶，身价一下子高了。(Crystal在物理里面的严格含义我们就不究了，这个词在这里沿用了世俗的英语叫法而以）

但是，另外还有一种东西，有人叫天然水晶，有人也叫水晶，还原成英文，是Quartz，同样是二氧化硅，与玻璃的不同之处在于二氧化硅的分子成晶
格排列。这是物理意义上面的晶体,不过其实也没有什么了不起的,呵呵，严肃的翻译叫做石英,花岗岩的主要成分.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B4%E6%99%B6,含杂质的时候就有颜色. 有颜色的那些天然Quartz，各自又有名字，透明的有黄色的Citrine, also called citrine quartz or citrine topaz，紫色的Amethys中文翻译成紫水晶 ，还有黑乎乎的Smoky Quartz，他们产量一般都很多，不贵。也有不透明的,很多种，Jasper，Aventurine...少数几种产量稀少而偏昂贵，不过这些也不是人们常说的水晶的概念，大多数都没有准确的中文翻译，被叫做某某石，某某玉，虎眼什么的了。在华盛顿的美国自然历史博物馆，看到的矿石种类实在是叹为观止。多到很多都无法命名，只有写了分子式在那里。

 

天然的透明的Quartz折射率1.53,跟普通玻璃差不多,比重2.65左右,还真不如铅玻璃. Lead crystal 折射率可以达到1.7,比重可以高达4, 而钻石之所以那么夺目,是因为折射率达到2.4. 钻石值不值得花那么多钱去买是另外一个问题,单技术上而言,它的折射率高. 用来做饰品的多半都是Lead crystal,也就是人造铅玻璃，比二氧化硅晶体更加亮晶晶(高折射率)，透明和多彩,也许更配水晶这个好听的中文名字巴...

无论你说的水晶是Lead crystal,还是透明的Quartz,都是二氧化硅或者参杂的而以.只不过天然产量少的或者人工制造工序复杂的,还有所谓的品牌,会有比较贵的价格,没什么可迷信的.好看就得了. 买透明的水晶饰品，只管挑颜色好,做工好的,要论其本质实在没什么假水晶,真玻璃的顾虑. 性能和手感的区别往往来源于量的区别，氧化铅的含量够不够，而不是质的区别。

要非说有真与假的质的区别,最多在于你要深究纯天然透明石英晶体,还是人工铅玻璃的区别,前者光学性能常常其实不如后者,你若只认所谓天然石头为真,其余为假,甘愿为天然的透明石英付出非常昂贵的价钱,而看不起铅玻璃,那也成.。
不过水晶这个中文词概念很模糊,不分清楚,而说铅玻璃是假水晶,则不妥.  
题外话: 想当年,玻璃也曾名贵过啊, 贾家有一个跟珍珠 琥珀 齐名的丫环,就是叫 玻璃么.呵呵.

决定把我在bbs上面辛苦灌的水，贴到这里来，做个备份，也跟更多人分享：

有人说：

            几年前去英国时好友东子推荐了一本书，达芬奇密码。一直没有时间找来看，直到最近达芬奇密码的电影大热，才赶了一把时髦。书的情节很吸引人，耗费了我一定的时间，另外我是很容易受人影响的人，好友说这个书如何如何好，我也现买现卖地说给别人。看完这本书，又看了相关的正说达芬奇密码，终于脱离了好友带有强烈主观色彩的影响，对这本书有了新的认识。也许你还没有看过，我也就不再这里多泄漏小说或者电影的剧情了。粗略说两点：

             首先，这本书号称其中关于建筑，艺术，秘密组织等等的资料完全属实，令人不由自主把它当作隐含了全部真实的文献来读，不由自主去猜测和打探它背后的秘密，忘记了它根本是一个小说。对于一个唯物主义者，看到圣经的谎言，耶稣的秘密被这样“有凭有据”地巧妙揭露出来，多少会觉得有点大快人心，于是更加趋之若骛地相信它，追捧它。

             其实任何一个唯物的人都不会相信处女圣灵感孕的事情，就算没有这本小说，我们也自然可以想象和理解那个名叫耶稣的先人一定是经过一系列的神化，美化，虚构，想象，修改后才成为新约圣经里的耶稣。假如说耶稣曾经结婚生子，其作为凡人的经历，后来被教庭抹煞，也是完全可能的。

             但问题是，读者不必对达芬奇密码这个通俗小说以及小说中所给个证据那么激动，信以为然。本小说擅长利用神秘学，符号学，在史实里面揉杂了很多牵强附会张冠李戴的虚构，如果你真的感兴趣史实的来龙去脉，一定要好好看看正说达芬奇密码这本专门正对达芬奇密码做的史学研究的书，虽然事实的真相也许会令一个达芬奇密码迷失望。：） 正说达芬奇密码 http://book.sina.com.cn/nzt/his/zsdfqmm/index.shtml

           其次，不究达芬奇密码一书内容的真实性，就把它作为一本虚构的小说来看，我觉得最大的逻辑问题在于：馆长临死之前费尽心机要留传下来的秘密，千钧系于一发，好像他一死人类就永远与真相无缘了，结果折腾了一个底朝天，其实除了男女主角有的是人知道那个秘密，当初馆长费那个劲干嘛？这个问题，就算不是bug也起码落个虎头蛇尾的名声。呵呵。
            总而言之，这是一本很好看的书，如果你感兴趣神秘的事件，宗教的历史，或者猜谜探险，你更加会喜欢它。另外你如果不看书直接看电影，估计很难看明白。书在这里，达芬奇密码http://book.sina.com.cn/nzt/1076470610_dafenqimima/index.shtml 但是，友情提醒，看完之后务必请看正说达芬奇密码，作为解药，以免掉到小说的神秘主义陷井，里面难以自拔。;P  再次谢谢东子推荐此书。欢迎大家讨论。

美国的中餐馆里面都有一道叫左宗鸡的菜，General Tsao's Chicken， 美国人问我，这个General Tsao，一定是中国历史上最有名的将军吧。我百思不得其解，想了想春秋战国汉唐宋明真的不知道谁是Tsao 将军（左将军）。这道菜也没有吃过，是湿面粉里面裹了鸡炸的，外面是有点酸甜的酱。孤陋寡闻的我，一直认为，左宗鸡跟签语饼（fortune cookie）一样是伪民俗，在美国中餐馆到处都是，而在中国其实没有这回事。直到最近才反应过来，这个左将军，就是左宗棠。清宫辫子戏泛滥，而人们却对左宗棠这样真正的爱国将领知之甚少，实在惭愧啊，补习内容跟大家分享一下：

1， 左宗棠在新疆沦陷14年之久后，力排众议，极力主战，19世纪即70年代，以60岁高龄从沙俄和边疆汗国手里收复了新疆，否则，中国今日的版图将少掉六分之一的土地。
2， 左宗棠积极倡导工业化，任总理船政大臣。创福州船政局中国第一个新式造船厂。管理陕甘军务，创办兰州制造局、甘肃织呢总局，为中国第一个机器纺织厂。
3， 左宗棠，推崇教育，推崇“环保”，在日趋沙漠化的西部，大力种植树木，“左公柳”则是由此而来，另有一首诗说，大将筹边尚未还，湖湘子弟满天山，新栽杨柳三千里，引得春风度玉关。
4， 左宗棠家贫，曾是倒插门女婿，新婚23岁做对联：身无半亩，心忧天下；读破万卷，神交古人，妻周氏一直默默支持，左宗棠大器晚成，49岁才做官。左宗棠官至一品，遗产只有2万5千两，不足李鸿章百分之一。
5， 左宗棠是我们湖南人,呵呵。我们历史教育还是有问题，湖南人知道夏明翰，不太知道左宗棠，也许是因为他参与镇压了太平天国等农民起义吧。以前中国历史课，尽考农民起义来着，现在历史书又开始说，农民起义的破坏性了。

在美国人家喻户晓左宗鸡的时候，请大家一起记住为我国收复了六分之一土地的左宗棠，左将军吧。另，虽然左宗棠也曾做太子少保，尊称左宫保，宫保鸡丁却是来源于丁宝桢（丁宫保），是川菜，和左宗鸡做法不一样，不要误会了。