Joss: David, can you just tell us your name so we have that in?

David: David Phillips.

And, David, how often do you cry?

- Um... - It depends on the week.

Um, actually, on my way here I cried.

Sometimes when you're in

your most vulnerable situations

and Adele hits, she really hits.

So you know in "Guardians of the Galaxy"

when Groot makes a tree ball around his friends

and Rocket's like, "Groot, no!"

The episode where Ben and Leslie get married.

And I picked up the phone

and I realized she's not there anymore.

I probably cry once every six months, if it's a bad six months.

In 2016, when I received a video message of a moment

that I probably shouldn't have missed.

I remember these things because for three years I kept a record

of every time that I cried.

This is your spreadsheet.

( music playing )

( sniffling )

So you guys all read my spreadsheet.

I've crunched the data a little bit.

So, the majority of these were reactions to media,

TV shows, movies, podcasts, some articles,

and about 37% were things that were actually happening in my personal life.

So, as I've been looking into this,

one of the most interesting facts I've come across is

that a lot of people consider tears to be the only bodily fluid

that doesn't gross us out.

Snot, earwax, spit.

- All the other ones... - All the other ones.

...all gross.

- All gross, but we-- - Yeah.

We don't have that reaction to tears.

Why'd you make the spreadsheet?

Um, when I cry, it feels like I've become a different person.

Because in my normal life, I'm very calm and collected.

I feel like I'm in control.

And I think most of us take for granted

that crying is something that humans do.

But I've never felt like I had a good grasp on why we do it.

I would weirdly find

that crying during swim practice was really therapeutic.

So, I just cry a little bit in my goggles

and then I rest on the wall during the interval,

and then I just literally would empty out the tears,

put on my cap and just keep swimming.

Joss: I have enlisted the help of Taili Wu,

a master stop motion animator,

to help us explain the anatomy of the lacrimal system,

which is what makes us cry.

- It's alive! - ( laughs )

We're gonna bring Alex in and show him how it all works.

All right.

- Are you ready? - Yeah.

Jose: Okay, so the main lacrimal gland is here on the upper

outer part of the eye socket.

That gland releases tears that travel across the eye

washing any irritants away.

And then when we blink, liquid gets pushed

into two tiny holes near the corner of the eye.

And if you look really close, you can see them.

Okay. Can you see it?

- Yes, I can now. - You do?

- It's tiny. Right there. - Yay!

- Can you show me the other one? - Yeah.

- Can you see it? - Yeah.

- You can see the hole. - I actually can see it.

Oh, my God.

So our tears drain into our nose,

and that's why the nose starts running when you cry.

When the lacrimal gland is producing so many tears,

that they can't drain fast enough,

they spill over onto your cheeks.

- And that's crying? - That's crying.

Wow. So it's just, like, this overflow of excess tears.

- Exactly. - Wow.

And we share this anatomy

with a lot of other land animals.

It evolved way before humans did.

And I found a clip on YouTube that I really want to show you.

- ( cat meows ) - Woman: Oh, Buddy.

Man: Oh, Buddy.

Did those onions get to you?

Aww, Buddy.

So this is what happens if you cut onions by a cat,

which is not a particularly nice thing to do.

But what's unique about us is that humans are the only animal

that cries tears of emotion.

- Really? - Yeah.

So there's some point in our evolution

that our lacrimal glands became connected to our emotions,

and I really wanted to know how that happened.

So I called up a Dutch psychologist named Ad Vingerhoets.

- Great name. - Who is-- yes.

Who is considered the world's leading expert in crying.

( crying )

And would that be why we have tears when we yawn as well?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so the idea is that

the babies would've been screaming to get care,

that vocal signal,

and then it would've come along with that,

- these tears. - Yes.

( baby crying )

I see. So, maybe there was a survival advantage

to a child who produced more tears

- as opposed to more vocal crying. - Yeah.

Hmm.

So what I'm getting from this is, like,

over time, crying became a way for us to reach out for help.

Now you're saying that tears are essentially

a more subdued way of expressing those same things.

Exactly.

Humans go through this really long childhood

where our brains still have to develop,

because we've got these giant brains.

They take 20, 25 years to finish forming,

and I think that's why this crying persists into adulthood for humans,

because we're vulnerable for longer than other species.

- Hmm. - I mean, kids are in their parents' house

for 18 years at least.

- Um, being-- - Or 25.

Or 25. Whatever, no judgment.

Joss: It was the sad, helpless screams of infants

that likely linked emotions to tears in our ancestors.

As adults, our emotions are more complex,

but they still trigger the same signal.

Um, I was walking to get groceries one day

and, um, I got a call from my grandfather.

He's sort of like another parent to me.

I lived in his house for a while growing up,

and I started crying.

I didn't really let on,

but I was like, "Oh, wow. I really miss--

I really miss you.

I'm really touched

that you're thinking of me and calling me,

even if there's not much for us to say."

One of the things we hear a lot

is that people feel better after they cry

and that crying is cathartic.

I've looked at some of the research on this,

and it seems like even though a lot of people

report that crying makes them feel better,

they haven't been able to find any sort

of physiological mechanism that would explain that.

So, I am on my way to meet with Dr. Meena Dasari.

She is a clinical psychologist.

And I sent her my spreadsheet in advance,

and I'm curious to see what her analysis of it is.

Thank you.

All right.

Do you think crying is healthy?

I think crying is healthy when done in moderation--

when it's used as form of emotional expression,

but in conjunction with other coping strategies.

Crying as a release of emotion, as a way of self-soothing,

and then moving on to different forms,

I do think can be healthy.

- He is so cute. - He's the sweetest.

And they're constantly wearing tie-dye, which is their thing.

- All the time? Look at them. - Yeah.

My nephew was born in 2014

and my niece was born in 2016.

- And you can see those in my spreadsheet, - Absolutely.

feeling like I was really missing some of those key moments--

their births, some of their birthdays.

And then my sister would send me videos of them.

Woman: Say "Happy birthday, Auntie Jossy."

Happy birthday, Auntie Jossy.

All: ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

And those moments were just like-- oof!

You know, like, I should be there.

- Dasari: You longed for that connection. - I did.

Well, I think that's what I was struck by

when reading your entries

is the big theme to me seemed human connectedness.

And there was sort of two experiences.

One was the expression of that human connectedness,

either love or affection, um, but also the loss.

My mother died when I was 13 years old

and my father didn't quite understand me,

and-- and I didn't understand him.

And so, I cried a lot of sad--

there was a lot of sadness in my life.

"Oh, Father" by Madonna.

♪ You didn't mean to be cruel ♪

I'm thinking of my mother

basically through the whole song.

That last day that I saw my mother alive was Mother's Day.

You know, my inner child's mind, I just feel like...

wounded, and it's always that part

that makes me feel...

like she's wounded, too.

Woman: What happened?

He's sad.

He's sad?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

That made me sad.

He wants his mama.

Oh.

Girl: Say "mama."

So I showed that clip

to the Dutch psychologist Ad Vingerhoets,

and he said that it's actually pretty rare

for a child that young to feel empathy to the point of tears.

But as we get older, it becomes more common to cry

not just for ourselves, but because we see others in pain.

And especially for women.

Across the board, women and girls score higher

on tests of empathy than men and boys.

And that might partly explain why women cry more than men.

In a survey of 37 countries around the world,

women consistently reported crying more often than men.

And for me, crying can feel almost contagious.

Each of these clips is from my spreadsheet,

and they show that there was a consistent trigger

that made me start to tear up.

70% of the time, it was when I saw another person crying.

And I just remember, like, crossing the finish line

and being so emotionally vulnerable

and so emotionally dead, and then the plan was

everyone's just gonna meet me back in my apartment.

And so as I was walking,

one of my-- one of my best friends,

he came and-- and found me.

And again, I started crying as soon as I saw him,

because I was just-- I was just so glad that he was there

and I was so glad, like, somehow he knew that I needed him.

You got me.

It's like if you cry, I'm gonna cry.

That's amazing.

I think the most mysterious tears are the ones

that come when something positive is happening.

So I wanted to see if the team had the same reaction that I did

to wholesome videos from my spreadsheet.

Joss is having us watch some videos that she sent to us.

- Are you about to make me cry? - That depends on you.

So, here's the file. It's a Dropbox link.

I don't really know what to expect.

I think she wants me to cry.

I'm not going to cry.

I'm really scared.

Okay.

( cheering)

Oh, my God.

That's only the second one? That's crazy.

I have goosebumps. Look.

( gasps )

What is it? Singapore or Thailand?