By feeling a strong emotion as joy or sadness or watching a moving film like Titanic, you will have asked you Because when we cry coats our noseleaving us with large tears, red eyes and handkerchiefs in hand. But why does it happen? The answer is in the structure of the eyes and nose: it will seem shocking, but nose and eyes are connected through a channel called Dodto Nasolacrimale. If the physiological tears that reach the nose are reabsorbed, when we produce in excess, in addition to rejecting our cheeks, those expelled through the Dodto Nasolacrimale They mix with the mucus making us pour their nose.
The journey of tears: from the eyebrow to the nose
Tears are produced by specialized structures, the glands tear which are found in the external high angle of the eye. To be clear, where the eyebrow ends. They come to the eye through the tear duct and are distributed over the entire surface thanks to the action of the eyelidwhich acts like a wipers and pushes them towards tear -strokes, the excretory ducts and finally in the tear sack, structures that are found on the innermost side of the eye, near the nose.
From here they are poured into the nasolacrimal duct and therefore in the nose, with each blink of eyelashes. The tears that we produce physiologically, the quantity is so small that we do not realize this spill because they are reabsorbed.
The intense emotions Try watching a movie or making us a nice liberating cry lead to the production of a volume of tears far greater than normal. When we cry instead the quantity of tears is excessive, Or the tear sack is obstructed, this tears drainage system through the nose is clogged. And here the excess of tears literally leads us to “cry” with the nose!
An uninterrupted production of tears
Tears are produced uninterrupted from our body, even if we don’t realize it. It is estimated that each person produces on average 1 or 2 microlitrs of tears per minute, which become 1-3 milliliters per day! And let’s only talk about the physiological production To keep your eyes healthy.
Their main function is that of lubricatenourish and hydrate the eye, thus going to protect the cornea and the external structures from dehydration and reducing friction eye and eyelid movements.
Through tears, the impurities of the external environment are also swept away, such as dust or grains of sand and there protect against the attack of pathogensthanks to the presence of some enzymes, first of all the Lisozyme, capable of attacking the molecules of the bacterial membrane, causing their breakage and consequently the death of the bacterium itself.
