Why do our eyes waters when we are feeling sleepy?

After a long lecture I usually end up with lots of water in my eyes which clearly shows how tired I easily get after a lecture , being an optometry student I was wondering why do our eyes waters when we get tired or we cry when we laugh !

 

I searched a lot about this , approached our lecturer and found out some basic but important reasons behind it ! I want to discuss these with you people! 

 

Just realise that when we get tired or feel sleepy but we cannot just take a nap right there , we try hard to open our eyes . We try to keep it open , it gets dry.

You should know our tears has also got classified into categories! 
 1. Basal tears 
  2. Reflex tears 
  3. Emotional tears
  

We are lucky and thank god that when we feel tired or our eyes starts to get dry , produce basal tears to counter this. 

Basal tears are our  basic functional tear,

•   released continuously in tiny quantities to lubricate cornea and keep it clear of dust,

•   ensures  good visual acuity and comfort. 

•  also fight against bacterial infection as a part of the immune system

So when we yawn, we are applying pressure on our face muscles and eyes too,especially on lacrimal gland where tears are produced! 
This causes poor drainage of tears into puncta, (which are inner corners of your eyes ) so the main reason is insufficiency of drainage which leads to watery eyes.

 

 Coming to the second question in our mind why do we cry when we laugh,  I found out that when we laugh we again put too much pressure on our eyes, around the tear duct. Hence the “ reflex tears” we talked about, reflex tears are the eye's response to irritants; onions, wind, pollen, dust, etc. 
These are different from emotional tears which are produced under emotions like sadness, anxiety etc

 

Both laughing and crying makes the body regulate into many strong emotions and both are stress killers, it’s healthy to laugh and cry.

  

Some basic symptoms and treatment for tired eyes;
 

Symptoms

• Dry eye
• Sensitivity  to light
•  Redness , itching
• Watery  eyes
• Eyestrain 

Treatments

• Have quality and quantity sleep for at-least 6 hours 

• 
  
  

• Exercise daily.

• 20-20-20 rule to be followed  (after every 20 min of work on digital devices or any other , look 20m far for 20 seconds). Breaks are important.

• Regular check up and your opticals prescription should be up to date. 

                 #STAYHOME#STAYSAFE