Why Does Crying Make Your Eyes Puffy?

Crying makes your eyes puffy for two reasons. Emotional tears are watery and low in salt, so by osmosis, fluid is pulled into the saltier tissue around your eyes and makes it swell. At the same time, the lacrimal glands work in overdrive, and the blood vessels feeding them dilate, adding to the puffiness.

As the ancient proverb famously states, “eyes are the window to the soul”, which means that they can reveal a lot about a person. For example, bloodshot eyes may hint at a long night of partying, droopy eyes may suggest a lack of sleep, and “glazed-over” eyes may actually be a clue pointing to elevated thyroid levels. However, one of the hardest “eye clues” to hide is the puffiness that invariably happens after a solid bout of crying.

You can wipe away the tears and blow your nose, but the puffy eyes after a tearful farewell, breakup or rom-com are very difficult to erase! The question is… why does crying make your eyes get so puffy?

Why Do We Get Tears From Our Eyes?

Some people may think that all tears are created equal, but those people are wrong. There are actually three different types of tears that are found in the eye. While all of them are related to production and moisturizing of the eye, they are produced in different places and have different characteristics. Let’s quickly take a look at the whole story.

Lacrimal Gland: As the real foundation of our tears, these small glands located in the outer, upper corners of the eye are constantly secreting a liquid that has certain antibacterial qualities. This is the liquid that gets spread across the surface of the eyeball every time we blink, functioning as a constant shield for our delicate eyes.

When any tears are in the eye, they drain down the nasal canal of the tear duct, which is why the secreted liquids aren’t constantly spilling down our face. However, the tears present in our eye come in three forms.

Basal Tears: The tears perpetually secreted by the lacrimal gland are called basal tears, and they provide lubrication, protection and generally healthy conditions for the intricate tissues and mechanisms of the eye, while also allowing for smooth, low-friction movement against the inside of the eyelid.

Reflex Tears: When you’re riding on the back of a motorcycle with the wind whipping into your face, it almost feels like the tears are being ripped from your eyes! These reflex tears are the same tears that occur when you slice an onion, or let the smoke from your bonfire blow into your eyes.

Emotional Tears: This final variety of tears, regardless of their cause – happiness, sadness, exhaustion, anger etc. – are what most of us think about when someone mentions “crying”.

These tears are distinctly different than those other types of tears. Primarily, there is less salt in the tears, and they tend to come in a much larger volume, particularly if something truly terrible happens! These tears are also different in their chemical composition; they actually contain much higher levels of stress hormones and similar indicators, such as adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)… even if you’re a mermaid.

As nice as it is to understand that not all tears are created equal, what does all this have to do with those annoying puffy eyes following a good, hard cry?

Why Do We Get Puffy Eyes From Crying?

As mentioned, when you start crying, the tears start overwhelming the nasal canal in the tear duct, causing the stream to run down your face. At this point, the majority of liquid on your face is the watery, low-salt emotional tears. The lacrimal glands that are producing these tears are working in overdrive to produce this endless stream of tears, which is not the usual workload. The blood vessels feeding these almond-sized glands (tucked behind the upper, outer corner of each eye socket) dilate to keep up with demand, and the glands themselves become inflamed and swollen, which is one of the core reasons behind the puffiness in that area of the face.

However, there is another peripheral explanation, which has to do with everyone’s favorite scientific process, osmosis! Emotional tears tend to be less salty than basal or reflex tears, meaning that the fluid pooling on the eye surface is more dilute than the saline of the surrounding tissues. By osmosis, water moves out of that low-salt tear film and into the saltier cells of the eyelids and the loose connective tissue around the eye, which is some of the thinnest skin on the body. Those cells take on water, swell, and look puffy. Eye rubbing, which most of us do reflexively while crying, mechanically irritates the same tissue and makes the swelling worse.

In other words, crying is truly a vicious cycle! The more you cry, the more the glands become inflamed and the more swollen the tissues get. Then, you look in the mirror, see how puffy your face looks, and start crying all over again! My opinion? Having a good cry every once in a while is healthy and cathartic, but maybe let the puffiness go down before putting your face back out there in the world!

Why Does Your Face (Not Just Your Eyes) Swell When You Cry?

Have you ever noticed that after a really hard cry it isn’t just the rims of your eyes that look swollen, but the whole eyelid, and sometimes the soft area spilling onto your cheeks? There’s a neat anatomical reason for that, and it comes down to the strange real estate your eyelids are built on.

The skin of the eyelid is special: according to anatomy references on the NIH NCBI Bookshelf, it has no fatty layer underneath it and is, in fact, the thinnest skin anywhere on the body. Just beneath that paper-thin skin sits a layer of loose, springy connective tissue that is only weakly attached to the structures below. Anatomists describe this loose layer as a “potential space”, an area that is normally collapsed but readily opens up to hold fluid whenever there is swelling or injury. It’s the same loose tissue that lets a “black eye” balloon so dramatically after a knock.

So when crying floods the area with watery emotional tears and the surrounding cells take on water by osmosis, that fluid has somewhere very easy to go. It seeps into the loose connective tissue of the lids, which puffs up far more readily than the firmer skin on your forehead or cheek would. Because the lower lid and the soft hollow beneath it share this same lax tissue, the puffiness often spreads downward and makes a wider patch of your face look swollen, not just the lash line. In short, your eyelids are basically a sponge waiting to be filled, which is exactly why crying shows up there first and most.

How Long Do Puffy Eyes Last After Crying?

This is the question most people are frantically typing into their phones at 2 a.m. before a morning they’d rather not face the world swollen-eyed. The honest answer is that it varies a lot from person to person, but the swelling is temporary and your body clears it on its own.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, for some people the puffiness fades within just a few minutes, while for others it can linger for a few hours. The single biggest factor is what you do next. If you cry and then go straight to sleep, you may well wake up the next morning with your eyes still puffy, because lying flat lets the excess fluid pool around the eyes overnight instead of draining away. That gravitational pooling is the same reason many people look slightly puffy first thing in the morning even without a crying session the night before.

The good news is that once the lacrimal glands stop working overtime and the dilated blood vessels settle back down, your lymphatic system gradually drains the trapped fluid out of that loose eyelid tissue and the puffiness resolves on its own. If your eyes stay swollen for more than a day, or the swelling comes with pain, vision changes or signs of infection, that’s no longer ordinary crying puffiness and is worth getting checked by a doctor.

How Do You Get Rid of Puffy Eyes After Crying?

If you’d rather not wait it out, you can nudge the process along. The most effective trick is also the simplest, and it works on exactly the mechanism we’ve described.

The Cleveland Clinic recommends a cold compress as the go-to remedy. Cold makes the dilated blood vessels constrict, which cuts the blood flow to the area and brings down the inflammation and swelling. Rest something cool over your closed eyelids for up to about 10 minutes: an ice pack wrapped in a clean towel, a bag of frozen vegetables, chilled cucumber slices, cool tea bags or even a couple of cold metal spoons all do the same job. Never press bare ice straight onto the thin eyelid skin, as that can irritate or even damage it.

A few other measures help the fluid drain instead of pool. When you finally do lie down, prop your head up on an extra pillow rather than going completely flat, so gravity helps move fluid away from your eyes overnight. A very gentle massage from the inner corner outward, or a cool face roller worked outward in one direction, can encourage lymphatic drainage, though go lightly, since rough rubbing only irritates the area further. None of this is a cure so much as a head start: the swelling was always going to fade, but a cold compress and a propped-up pillow simply help it fade faster.