This Is Why You Re More Likely To Cry On A Plane

If you’re ever found yourself tearing up while watching Finding Nemo on a plane, you’re not alone.

In-flight waterworks are a well-documented phenomenon. In fact, 15 percent of men and 6 percent of women report that they’re more likely to cry over a movie on a plane than anywhere else, according to a recent survey by Gatwick Airport in London. Furtherore, 55 percent of people claimed they are more emotional in general during flights when surveyed by Virgin Atlantic.

So what gives? Science is actually as puzzled as you are, but there are a few main theories.

High altitudes could be messing with your brain.

Flickr/Paul VanDerWerf Biologist Emily Grossman contends that the tiny reduction in oxygen you experience at high altitudes could affect the levels of serotonin and dopamine in your brain. These feel-good chemicals regulate your emotions, and could be the reason you end up feeling things more acutely in the air.

There aren’t as many distractions.

Flickr/Ronald Sarayudej When you’re watching a film at home, there are a million distractions to contend with, e.g. your phone, your family, the dog, the pizza delivery guy, the microwave. When you’re stuck on a plane with a movie screen inches from your face, wearing headphones and amongst strangers, you’re more likely to focus on the film. That could lead to some unusual levels of emotional involvement.

Planes make people feel helpless and hopeless.

Pexels Bleak, but maybe true. Ad Vingerhoets, a professor of social and behavioral science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, speculates that people are more likely to cry in situations where they have no control or no action makes sense. When you’re on a plane, you have almost no control over your body. Where you sit, when you eat, who you’re near and how long you have to be inside the plane is all out of your control. This leads to unconscious feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in many people, making them to more susceptible to tears.

Flying is generally pretty stressful.

Flickr/whity

So the next time you’re blubbering in the air, take comfort in the knowledge you’re not alone. If you’re thinking of traveling soon, check out these five useless travel products and what to buy instead.

Flickr/Paul VanDerWerf

Biologist Emily Grossman contends that the tiny reduction in oxygen you experience at high altitudes could affect the levels of serotonin and dopamine in your brain. These feel-good chemicals regulate your emotions, and could be the reason you end up feeling things more acutely in the air.

Flickr/Ronald Sarayudej

When you’re watching a film at home, there are a million distractions to contend with, e.g. your phone, your family, the dog, the pizza delivery guy, the microwave. When you’re stuck on a plane with a movie screen inches from your face, wearing headphones and amongst strangers, you’re more likely to focus on the film. That could lead to some unusual levels of emotional involvement.

Pexels

Bleak, but maybe true. Ad Vingerhoets, a professor of social and behavioral science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, speculates that people are more likely to cry in situations where they have no control or no action makes sense. When you’re on a plane, you have almost no control over your body. Where you sit, when you eat, who you’re near and how long you have to be inside the plane is all out of your control. This leads to unconscious feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in many people, making them to more susceptible to tears.

Flickr/whity

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