Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Crying Helps Improve Your Mood
Many people associate crying with feeling sad and making them feel worse, but in reality, crying can help improve your mood - emotional tears release stress hormones. Your stress level lowers when you cry, which can help you sleep better and strengthen your immune system.
Crying has been scientifically proven to make you feel better. No, it doesn't solve your problem, change the situation, or bring people back into your life. But it does provide you with an emotional outlet that begins the healing process, relieves stress, makes you mentally stronger, and fosters community.
Today's psychological thought largely concurs, emphasizing the role of crying as a mechanism that allows us to release stress and emotional pain. Crying is an important safety valve, largely because keeping difficult feelings inside — what psychologists call repressive coping — can be bad for our health.
Crying is normal in healthy amounts—but what is a healthy amount? With no hard numbers as to how often we should cry, the American Psychological Association states that, on average, women cry emotional tears several times a month (30 to 64 times a year), while men may cry once every month or two (5 to 17 times a year).
The physical downsides of crying are pretty straightforward: puffy eyes, splotchy skin and a headachy feeling that can be chalked up to the strong contractions of your facial muscles while you weep and pressure in your sinuses from the runny nose that accompanies a tear-fest.
Crying or feeling your emotions is definitely not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it's even been said that you have to be strong to cry.
We are most likely to cry in response to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Crying is a social trigger for empathy – a communication system that signals to others 'I need your help and support'.
When someone cries, their heart rate increases and their breathing slows down. The more vigorous the crying, the greater the hyperventilation, which reduces the amount of oxygen the brain receives — leading to an overall state of drowsiness.
It won't rid you of PTSD and your fears, but let your tears flow and you'll maybe feel a little better afterwards. 'Crying for long periods of time releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, otherwise known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals can help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Crying is a sign of strength because it is a demonstration of a completely comfortable relationship with the self. Choosing to cry and feel is a choice in the interest of one's emotional health. Choosing to cry is also choosing not to care about the opinions of others.
/ˈkrɑɪbeɪbi/ Other forms: crybabies. A crybaby is someone who cries very easily and complains a lot. If you have a younger sister, you've probably called her a crybaby from time to time.
If a person is crying over a prolonged period, the continuous contractions of these muscles may result in a tension headache. Tension headaches are the most common primary headache, a headache that is not the result of another condition.
In the short term, it can cause pesky problems such as irritability, anxiety, and poor sleep. But over time, repressing your tears can lead to cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension — or even cancer.
As we get older, the cognitive area of the brain takes over and dictates behavior via reasoning, and we recognize that physical pain is self-limiting, finite, and predictable. We also learn to differentiate corporeal pain from psychological and emotional distress, or what scientists call social pain.
Crying is an important coping mechanism, psychologists say. It allows us to express difficult emotions. It may help reduce stress by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the body's ability to relax. And, perhaps most important, it allows us to solicit emotional support and bond.
“It's very normal for there to be some daily fussiness. Crying up to three hours a day is still within a normal range.”
Men tend to cry for between two and four minutes, and women cry for about six minutes. Crying turns into sobbing for women in 65% of cases, compared to just 6% for men. Before adolescence, no difference between the sexes was found.