How and why crying is good for you.
Some people think that crying is a sign of weakness; some view it as a bad omen, a sign of something gone horribly wrong. However, studies around the world have consistently shown crying to be very helpful in releasing stress and pent up emotions. As put in his novel, Great Expectations, Charles Dickens reflects on the philosophy of crying:
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before — more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle
— Charles Dickens
Recently, I’ve been trying to grapple with my emotions more, and in talking about this, my friend mentioned that he’d watch sad movies or read sad stories to get himself to cry, thereby releasing sad emotions. At the time, I found this counterintuitive — if you’re trying to get rid of sad emotions, why would you make yourself sadder? But upon reflection, I found that there was method in the sadness, and I tried this method of therapy myself. I immediately ran into a proverbial wall — I couldn’t cry! It seems that the most I could manage was a couple of tears.
Like any curious person would do, I tried to piece together how crying could affect the body, and the results were very interesting! Starting from a simple Google Search, “Why crying is good for you”, I started to read up on papers and ideas that somehow seemed to be making complete sense and still be novel at the same time.
What is catharsis?
In fact, the idea that crying or similar activities can be beneficial to one’s emotional wellbeing is not at all recent. For example, Aristotle thought that crying “cleanses the mind”. In fact, there is even a term for this kind of thing: catharsis¹.
The term comes from the Greek κάθαρσις, (katharsis, meaning “purification” or “cleansing” or “clarification”). Basically, what it is is the release of strong emotions. In this case, a good cry will release the pent up emotions, thereby cleansing the mind.
Recent Studies
Experts such as Professor Vingerhoets and Professor Bijlsma have conducted various studies on how crying can affect the human psyche, and how crying can be really helpful to our emotional wellbeing. A very good introduction to the psychological effects of crying can be found here¹.
But what really piqued my interest was another paper³ by Asmir Gracanin, et. al., who asked a more focused question:
…[the authors] came to conclude that the question ‘‘Does crying bring relief?’’ is not adequate, but rather that the better alternative is ‘‘For whom, and under which specific conditions does crying bring relief?’
While the authors acknowledge that crying did have its benefits, they found that those benefits were conditional. For example, after watching a sad movie where they cried, most people reported a decrease in mood (or, an increase in Negative Affect, which was higher the worse the mood was). But some period of time (20 minutes and 90 minutes) after the movies were watched, their moods became noticeably better.
From the figure, we can see that the moods all show a noticeable improvement, even among the non-criers, in mood. Notice also that the effect is more pronounced in the crying group.
Another paper⁴ co-authored by scholars in the U.K. and Germany tries to find out the causes which regulate crying, the intra-, and the inter-personal effects of crying. They found that, apart from the personal effects of crying discussed above, crying can also have inter-personal effects: crying can lead to empathetic responses from peers, and can be extremely beneficial to recovering from a traumatic incident.
However, they found that there were also reasons for not crying among those studied. One reason could be social stigmas associating weakness and sensitivity to criers. For example, many cultures have a “Big boys don’t cry” way of thinking, in which crying is seen as a feminine trait. This can lead to higher depression rates and general decrease in mood among (but not limited to) males in these cultures. They believe that conformity to the so-called display rules, which govern when and where displays of certain emotions are appropriate, can affect crying.
The study also reported that people believed that crying will ‘infect’ others and make them sad as well. Not wanting to be a burden to other people is another cause to not crying in public.
If crying releases or purges negative affect, then its inhibition may correspondingly worsen mood, well-being, and (mental) health (in contrast to potential positive effects of up-regulation).
In addition to the mental and social effects listed above, research has shown that there are additional physiological effects that crying can have! Tears have been shown to be linked to the release of oxytocin and endorphins in the body². Those chemicals can ease both mental and physical pain, in addition to making people feel good.
All Sad Tears?
Crying doesn’t always have to be sad: watching military homecoming videos, seeing a newborn child, or just being awed in general can move a person into tears. Thus, crying doesn’t have to be from a sad source: tears of happiness are very much real! The benefits of crying through this method are not voided though, and can be just as good as that from other sources.
The Benefits of Crying
To sum up the above, here is a quick, short list of the many benefits that crying can bring:
- Crying can release pent up stress (cathartic effect)
- Getting support from peers
- Dulls mental and physical pain through oxytocin and endorphins
What I have done… and what you can do!
I’ve recently started to watch more emotional movies, in contrast to the action genre which I most often watch. Titles such as Your Name, Three Idiots, and About Time were all especially moving. Moving songs such as Somewhere Only We Know, Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Misérables can all sooth the mind and bring tears. I encourage you to find movies that you can have a good cry to, or even curate your own list; anything is possible! Being based in Taiwan, I’ve started an Instagram account aiming to share all sorts of media that I’ve found ‘cry-able’, named The Cry Bar, aimed at helping Taiwanese high schoolers like me get more in touch with their emotions.
References
[2] Asmir Gracanin, Lauren M. Bylsma and Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets. Is crying a self-soothing behavior?
