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Health Benefits of Crying

Most of us don’t like to cry and when we feel ourselves welling up we feel childish, embarrassed or weak and quickly wipe away the tears. However, research is showing that crying comes with several health benefits and fighting back the tears may do more harm than good.

Reflexive and continuous tears are two types of non-emotional crying which have important physiological benefits. This includes clearing irritants out of the eyes and keeping the eyes moist. Tears contain nutrients that nourish the eyes and the eyelids, including glucose and lysozyme which provides antimicrobial properties.

Research shows that women cry an average of 5.3 times per month, 5 times more than men. This is partly because men have higher levels of testosterone which inhibits crying, and women have higher levels of the hormone prolactin which encourages it. However, social conditioning and gender norms also lead us to believe that it is less acceptable to cry if you are a man.

Humans are the only animals that shed tears in response to emotion, which means that there is an evolutionary reason for us to cry.  In fact, scientific research tells us that emotional crying is a healthy and normal response to stress which has a positive impact on our health. 

Research done at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Centre has shown that crying helps us to get rid of stress chemicals that build up in the body. They don’t know enough about all the chemicals yet, but it is known that tears contain Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) which increases in our body during stress.

By crying we can purge these hormones from our body, reduce stress and prevent stress damage to the heart, brain and other parts of the body. In several studies, patients who had cried during therapy session has significantly low blood pressure and pulse rate immediately afterwards.

Crying also helps to clear the nasal passages and nose of excess mucous and bacteria. As the tears travel from the tear ducts to the nasal passages they mix with mucous and loosen it so it can be easily expelled.

It is time that we end the stigma around crying and stop conditioning our children not to cry. Instead we should emphasise the health benefits associated with releasing emotions through tears so we can start to build a society that has less stress and better long-term health.

Sources

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-interesting-reasons-you-should-cry-more.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5-reasons-crying-is-good-for-you_us_55e9e31ee4b002d5c075f5ff