Have you ever teared up watching a sad movie? Have you just cried for no reason? Is crying actually good for you? New studies are coming out about the psychology of tears. New research conducted by psychologists has been trying to answer these profound questions and are helping us understand the concept of crying from a psychological and neuroscientific attitude. Ad Vingerhoets, a psychology professor at Tilburg University, exclaims, “I think the study of crying, more than is the case for any other emotional expression, may help us to obtain a better insight into human nature.” Let’s take a look at why crying seems to differ between males and females.
Research has been done for several years exploring the theory of the difference between women and men crying. In conclusion, which I’m sure most of you all know, women cry more than men. In the early 1980s, William Frey discovered women cry on an average of 5.3 times a month in contrast to men who cry approximately 1.3 times per month. In today’s society, these averages still remain about the same. Testosterone might in fact be a reason why men cry less than women because it can prevent crying, while prolactin (a hormone found in women that stimulates milk production) can promote crying. Even more interesting, Dianne Hemert, a researcher from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research conducted a study in which individuals in more advanced countries tended to cry more because their culture allows it. However, people in poorer countries did not cry as much because this emotional express can be seen as weak. Knowing this, is crying good for your health?
Robert R. Provine exclaims one of the benefits of crying: “Tears add valence and nuance to the perception of faces. Tears become a sort of social lubricant helping to ensure the smooth functioning of a community by helping people communicate.” According to Jerry Bergman, tears benefit us psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually. The basic function of why crying is good for us is because they essentially help us see. They lubricate our eyes/eyelids and help stop dehydration. Tears even kill bacteria and remove toxins. Tears contain a substance called lysozyme that can exterminate 90 to 95 percent of bacteria in a very short period of time (5 to 10 minutes). Most importantly, tears have been shown to have a very intense physiological impact. Crying can increase our mood, lower our stress, and liberate our feelings from within. Tears that are produced from emotional cry have a 24 percent higher “albumin protein (primary protein of blood plasma that moves molecules) concentration” than crying tears of anger and irritability. Bergman states, “tears remove some of some of the chemicals built up in the body from stress, like the endorphin leucine-enkaphalin and prolactin that affect mood and stress tolerance. Suppressing tears increase stress levels, and contributes to diseases aggravated by stress, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, and peptic ulcers.”
New studies conducted in the UK have shown that women spend 1 year and 4 months of their lives crying. The women reported to have felt an emotional release after crying and feeling less aggravated and irritated. Dr. Frey experimented with a study in which he had a large sample of men who cried. He discovered that 73 percent of the time, men were found to become “misty-eyed” instead of actual tears streaming down their faces. 73 percent of men said they felt better after crying and 85 percent of women said they felt better after crying. Dr. William Frey also declared, “Crying is not only a human response to sorrow and frustration, it’s a health one. Crying is a natural way to reduce emotional stress that, left unchecked, has negative physical effects on the body, including increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.” Frey has been studying the act of crying and tears for over fifteen years and is still continuing to conduct more experiments on the benefits of crying.
Ultimately, I would say crying is good for you. It has a positive influence on our bodies physically, emotionally, and mentally. Studies have shown that women cry more than men, but men still do cry. From these studies and several others done around the world, I would say that crying has a direct positive relationship on us.
Sources:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/05/29/7-good-reasons-to-cry-the-healing-property-of-tears/
http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/sex+relationships/wellbeing/crying+is+good+for+you,8519
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-reasons-why-crying-good-for-you.html
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/02/cry.aspx
I found this article very interesting. I know that after I finally let out a good cry, it is so relieving. I was surprised that you found out that crying was not only a good stress reliever but that it also helped the body physically, I never knew that! In the beginning of your blog, you mention that woman are about 5 times more likely to cry than men, does this mean that since men cry less they have less lubricate in their eyes and they are more dehydrated, do they have more bacteria and toxins? You said that,” Crying can increase our mood, lower our stress, and liberate our feelings from within. ” Since men cry less, do they tend to have higher stress levels?It seems like an interesting topic to further develop your point, here check out this article I found about gender and stress, it states that more woman are likely to admit to their stress than men. Perhaps this build up in men is having a negative impact on their body physically and emotionally, what do you think?
I agree that crying is good for you. very good actually. If you do not cry and hold everything in it, it will bottle up and eventually crack you. Crying definitely has a positive relationship on us. I believe that women cry more than me. Personally, I cry and when I do, i feel 10 times better than i did before. Weirdly enough, I can cry about a lot of things but when it comes to sad movies I never cry! http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/is-crying-healthy.aspx. This website explains healthy crying and why it is good for you.
I always knew that, at least from personal experience, letting it all out and crying was good for you emotionally, but I never realized it was good for you physical health as well! Psych Central says that, “They are like a natural therapy or massage session, but they cost a lot less!” (http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/05/29/7-good-reasons-to-cry-the-healing-property-of-tears/). I also found it very interesting that you mentioned the difference between how often men cry versus how often women cry. I always thought it was just because our society doesn’t often see it appropriate or ok for men to cry, not because their hormones allow to them cry less. Great post!
I think that it was very important that you decided to write this blog post. A lot of people have misconceptions that crying makes you an automatic wuss, however there are actually, as you showed, a lot of benefits that come along with crying. I definitely knew that there was a psychological connection between crying and feeling overall better, but some of the other health benefits that you mentioned enlightened me as well. It’s definitely apparent that you did your research and I appreciated that you added multiple studies and resources to back up your claims rather than just a singular one because it emphasizes your ideas. Something you might look into more is whether or not men crying more than women has to do with their desire to seem more manly? I found an article you could take a look at that focuses on man strereotypes and might explain why men are less willing to cry than women as well. http://baylorlariat.com/2014/02/05/boys-dont-cry-stereotypes-harm-masculinity/
I personally relate to this article because my dad would always joke that on Sunday nights when homework really started to pile up in high school I would cry for five minutes to release the stress then finish all my work. I thought your article was very well researched. It would be interesting to see if in the cultures where tears weren’t accepted there were more cases of heart disease. I found this link between crying and cardiovascular disease particularly interesting. The American Heart Association said that AFTER a stroke or heart attack patients are more likely to cry and could go through mild cases of depression (http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Caregiver/Resources/EmotionalUpheaval/Emotional-Upheaval_UCM_301854_Article.jsp). This is an interesting connection considering your thesis about how crying can prevent cardiovascular disease, yet in the case of cardiovascular disease it seems to be an indication of something gone wrong.