9 Interesting Things that Happen to Your Body When You Cry

Last Updated on January 7, 2021

How many times do you cry a month (or week)? According to a 2010-poll conducted by Cosmopolitan, most women cry at least once per month, while 33% cry once (or more) every week.

In fact, crying does impact your body both positively and negatively, depending on what type of tears shed. Experts state that the human body can produce three types of tears: basal, reflex, and psychic.

Basal tears maintain eye moist, reflex tears eliminate a rogue eyelash, and physic tears come out after a strong emotional event. With that in mind, what actually happens to your body when you start sobbing?

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#1 – Your brain doesn’t care if you’re happy or terrified

Tears can come out of joy, fear, anger, sadness, etc. Humans seem to cry for pretty much every occasion. But what’s really strange is that the human brain can’t really tell the difference between the reasons why we’re crying.

What goes on inside the body is that a region of the brain known as the hypothalamus only does one thing when you’re happy, stressed, sad, terrified, etc, and that thing is to react.

Another part of the brain known as the amygdala sends a signal to the hypothalamus through the nervous system to enable us to experience emotions. Thus, tears start coming out. And the reason behind crying doesn’t even matter.

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#2 – A full-body workout!

If you don’t exercise as often as you should, you should probably consider crying more often since it’s somehow similar to getting a workout. Even if you don’t flop like a fish on the ground when you’re crying, your shoulders would still bounce and you might get a headache too. Well, there’s a lot going on inside…

According to the psychology professor, Dr. Jonathan Rottenberg, those who cry experience increased heart rates and sweating. This means that crying can be a type of workout for your body.