C. Booth
Last Updated on January 7, 2021
Why do people cry? We are born crying and we keep doing it for the rest of our lives. A baby’s first cry is the most important since it helps their lungs adapting to life outside and breathe normally.
When we grow up, our tears can be related to good things or bad things, joy, sadness, anger, love. The list is endless. So why do we assume crying is such a negative thing?
After all, crying doesn’t make you weak, crying just shows that you’re a human that feels stuff. That’s totally acceptable. You should never feel bad for crying, especially when crying is the best medicine for a lot of things. Here are some of the benefits of crying every day.
#1 – Stress Release
Sometimes, we get super nervous or mad, and tears just start running down our faces. We feel our eyes getting watery but we don’t feel sadness. We just feel anger and anxiety.
This is a way our body releases the stress or nervous in our head. Sometimes when we cry we feel an instant headache related to all the crying, but we feel some type of inner peace, a relief.
Our problems are still there but somehow, after we cry, we collect ourselves and relax. It’s like crying is some kind of calming drug. We end up in a more balanced and better place.
#2 – Regulate Blood Pressure
Crying actually lowers blood pressure and your heart rate. A study was made where some patients followed therapy sessions where they cried and vented a lot, at the end of the session they were much calmer and with lower pulse rates.
Since high blood pressure is dangerous because it can contribute to heart failure. kidney failure and strokes by damaging your blood vessels and heart, it’s a good thing that crying helps avoiding all of this.
#3 – Improves Mood
Crying can make you happy, isn’t that weird? Well not right away, but after a good dose of crying and sobbing you can feel yourself in a better place than you were before.
Sobbing is actually the key. When you sob you’re taking a lot of quick breaths of cool air. When you breathe cooler air it helps regulate your brain temperature or even lower it. A cool temperature brain is definitely more pleasurable to the body than a warm one. That’s why after you sob you feel more restored, peaceful and overall happier.
#4 – Reduce The Pain Sensation
Crying is a form of pain relief. Whether we’re just sad or going through a difficult grieving process. It always goes from a period of numbness to sorrow, anger, acceptance, etc. But crying is something that’s always there since day one.
The scientific explanation is that crying overtime releases “oxytocin and endogenous opioids”, also known as endorphins. Endorphins are produced by our central nervous system, their principal function is to repress the communication of pain signals.
These chemicals help your body ease both emotional and physical pain. When these endorphins are released, your body may go into a numb stage since oxytocin may give you a sense of calm and well-being. That’s why you might have heard that crying is a self-soothing action.
#5 – Remove Toxins
There are many types of different tears. There are reflex tears, that clear debris like dust and smoke from our eyes, then we have continuous tears that help protect and lubricate our eyes from infections.
And lastly, we can produce emotional tears, the only ones that contain stress hormones and toxins, meaning that crying actually removes toxins from the body.
Our tears help us get rid of cortisol and other chemicals that happen to build up during emotional stress and cause great damage to our mental and physical health.
At the end of the day, crying is actually something that’s healthy and normal. Now that you’ve learned there are many benefits of crying you shouldn’t worry about letting it all out.
Even though crying often happens after a negative aspect in your life it doesn’t mean it can’t happen because you feel happy or excited like getting engaged, receiving love from others, getting that job promotion and so on.
And even if you’re going through a bad time just know that crying is a big part of it and there will come a time when you won’t have more tears left to cry and you will eventually start feeling better and your perspective on life will change from negative to positive. Time heals. Don’t forget that.
When to see a doctor? If you feel like you are constantly sad, maybe even depressed, stuck in a dark hole with no sight of light and you know you’re not getting through it alone please reach out to your family members, friends or a neighbor.
If you feel like you don’t have anyone make sure you go see a doctor. There are many great professionals out there that want to help you, you just have to reach out. Mental health is always a priority, don’t be afraid to call for help.
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