Why feel better after crying

Endorphins are released while you cry, helping numb the pain and give you a sense of overall calm. This process also plays a role in self-soothing as well as lessen the intensity of pain felt. Crying is often associated with negative feelings, such as feeling sad, angry, lonely, and more. However, humans cry when they experience happiness, fear, stress, and other emotions.

For these reasons, crying can help bring emotional equilibrium by helping your body recover from various strong, complex emotions. Sometimes you may be suppressing painful emotions without realizing it. Crying can help you recognize that something is wrong, whether it be emotional or a physical situation you are in. Once you realize that something is going on, you can take the proper steps to identify precisely what that is. From there, you can cope with your emotions healthily to avoid further suppressing them.

Feeling down can cause you to isolate or simply not tell those around you that you are struggling. However, crying can notify those close to you that you need help. This begins when you are a baby, as crying is an attachment behavior that humans engage in to receive support from others.

When others can see you are struggling when you cry, you can grow your support circle for further friendship and assistance. Dry eyes can lead to discomfort and an inability to fight infection. By crying, your eyes will be more lubricated to alleviate the discomfort and help keep your eyes free of infection.

Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. Popular culture, for its part, has always known the value of a good cry as a way to feel better — and maybe even to experience physical pleasure. The millions of people who watched classic tearjerker films such as West Side Story or Titanic among others will likely attest to that fact.

From early on, boys are told that real men do not cry. When these boys grow up, they may stuff their feelings deep inside and withdraw emotionally from their loved ones, or self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, or even become suicidal. Many men therefore need to learn the skills of how to reconnect with their emotions.

Ideally, however, such education should begin early on, at home or at school, with adults making it safe for boys to talk about difficult feelings. The collective grief over these losses can only be described as staggering.

It is no surprise, then, that at times like these our feelings are closer to the surface, and that many people who were not previously prone to crying find themselves tearing up more easily.

In fact, as one medical professional put it, showing emotion in public may have become a new normal. Conversely, people suffering from certain kinds of clinical depression may actually not be able to cry, even when they feel like it.

In any of these situations, it would be best to see a medical professional who can help diagnose the problem and suggest appropriate treatment. As challenging as it may be, the best way to handle difficult feelings, including sadness and grief, is to embrace them.

It is important to allow yourself to cry if you feel like it. Make sure to take the time and find a safe space to cry if you need to. Many people associate crying during grief with depression, when it can actually be a sign of healing. If crying becomes overwhelming or uncontrollable, see a doctor or mental health professional for evaluation and treatment. Others are less keen on the often messy act. Given it can give us a headachy feeling, make our eyes puffy, our skin blotchy and ruin that carefully applied makeup, that's understandable.

So is crying helpful right now? And given it's a time when we might find ourselves bursting into tears more easily, should those of us who are not so keen on it learn to embrace it? Professor Jennie Hudson says Deanne's description fits what many people think the physical act of crying does for them — that it causes the release of tension.

But the director of the Centre for Emotional Health at Macquarie University suggests it may actually be that we're just more likely to cry at a point when tension is being released anyway. Other than cutting onions or when you're in physical pain, crying tends to happen when we feel something strongly — sadness, frustration, happiness, love — usually at the peak of that feeling, says Professor Hudson.

Many experts think humans are the only animals to cry tears due to emotion , and most think this is because we're such social creatures. Associate Professor Eric Vanman has conducted research into crying at the University of Queensland and says the main purpose of crying seems to be as a way of signalling to others that we need help.

Dr Vanman says if you do cry alone, telling someone later that you cried can be the act of signalling our need to someone. He says even posting something on social media about having a cry is a way of sharing with others that you've gone through something and allows people to offer support or a shared experience.

However, women across cultures still report crying more frequently and often say they feel better after crying compared to men. Crying is a personal process. Whether you cry, and how often, may be related to your culture, gender, and emotional expressiveness. Unless you are physically unable to cry, there is no such thing in the literature as crying either too much or not enough. It is important to remember that crying is part of expressing an emotion, not necessarily part of experiencing an emotion.

Others may cry because they believe it is helpful and cathartic. However, if you feel you are crying more than you normally do, it might be useful to consider why this may be the case and if you need external support. Her research interests include evolutionary, music, and emotion psychology, with specialisation in the psychology of crying. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation. We know it's a hassle to switch browsers but we want your experience with CNA to be fast, secure and the best it can possibly be.

To continue, upgrade to a supported browser or, for the finest experience, download the mobile app. Main navigation Top Stories. Commentary Commentary: Crying can make you feel better.