Why crying is good for your health Laughter is one of the best medicines, but weeping can work wonders for staying stress-free, too

Why crying is good for your health

Laughter is one of the best medicines, but weeping can work wonders for staying stress-free, too

Tears help lower bad cholesterol and control high blood pressure

    With her two beautiful children, a rock star husband, a top Hollywood career and A-list looks, you wouldn’t think that Gwyneth Paltrow would have much to cry about. But the actress, who has just turned 40, recently admitted that she regularly sobs. And who could forget that Oscar speech for Shakespeare in Love? “I cry all the time,” she said. “I cried half-an-hour ago. I’m a crybaby. Maybe out of sadness or uncertainty. Do you feel bad for me now?”
    Well, you shouldn’t because Gwyneth could be on to something. We’ve known for a long while that laughter is good for our hearts, stress levels, immunity and even for healing wounds. And now studies have revealed that those of us who have a little weep when we feel stressed or upset tend to be healthier than those who bottle it up and keep a stiff upper lip.
    A recent study from the University of Minnesota, US, found that crying improves the mood of 88.8% of people and it can also help with healing, boosting immunity and reducing levels of anger and stress. “We feel better after crying because we are literally crying it out,” says Professor William Frey, who worked on the study. “Chemicals that build up during emotional stress may be removed in our tears when we cry. Unalleviated stress can increase risk of heart attack and damage certain areas of our brain. The human ability to cry has a survival value.”
    It’s also been shown that emotional tears — when we’re unhappy rather than in pain — contain higher levels of manganese and potassium. Manganese is a nutrient that helps with lowering bad cholesterol levels and potassium helps control high blood pressure.
    Emotional tears also contain a hormone called prolactin, which helps reduce stressful feelings and boosts the immune system. Women have more prolactin than men and their levels rise during pregnancy, which may be one reason why women cry more than men — especially when they’re expecting a baby.
    When we cry, our breathing also deepens, which helps lower stress levels. When our bodies feel under attack from a stressful situation, we tend to take short, shallow breaths, which makes the body pump out the stress hormone cortisol and heightens feelings of anxiety. Deep breathing, on the other hand, reduces cortisol production and lowers stress levels. “I think crying is a very good idea for a variety of reasons,” says Professor Cary Cooper, a stress expert from Lancaster University. “Crying is a physiological response — it’s an in-built reaction to hurt, emotional or physical. It is a release and helps us feel physically better towards pain. So on a basic level it makes us feel good, which is why we should never suppress a cry. Crying can also be good for us psychologically — it helps us take a step back
and process what is wrong in our life. Crying is a wake-up call that our relationship, or job, or whatever, is causing us to feel upset, isn’t working for us and requires change.”
    Another reason why crying is good, according to Cooper, is that it acts as a signal to others to help us. “If you show emotions with tears, other people will probably comfort us, which helps us to feel better,” he explains. And, he continues, the worst thing you can do is to stifle a cry because if you bury sad or hurtful emotions, they won’t vanish — they’ll just fester and come out as anger or bitterness, which over time will make you feel a lot worse.
    “I’ve seen medical journals that have shown how repressed emotions can weaken your immune system over time and lead to heightened stress levels,” he adds. “Plus, if you always soldier on secretly feeling overburdened or silently seething, how will your loved ones ever know that you need help?”
    So why are people so ashamed to cry? Cooper thinks it’s because it’s been drummed into us that crying is a sign of weakness or even seen as unprofessional. “Men in particular are told from a young age that ‘big boys don’t cry’. It’s seen as being weak and feminine. “For women, crying is a little more accepted but it can be seen as unprofessional in the workplace or even manipulative.
    “A woman may worry about crying at work because she may be seen to not be up to the job, not coping or simply unprofessional,” he says. “The best way to deal with a workplace well-up is to go to the toilets — or perhaps step outside for some fresh air — with a trusted colleague.”
    However, he adds that while crying occasionally is one thing it’s not good to do it too much. “It’s healthy to cry under certain circumstances but don’t do it too often and never fake it to try and get your own way — you’ll end up being found out pretty quickly.”
    But studies have also shown that tears can improve eyesight by preventing dehydration. So the next time you feel your bottom lip quivering, just give in to it and make sure you have a little weep. You’ll be much healthier and less stressed as a result.