The Real Reason People Cry

New research published in the journal Emotion has found that one of the functions of crying is to make sure you keep breathing regularly even when you are totally stressed and distressed. The study was trying to work out why people cry and whether it served any physical function,

“We became interested in this topic when trying to understand the different possible ways that crying might function to help us, and to try to get a different perspective on why crying is so widely associated with feeling better,” said study author Leah Sharman from University of Queensland.

“One of the main ways that crying is often thought about is that it gets rid of toxins or brings about some kind of biological change that helps us to deal with stressful or painful situations. So we thought it would be interesting to try to test that.”

The study is called ‘Using Crying to Cope: Physiological Responses to Stress Following Tears of Sadness’.

In the study, 197 female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either watch sad or non-sad videos for about 17 minutes. About half of the participants who watched the sad videos cried – I don’t know about you, but I would be with the criers. The students then underwent the Cold Pressor Stress Test – they had to place their hand in nearly freezing cold water. During the experiment, the participants’ heart and respiration activity were monitored. They also provided saliva samples so that the researchers could measure their cortisol levels (the chemical the body releases when we are stressed).

Crying doesn’t help stress levels, but it helps you breathe

Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, participants who cried were not able to cope with the Cold Pressor Stress Test for a significantly longer time, and no significant difference observed in cortisol levels between those who cried and those who did not.

However, the researchers did find some evidence that participants who cried were more capable of regulating their breathing.

“Firstly, crying doesn’t seem to provide any change to stress hormones or our ability to cope with physical stressors to a degree that might be meaningful if you hurt yourself. Secondly, and what was our main finding, is that crying seems to assist in keeping our body stable and calm by slowing down and regulating our breathing and our heart rate,” Dr Sharman said.

 “The major caveat with this research is that we don’t know if these reactions are typical in real-world settings where you might be crying because of grief or loss, for example, or if there are differences if someone else is present with you when you cry,” Dr Sharman said.

Do some people cry more readily than others?

“It’s also important to note that because of the nature of this research we can’t force people to cry, so it’s also possible that there might be something different about people who are more likely to cry, especially in a laboratory setting, that makes them more likely to respond in this way,” Dr Sharman said.

Personally I think people who cry more easily are sensitive and open to feeling their emotions, but I can’t scientifically prove that!

Dr Sharman said crying can be just as harmful as it is perceived helpful.

“In many situations people also believe that crying makes them feel judged, embarrassed, and ashamed,” she said. “So if you believe crying makes you feel worse, these physiological changes are probably not going to make you feel better overall,” she said.

Other crying studies

There have been other studies investigating why people cry. English neuropsychiatrist Michael Trimble wrote a whole book on the subject Why Humans Like to Cry: Tragedy, Evolution, and the Brain (2012), as did Dutch psychologist Ad Vingerhoets Why Only Humans Weep: Unraveling the Mysteries of Tears (2013).

People cry for a whole lot of reasons, usually out of grief or sadness but you may also shed tears of joy, for example when a baby is born. Dr Vingerhoets explains that crying also communicates to others that we are emotionally overwhelmed. According to Dr Vingerhoets, crying is primarily a form of nonverbal form of communication that basically says, “Help me, I’m feeling down’. Other research has found that when people see others crying, they know someone is in trouble and it results in feelings of sympathy and a willingness to help from others, but we also have to give this some social context. Women tend to respond more kindly to criers than men do, because society often tells us not to express emotion.

The truth is scientists don’t know if crying makes us feel better or worse afterward. The recent Queensland University study found there was no difference in the stress levels of criers and non-criers. Another study by Dr Vingerhoets published in 2015, also looked at people who had just watched a sad film. This time the researchers found that people who cried felt almost elated an hour after the film ended, indicating that crying can make you feel better – it purges negative emotions, but the research is by no means conclusive. Another study says crying can make you feel worse!

What the ancient philosophers said

The Greek philosopher Hippocrates said the function of crying was to release “ill humours” from the brain while Aristotle wrote that crying “cleanses the mind.” I think to understand happiness, you also have to have the courage to feel sadness, but as someone who has also survived depression I’ll caution you never to spend too long in your unhappiness. Unhappiness is like quicksand, it can swallow you. I once watched the rom-com Ps I love you about a young woman who loses her husband. He advised her to spend about half an hour a day feeling sad, then she had to go out and enjoy life. Those are good instructions. If you are grieving a death, lost relationship or any other disaster, set aside an hour or half an hour to feel sad – set a timer, seriously, and have a good cry then get up, brush yourself off and get back into life.