14 ways a good cry affects your body and mind

Touching movies, stressful events at home or work, and even good news like a wedding or a baby might bring on the waterworks. Sometimes, you just need to let the tears flow. But you might not know that crying can have a big effect on your body and mind – here’s how.

Can science explain why we cry? Read on to find out.

Humans are the only species to weep from emotions, but scientists still don’t know exactly how the physical act of crying is connected to our feelings. Why do we cry when we’re sad (and sometimes happy)? One of the benefits of blubbering may be that it helps relieve the physical tension of feeling upset. “It seems that crying begins just after the peak of physiological arousal as sympathetic activity starts to decrease and parasympathetic activity increases, helping to bring the body back to homeostasis,” says assistant professor of psychiatry, Dr Lauren Bylsma. In other words, crying occurs as our body returns from an aroused, “fight or flight” state to a calm, “rest and digest” state.

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You might think that crying would make you feel better if it means your stress is relieved – and it does, sometimes. “In surveys about two-thirds of people generally report feeling better after crying,” says professor of psychology, Dr Jonathon Rottenberg. “It’s likely that people are overreporting or misremembering these benefits of crying, however, because when we elicit crying in a controlled laboratory setting, it’s not as clear that crying makes people feel better. So yes, crying helps our mood – just less than we commonly believe.”

And how others react to our crying is one of the most important factors in determining how we feel afterward, according to world-renowned crying expert Dr Vingerhoets. “If they react with understanding and succour, it is much more likely that you’ll feel better than if they ridicule you and you feel embarrassment,” Dr Vingerhoets says. “In many cases, the better mood after having cried is thus the consequence of receiving emotional support and comfort.”

Crying in the wrong place at the wrong time, or around people who react negatively to your crying can definitely make you feel worse. “Crying at home or with supportive friends is healthy, but crying at work might be seen as inappropriate,” says psychiatrist, Dr Judith Orloff. In addition, although crying may make us feel better in the long run, studies show that the immediate effects of crying may actually worsen our mood. “In a lab study with people watching a sad movie, it takes some time before people feel better after having cried,” Dr Vingerhoets says. “Immediately after a sad film, the participants reported a worse mood, but 20 minutes and, in particular, 90 minutes later, they reported a better mood than before the movie.” So, it may take a bit of time for crying’s mood-boosting effects to kick in.

Not surprisingly, crying in humans first evolved as a way for an infant to get its mother’s attention. “Human infants are the most helpless creatures – they cannot cling to fur like other primates, or follow their mother like ducks,” says Dr Vingerhoets. Tears of babies and children add a visual component to this cry for help and target a specific caregiver who can see them. As grownups, people have adapted this biological function to an emotional one. “Adult tears, like vocal crying, mainly convey the message, ‘I need you, help me!’” Dr Vingerhoets says. “It is, in particular, a reaction to a state of helplessness, which is the opposite of fight-or-flight.”

When we communicate with others through tears, we are revealing our own vulnerability. “With supportive people, it can create an increased feeling of bonding and connection,” Dr Orloff says. “You trust the person enough to cry around them.” Crying is, therefore, a signal that we feel close to someone, and this can promote an empathetic response and an emotional connection. Dr Vingerhoets says that because we don’t like to show our weakness to strangers, we try not to cry in front of them, and instead save our tears for those we’re closest to.

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Anyone who’s ever cried after getting pulled over for speeding knows that tears can be a way to provoke a specific reaction that works in our favour. Even if we don’t consciously mean to manipulate, our crying may have the result of neutralising anger and making others feel guilty or more inclined to bend to our will. “Crying may help elicit social benefits,” Dr Bylsma says. “It seems to have an important social function to reduce aggression from others in conflict situations.”

If crying is such an important communication tool, why do we cry when we’re alone? A poll by the airline Virgin Atlantic, which now gives “emotional health warnings” before sad movies, showed that 41 per cent of men hid tears in their blankets while on flights (women were more likely to pretend they had something in their eye). This may go back to the idea of the body returning to a state of rest through crying – after a busy or stressful day, you’re finally alone with your thoughts. Dr Rottenberg also says that crying while alone may still be a way to reach out to the universe. “Often when people cry in private they are actually still appealing for help, such as asking God for help,” he says.

The biochemist William Frey performed some ground-breaking crying research in the late 1970s and early 1980s that suggests that tears help rid the body of unwanted toxins. “He compared irritant tears [such as from chopping onions] to emotional tears and found some chemical differences, like a higher content of some proteins in emotional tears, that may be due to the release of stress by-products,” Dr Bylsma explains. But, she says, these results haven’t been replicated recently, in part because it’s really hard to study this in a lab. “It’s very challenging to have individuals cry to emotional stimuli naturally while having their tears collected, and most of the tears are actually absorbed in the nasal passages and cannot be collected,” she says.

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Another one of the purported benefits of crying is that it helps kill bacteria. It is true that tears contain lysozyme, a protein that can destroy harmful molecules. But before you go thinking that your tears have healing powers like the phoenix in Harry Potter, remember that scientists have yet to prove this definitively. “There is really no good evidence showing the health benefits of crying,” Dr Rottenberg says. “These ideas persist because there is almost no science on the physiology of crying, and our folk beliefs, which teach that it is good for health to cry, fill this void.”