The Art of Crying

I’m not sure what possessed me to write a blog post on the importance of crying, maybe because I sometimes need to remind myself that it’s ok to cry.  I can recall tons of times when I’ve cried.  I’ve cried in places too numerous to mention (my car, public bathrooms, my apartment, movie theaters, department stores, walking down the street, you name it).  Lots of things have made me cry (songs, movies, feeling alone, loss of a loved one, stress, the end of a relationship).  Mostly though, I tend to keep my tears a secret.  I don’t like to cry in front of other people, mostly because I feel that crying is a very personal thing.  I don’t want other people to know what moves me, what upsets me so greatly.  You can learn a lot about a person by seeing what makes them cry and I’m not sure I want anyone knowing me that well.  This is a problem.

Crying is healthy and one should let the tears flow freely when they come.  Bottling up your emotions will only lead to stress and anxiety and can even cause health problems.  Poets and novelists for years have known intuitively that crying is somehow good for us.  William Shakespeare, for example, wrote, "To weep is to make less the depth of grief."  And poet Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote about a woman who learned her husband had been killed, "She must weep, or she will die."  Crying is cathartic; it offers a sense of relief.  A number of studies have also been done to show that crying purges the body of harmful chemicals that build up during periods of stress.  By releasing these chemicals, crying helps the body become less susceptible to illness.

Now if you’re like me, you might be wondering, “Just what makes people cry?”  Well, thanks to William Frey, who had subjects keep "tear diaries" during a study conducted at the Dry Eye and Tear Research Center, the following pattern was discovered:

• Sadness accounts for 49% of tears;
• Happiness, 21%;
• Anger, 10%
• Sympathy, 7%
• Anxiety 5%
• Fear 4%

So what does all this mean?  It means that when you want to cry, cry.  Don’t hold back because you’re scared, or ashamed, or afraid to let people see the real you.  Crying is natural and healthy, and you just might feel better after a good cry.