Even though much of society has made efforts to crush the assumption that crying automatically equals weakness, many of us still have hang ups when it comes to shedding a tear or two.
While to keep stoic and dry-eyed in moments of pressure, sadness or even joy is still seen by many as a sign of true strength, holding back tears robs us of many benefits that help us cope. I cry at the end of Lord of the Rings, and it never fails to make me feel better about Frodo leaving the Shire.
Much of this is gendered, too. Women have to contend with the "pretty cry" – the weird, dainty sobbing so often portrayed on screen that tries to turn tears into an aesthetic rather than a genuine expression of emotion – while for men, crying can often lead to that skin-crawling, shudder-inducing, day-ruiningly awful phrase, "man up".
Now, researchers have examined in more detail the effects of tears on well-being, and why there shouldn’t be any shame in letting them flow sometimes.
A consummate coping strategy
The new study, published in physiological journal Emotion, asked 197 female undergraduates to watch either sad or emotionally neutral videos for 17 minutes, before undergoing a stress test.
The researchers used women because pilot viewings suggested that they cried, or at least revealed that they cried, much more readily than men.
The results were pretty conclusive. Participants that had watched the tearjerkers maintained moderate heart rates and stable breathing, while non-criers recorded a marked increase in both.
The less you hold back tears, the study suggests, the better you may feel.
Why do we cry?
What is the point of this blubbering, you might ask? Crying is indelibly tied to our emotions, as the shedding of tears for reasons other than emotional - such as irritation or illness - is given a separate name: lacrimation. There also three types of tears: basal, which keep your eyeball lubricated; reflex, that flush out irritations; and psychic, the ones linked to emotions.
Crying is a biological response to emotional stimulus, as the limbic system in our brains - which are linked to our autonomic nervous system - responds to certain emotional events and triggers the crying reflex.
While doctors and researchers differ over aspects of why crying developed as a coping mechanism for humans, it's been proven that physical reactions such as sweating and slowed breathing helps the body in times of emotional stress.
Psychic tears even have a natural painkiller, called leucine enkephalin, in them, which might explain why we often feel better after a good sob.
A crying consensus
It's not the first time that studies have highlighted the positive effects of some well-timed weeping.
A 2014 study found that crying has a "self-soothing" effect, which helps people relax by regulating their own emotions. Other research has suggested that crying can help babies sleep, improve your vision, and kill off hostile bacteria.
Best of all, a 2015 study found that after watching Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (in which a dog waits for its owner at a train station for years after the man’s death), a good cry could lift mood to levels above it’s pre-Hachi state.
So crying doesn't just dull the pain – it can cause a net improvement in well-being.
If women are, by and large, better able to master the skill of crying, then men truly need to catch up for their own sake. According to a study carried out by Professor Ad Vingerhoets, a clinical psychologist at Tilburg University, women cry between 30 and 64 times a year, while men only well up between six and 17 times per year.
Once crying, men typically do not let themselves sob at length, either. The study found that men cry for an average of two to three minutes, compared to six minutes for women.
