Bring on the tears! Research says crying is good

The researchers found that the majority of respondents reported improvements in their mood following a bout of crying. However, one third of the survey participants reported no improvement in mood and a tenth felt worse after crying.

The survey also revealed that criers who received social support during their crying episode were the most likely to report improvements in mood.

Studies till date have not always produced a clear picture of the benefits of crying , in part because the results often seem to depend on how crying is studied. The researchers note several challenges in accurately studying crying behaviour in a laboratory setting.

Volunteers who cry in a laboratory setting often do not describe their experiences as being cathartic or making them feel better.

Rather, crying in a laboratory setting often results in the study participants feeling worse; this may be due to the stressful conditions of the study itself, such as being videotaped or watched by research assistants.

This may produce negative emotions (such as embarrassment), which neutralize the positive benefits usually associated with crying.

However, these laboratory studies have provided interesting findings about the physical effects of crying. Criers do show calming effects such as slower breathing, but they also experience a lot of unpleasant stress and arousal, including increased heart rate and sweating.

What is interesting is that bodily calming usually lasts longer than the unpleasant arousal. The calming effects may occur later and overcome the stress reaction, which would account for why people tend to remember mostly the pleasant side of crying.

Research has shown that the effects of crying also depend on who is shedding the tears. For example, individuals with anxiety or mood disorders are least likely to experience the positive effects of crying.

Also, the researchers found that people who lack insight into their emotional lives (a condition known as alexithymia) actually feel worse after crying.

The authors suggest that for these individuals, their lack of emotional insight may prevent the kind of cognitive change required for a sad experience to be transformed into something positive.

The study is published in the December issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.