Have you ever felt better after a good cry? Though your eyes are all puffy and swollen, your heart and mind seem lighter than before. And have you felt even better when people around you don’t ask you to stop crying and instead, give you a warm hug, empathise with you, extend their emotional and moral support and make you feel like “you’re not alone”?
Well, the first thing we all did in this world was “cry”. But as we started growing up, we were always told not to cry. “Crying is a sign of weakness”, “Boys don't cry”, “Be a man”, “Stop crying like a girl”, “Grown-ups don’t cry”... we have heard enough, haven’t we?
Is crying useless and bad? If yes, then why do you think our bodies have such a mechanism? Well, when you keep pouring water in a glass that is already full, it overflows. When you pump in air, more than a balloon’s capacity to hold, it bursts. Similarly, when you are overwhelmed and crammed with emotions, crying is just your heart’s way of saying, “Hey, I am full.” That’s why we tear up when we are extremely happy or frustrated or anxious or grieving.
Everyone needs to find a medium to let off steam, for bottled up feelings only taste sour and bitter. Well, you can vent your feelings in different ways — writing, indulging in a work of art, exercising. But the easiest of them all is “crying”. It’s totally okay to shed a tear or two whenever you are feeling blue, because crying has its own health benefits.
Humans are the only animals that shed emotional tears. So crying is not a girl thing and does not make one any less of a man.
Crying is a natural response to a range of feelings and acts as a safety valve that allows us to blow off emotions. Crying detoxifies our body, because our emotions releases stress hormones and other toxins, and crying helps contain them. Crying releases feel-good chemicals such as oxytocin and endorphins that can help ease emotional and physical pain. Crying is self-soothing and also improves mood. And most important, crying helps one restore emotional equilibrium.
Many of us tend to suppress our emotions or hold back our tears, but we are just letting our stress grow. Suppressing emotions can cause anxiety, irritability, poor sleep and other serious issues such as high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes. Ever wondered why more men than women die by suicide, though women tend to have higher rates of depression?
It’s okay and important to feel and express our emotions. If it’s okay to laugh when you are happy or when something cracks you up, remember, it is also okay to cry when you are sad or overcome with emotion.
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