Crying shame: Tears don't make you feel any better, study shows

Science has previously looked into boo-hooing with mixed results: After viewers in a lab setting watched a sad film clip, weeping was rarely found to boost mood -- but this might not be the best place to burst into heartfelt tears. Other studies have asked participants to recall past crying episodes. But retrospective surveys might not necessarily reflect actual behavior since memory can be selective, and people might not remember those times when wailing made them feel worse.

This new study, currently published online in the Journal of Research in Personality, asked 97 women aged 18 to 48 in the Netherlands to keep a daily crying and mood diary over a two-to three-month period. Men were not included in this experiment because the data was originally collected as part of a larger trial exploring the link between crying and the menstrual cycle.

Each night, participants logged their daily mood, their urge to cry, and whether they shed any tears. If they wept, they kept further details of each sob session, such as the reason for it, how long it lasted, how intensely they bawled, where it occurred, whether other people were around and how they felt afterward.

Scientists ended up with 1,004 crying episodes to analyze: Their results showed that the average boo-hoo lasted eight minutes and took place in the living room, usually alone or with one other person present. Conflict, loss, or seeing others suffer were the most common triggers for tears.

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/28/7190543-crying-shame-tears-dont-make-you-feel-any-better-study-shows

________________

the very few times i actually had a good cry, felt like shit and drained afterwards. never bought into it myself

Crying really is good for you.

I think the results are skewed because of the shame over expressing feelings,
and pressure on men not to cry.

It also sounds very very sexist.

that people get paid to produce studies such as this.

My most recent experience was about a year ago when a beloved family member died suddenly. I went thru some classic grieving stages. I was shocked and in disbelief, then I became really, really angry, then tears that I could not hold back, then for weeks afterward there was a dull ache of grief I thought would go on forever. What helped was getting together with other family members and talking. Sharing memories has been a great way to deal with her death, a year later. Memories of good times, funny stories, old photographs were and are big helps...

but i never got the feel better after. i never felt better afterward. bad enough to cry, bad didnt go away.

i had one death of someone close, mom. that takes a person into a whole other world

Altho when my mother died, she was 94 and I could see she had just given up (my brother had died quite suddenly a few months earlier). She died gently and peacefully. I was able to be close to her and whisper "I'm here, mother" so she knew she wasn't alone, until she slipped into unconsciousness. It was sad but she had lived joyfully and did not have any chronic illnesses. For that I was happy.

that is lovely, gentle, peaceful.

my moms was suicide, unexpected, day after christmas. harsh. slams you into a different place.

I lost my dad to cancer last year and I can't imagine losing a parent like that. For me, losing my dad was like having this giant meat cleaver come down on my life's thread. There was life before he died, and life after, but it was a distinct divider.

but there is definitely truth in what you say.

I cannot even imagine what the family went thru...and your poor mother...what a tragedy.

lots of lessons learned. the blessing is mom and i were always so close, and we had nothing left unsaid. i think that is the biggest thing with a sudden death.

lots of lessons learned, though.

shock, esp. for my brother, was like a body blow. She was only 24 and recently married. At her funeral, her pall bearers were young men who had ushered at her wedding. Incredibly sad...I don't think my brother ever got over the loss...

so sad. i can not even imagine. either losing a child, though adult, so very young. or a grandfather, step or otherwise would do this. horrible

then turned the gun on himself. It was an unspeakable tragedy. He had the gun for "home protection"...

just crazy and so in line with a suicide. if there was only one factor different in that moment, something so tragic would not have happened. just one difference.

On that fateful night, my other neice, her sister, was asked to accompany her and their mother to the grandmother's house to help her (she was quite ill with cancer) and she declined because she wanted to go to a party. After what happened, she had unbelievable guilt. As a result of that she wound up going into the ministry of the United Methodist Church.

I guess every family has a tragedy. You have had your share certainly...

...in the case of a cathartic cry (the kind often experienced at the end of powerful, emotional movies) or when someone was around to give me positive attention -because- I was crying (which was sometime around 20 years ago).

No, crying alone sucks.

There are times I get myself so worked up: anger, happiness, sadness, that it's impossible to keep going in that state. I must release it. Crying is the answer to that. It's like setting the reset button on the computer. It brings me back down to a calmer state. And as others have noted, I feel drained, empty, afterwards.

I haven't cried in over 25 years which she thinks is weird.

Glad to know I haven't been missing out on anything.

:hug:

Some people can only cry about themselves, like John Boner, Casey Anthony. When they interview murderers, they always cry about daddy forgetting their 8th birthday, but never about their victims.
When you cry for others, in empathy, pity, concern, it seems to come from a different place.

a poster above telling a story about his moms death, and i got tears... (that i do often) but it is not a bad feel in the cry.

was something that we do as babies because we can't talk. It's a way to ask for help. So instead of crying, you can just ask for help. Crying will not make the pain go away. He thought about this, and then a month or so later he hurt his finger or hand while we were at a construction site. He didn't cry. He just told me he hurt it and asked if we could go home. It wasn't bleeding and he did not appear to be in pain. He was quite calm. Well, I said sure, but let me finish blah blah blah. I took another 15 minutes and we went home. He went to his mom and had a good cry. Dad had waited forever and apparently it really hurt.

taught 4 yr old that one.

i kid

I was being treated with various kinds of blood pressure medicine which I could not tolerate. I went off of all my meds but continued to moderate my blood pressure.

Then my beloved little kitty died. The grief process brought back raging high blood pressure. Then I would cry--almost instantly my blood pressure would go down. Crying seemed to serve as a temporary opiate. I would feel an equilibrium for a while.

This cycle would continue, and the "scientist" within me, became fascinated, even while the rest of me was grieving. I think crying can, indeed, be a healthy release.

I cry very rarely. Very. For me, crying is like throwing up. I don't want to do it, I hate while it happens, and I do feel a sense of real relief afterwards, but I'd rather not have it happen in the first place.

Crying is a part of anger or grief or joy, and those emotions are entirely individual. I don't think it's legitimate at all to criticize someone else for how they feel. Ever. But the actions that they take based on their feelings? Entirely different.

I was just saying that. There are so many people out there who will tell others how they should feel. Or how they should express. I try not to do that. But I think that actions can be criticized. If someone's sad, and they are angry because they're sad, OK. But they can't go out and hit someone because they're sad and angry. Again, just stating how I think about this.

i hear ya.

with boys, they were and are still allowed to always feel what is within and express. never put the wall up. they learn to do it themselves as they hit that age where it matters in school.

home is a safe place for them

Crying at a sappy movie (something that I only started doing a few years ago) doesn't give me any release and doesn't make me any happier.

Crying out of an overwhelming sense of despair/desperation always makes me feel better in a spiritual sense. I just get a better perspective, clear headedness and sense of calm and maybe even well being. I don't know why but it really is a release. I wish I could do it more often then every couple of years. :)

Perhaps the study doesn't take into account whether the criers are frequent criers which might effect how therapeutic the crying session is for them?

feelings get expressed, I'm less likely to have the tummy ache or loss of appetite from whatever created the sadness.