I’m someone who swears by the therapeutic properties of a cry. Some people see crying as a weakness, but my mom used to tell me that a good cry was all it took to get past whatever was getting you down.
And now, science is backing her up on it.
A new study found that crying can make you feel worse right after you’re done, but 90 minutes after you cry, you feel much better than you did even before you had a reason to cry.
The lead researcher, Asmir Gracanin of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said “This is the first study that has demonstrated a clear relation between experimentally induced crying and subsequent, more long-term improvement.
The study had the participants watch an extremely sad movie that had many of them crying before even twenty minutes had passed. They filled out a questionnaire immediately following, at the twenty-minute mark and then at the ninety-minute mark after the movies had finished.
Those who didn’t cry during the movie didn’t report a significant mood change. ##MN_RESP##
But those who did? They felt worse immediately after, returned to their original mood after 20 minutes, and felt even better after 90.
This just backs the theory that crying has real therapeutic properties. And emotional relief isn’t the only benefit. Crying can help your body calm down, which anyone has cried from too much stress can relate to. You feel stressed, you break down and cry, and you feel ready to take on the problem afterwards.
This is because crying can regulate your body temperature and blood pressure.
So why it may not be the most dignified form of relief, but it’s really beneficial to some people, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
