For over 20 years as physician, I've witnessed time and again the healing power of tears. Tears are your body's release valve for stress, sadness, grief, anxiety and frustration. Also, you can have tears of joy, say when a child is born or tears of relief when a difficult time has passed. In my own life, I am grateful when I can cry. It feels cleansing, a way to purge pent up emotions so they don't lodge in my body as stress symptoms such as fatigue or pain. To stay healthy and release stress, I encourage my patients to cry. For both men and women, tears are a sign of courage, strength and authenticity.
In Emotional Freedom, I discuss the numerous health benefits of tears. Like the ocean, tears are salt water. They lubricate your eyes, remove irritants, reduce stress hormones and contain antibodies that fight pathogenic microbes. Our bodies produce three kinds of tears: reflex, continuous and emotional. Each kind has different healing roles. For instance, reflex tears allow your eyes to clear out noxious particles when they're irritated by smoke or exhaust. The second kind, continuous tears, are produced regularly to keep our eyes lubricated. These contain a chemical called "lysozyme" which functions as an anti-bacterial and protects our eyes from infection. Tears also travel to the nose through the tear duct to keep the nose moist and bacteria free. Typically, after crying, our breathing and heart rate decrease, and we enter into a calmer biological and emotional state.
Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and "tear expert" Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98 percent water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body's natural pain killer and "feel-good" hormones." Interestingly, humans are the only creatures known to shed emotional tears, though it's possible that that elephants and gorillas do too. Other mammals and also salt-water crocodiles produce reflex tears which are protective and lubricating.
Crying makes us feel better, even when a problem persists. In addition to physical detoxification, emotional tears heal the heart You don't want to hold tears back. Patients sometimes say, "Please excuse me for crying. I was trying hard not to. It makes me feel weak."
My heart goes out to them when I hear this. I know where that sentiment comes from: parents who were uncomfortable around tears, a society that tells us we're weak for crying -- in particular, that "powerful men don't cry." I reject these notions. The new enlightened paradigm of what constitutes a powerful man and woman is someone who has the strength and self awareness to cry. These are the people who impress me, not those who put up some macho front of faux-bravado.
Try to let go of outmoded, untrue conceptions about crying. It is good to cry. It is healthy to cry. This helps to emotionally clear sadness and stress. Crying is also essential to resolve grief, when waves of tears periodically come over us after we experience a loss. Tears help us process the loss so we can keep living with open hearts. Otherwise, we are a set up for depression if we suppress these potent feelings. When a friend apologized for curling up in the fetal position on my floor, weeping, depressed over a failing romance, I told her, "Your tears blessed my floor. There is nothing to apologize for."
I've been this enthusiastic about crying for years. In fact, during my psychiatric residency at UCLA when supervisors and I watched videos of me with patients, they'd point out that I'd smile when a patient cried. "That's inappropriate," they'd say. I disagreed then; I still do. I wasn't smiling because my patients were depressed or grieving. I was smiling because they were courageously healing depression or other difficult emotions with tears. I was happy for their breakthrough. In my life, too, I love to cry. I cry whenever I can. Wish I could more. Thank God our bodies have this capacity. I hope you too can appreciate the experience. Let your tears flow to purify stress and negativity.
Follow Judith Orloff MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JudithOrloffMD
Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D.: The New Grief: How Modern Medicine Is Changing Dying, Death and Loss
Dr. Judith Rich: 5 Keys to a 'New' Abundance for Lean Times
Brooke Siler: Stress Relief: Why Crying Supports Emotional Wellness
I will practice this. It seems like good medicine.
Thank you.
so perfect and healing. She is amazing and so are our tears. Thanks for the confirmation.
As we let go of spiritual maladies, they are released in all of the natural fluids our bodies produce. As we have the courage to let go of old beliefs & hurts, our bodies generously provide vehicles for them to be removed. What a divine creation we get to live in!!
Did you read the part about stress hormones?
This article does a good job steering fairly clear of woohoo. There's no need to invoke mysterious substances to make the point about the therapeutic effect of crying.
The two most neglected areas of research in disease epidemiology are the unseen levels of spirit and soul. In addition to physical toxins, there are emotional, as well as spiritual toxins, such as suppressed negative feelings and trauma from past experiences held in pressure points within the body. By removing the emotional toxins of anger, hatred, jealousy, stress, anxiety, etc., and by purging the body of built up contaminants, the whole body heals.
So where did this stoical manly cr*p come from? That's a great subject for a sociology thesis. I'm thinking it's an upper class Norman thing from Britain...like so many other snotty contributions from that gang.
We are raised in a society that preaches indifference and not showing emotions as everyone goes through that.
I wonder if crying is the reason why women handle break ups faster than men. It seems like an eternity until I get over a break up while my female friends have a new boyfriend in two months sometimes earlier.