Have you ever over packed for a very long trip, filling your bag so much that you think the stitching is going to pop? If you have, have you ever done this with your emotions?
Doctor of Medicine, Judith Orloff, with more than twenty years of experience as a physician stated in The Health Benefits of Tears, that her patients sometimes say, “Please excuse me for crying. I was trying hard not to. It makes me feel weak,” Orloff then goes on to express that “her heart goes out to them,” when she hears them talk about their feelings towards crying and showing emotion. Orloff believes that crying has had positive benefits on her patients. She believes that tears are a sign of “courage, strength and authenticity.” not to mention that tears on their own may have actual health benefits.
Emily V. Driscoll, author of the article Why do people cry? states that tears can “relieve tension by balancing the body’s stress levels.” This is caused by eliminating buildups of manganese and prolactin through tears.
According to How crying can make you healthier, an article published in The Independent, says that crying makes, “9 out of 10 people feel better,” and “the latest research suggests it’s highly effective at healing, and that it improves the mood of 88.8 per cent of weepers.”
Now, with all these possible benefits why would anyone feel that showing emotion is something that would need to be excused for?
Sometimes it is a cultural thing or it can be dwindled down to the battle of the sexes. How crying can make you healthier states that women cry at least 47 times a year while men only cry 7 times.
Orloff believes that this might be due to parents who were “uncomfortable around tears” or “a society that tells us we’re weak for crying.” Though, sometimes it might just be our own selves.
I am not a very emotional person because, like Orloff’s patients, I once believed that crying shows signs of weakness. However, I have recently decided to reject this notion. Tears are empowering because they allow us to express ourselves in ways that words cannot. Bottling up emotions can only hurt a person in the long run because it can cause a lot of stress.
According to the book, Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way, “Chronic fatigue, weight gain and insomnia can rise from anger.” Dr. Frank Maurio, believes that, “Unexpressed emotions and desires are truly poison for your mental, and ultimately physical, well-being.”
For your own well-being, it is important to consider a weekly or even daily cleanse of emotions; at the end of the week or day, especially if you’ve had an extra stressful day, you should give yourself 5-10 minutes where you can just cry, yell, run, or do whatever you need in order to relieve yourself of those emotions. This can be a very beneficial tool and it does not have to be done in public. If you feel uncomfortable crying in front of others you can do this privately.
There is no reason why anyone should go without the health benefits that crying can bring, so take some time and consider any emotions you might have been holding in. Realize that it is only beneficial to yourself to consider these emotions and allow them to escape.
As always, stay beautiful, stay healthy, stay kind.
[Image By David Castillo Dominici]
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