6 Health Benefits of Crying

Crying has both physical and emotional benefits, and your body has different ways of producing tears to achieve those benefits. The physical benefits of crying include keeping your eyes lubricated and clean; tears wash away debris and germs that could damage your eye or cause infection. Researchers are still studying the health benefits of emotional tears, which they say may include stress relief. The three types of tears include:

• Basal tears: These tears are continuously in your eyes and maintain eye health. They lubricate your eyes and protect your cornea.

• Reflex tears: These also protect your eyes; your body uses them to flush out things, such as a stray eyelash, dust, smoke, or even the fumes from onions.

• Emotional tears: Our body produces tears in response to various emotional states: not only sadness, but also happiness and fear.

Psycho-emotional tears have no physical benefits for the health of your eyes. However, emotional tears may flush out stress hormones and other toxins from the body. Some research has found higher concentrations of certain proteins in emotional tears than in basal or reflex tears. Scientists say more research is needed for conclusive evidence, but some hypothesize that emotional tears purge the body of these stress-related substances.

While it may be frustrating for adults, it’s important for children to cry—for their physical and emotional health. Without hearing an infant cry, parents and caregivers would not immediately know that the baby needs assistance of some sort, whether it’s emotional comfort, feeding, diaper changing or some other type of care. Babies and children also cry because of pain as a nonverbal method to request the care of an adult.

Emotional tears can also be a communication tool for adults, indicating a need for social support. When someone cries with a close friend nearby, the person often feels better after crying. That social support can help the person resolve a conflict or help the person who’s crying better understand the event that happened that caused the tears. This results in the person feeling better after the cry. In contrast, people who try to avoid crying or who cry and don’t receive social support are less likely to feel better.

Basal tears lubricate our eyes, but as we get older, we make fewer basal tears. When tear production slows down, it can cause uncomfortable dry eye. This eye condition may also make it harder to fight off infection. To counteract dry eyes, blink more often to lubricate the eyes, and consider using a humidifier to increase moisture in your environment. Eating healthy fatty acids found in nuts and fatty fish, like salmon, may also help. If these home remedies don’t improve your dry eyes, talk to an ophthalmologist.

Frequent emotional crying can sometimes be a sign that the person needs to call a medical professional for help with a mental health issue, such as depression. Other signs of depression include: feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness; difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much; having trouble making decisions; losing interest in things that were once pleasurable; and thoughts of suicide. When frequent crying is coupled with other signs of depression, call your doctor.