# Does crying really make you feel better?



## David Baxter PhD (Jul 12, 2011)

*Does crying really make you feel better?*
by Christian Jarrett, _BPS Research Digest_
July 12, 2011

Psychologists have made surprisingly little progress in explaining why we cry. A popular idea is that crying is cathartic - that the tears of sadness wash away life's woes like detritus carried off in the tide. This has been supported by retrospective surveys that ask people how they felt after previous bouts of crying. Lab studies, by contrast, which involve participants watching weepie movies, have found crying to have no such benefit. Both approaches, however, are seriously flawed. Findings from the retrospective approach are prone to memory distortion and people's answers are likely influenced by the popular cathartic idea. Lab studies, meanwhile, suffer from a lack of realism.

A superior method is to have participants complete a daily crying diary for an extended period of time, to be completed each night - soon enough to reduce memory distortions, but not too intrusive to interfere with the behaviour under observation. Believe or not, just one diary study of crying has been conducted before. Now Lauren Bylsma and her colleagues have performed the second, involving 97 female undergrads who completed a crying diary, including questions about daily mood and crying context, for between 40 and 73 days. In all, 1004 crying episodes were documented, and all participants cried at least once. Most bouts of crying were triggered by conflict; the next most common reason was loss, followed by personal failing.

Bylsma's headline finding is that crying mostly had little positive benefit, at least not on overall daily mood. Not only did crying episodes tend to be preceded by two days of lower daily mood, they were also associated with lower daily mood on the day of crying and lower daily mood on two successive days afterwards. For mood in the specific moments after a crying session, the results were more encouraging. Most often mood was reported as unchanged (60.8 per cent), but 30 per cent of sessions were associated with a positive mood change, with 8.8 per cent leading to a deterioration in mood.

Other findings included: more intense (but not longer) crying episodes were associated with more positive mood outcomes, as were crying episodes that followed a feeling of inadequacy and that triggered a positive change in the situation. Also, crying in the company of one other person was associated more often with positive mood change than was crying alone or crying in the company of multiple people. Conflict tears tended not to be associated with a positive mood change, undermining the idea that tears can defuse social tensions. 

The study has its limitations - for example, the mood scale only had a three-point range, and of course it's a shame that men weren't included too. But even granted these limitations, the researchers emphasised that theirs was "the first extended examination of the relationship between crying and mood using detailed contextual information from multiple crying episodes and, as such, represents an important step towards understanding this striking human behaviour."

*Source:* Bylsma, L., Croon, M., Vingerhoets, A., and Rottenberg, J. (2011). When and for whom does crying improve mood? A daily diary study of 1004 crying episodes. _Journal of Research in Personality, 45_ (4), 385-392 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2011.04.007

Related Digest item: What does crying do for you?


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## br350 (Jul 13, 2011)

I find this very interesting.  As a woman 40+ and having had many crying jags over the years, I nearly ALWAYS feel better after crying something out.   I would say, based on the recountings of friends and family members, that most of them feel the same way.  I think what may be missing from this research is the long term follow up (longer than 3 months) of the participants.   Perhaps the crying was precipitating or giving expression to a coming or existing bout of depression, or perhaps it was related to the onset of a developing anxiety disorder.  To just log crying episodes, with no deeper context, really does not tell us very much.  Although the undergrads listed the 'reason' for the crying bout (loss, failure, etc) it is not clear if these assessments were part of the larger picture of a possible burgeoning mental health issue.   Again, from my years of personal experience and that observed and shared with my friends, I find this information somewhat perplexing.  To put it this way, I have never heard a friend or relative relate that crying made them feel worse.


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## icthus (Jul 13, 2011)

" Not only did crying episodes tend to be preceded by two days of lower daily mood, they were also associated with lower daily mood on the day of crying and lower daily mood on two successive days afterwards."

OK. I'm missing a comparison--if such were possible--with lower moods and not crying even if the difference is not significant enough to measure.


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## Yuray (Jul 13, 2011)

At least we know why female undergrads cry...................


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## Cat Dancer (Nov 12, 2011)

Crying makes me feel worse. It makes me feel weak and sick. I hate crying. I am glad to read it's not really a good thing.


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## AmZ (Nov 13, 2011)

Works both ways for me. When I cry and I'm alone, I most of the time feel worse but if I am in the company of a professional support person and cry, it often helps. Probably because I am talking about things too. 

There was once, I laid on my tiled floors crying like I've never cried before, I couldnt stop. And like CD described, I felt totally sick and horrible from it. 

May we all never need to cry again!


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