Welcome to Cry-Fest 2012!
So for the majority of this last week there’s been one common, overarching trend with almost everyone around me: crying. Yeah, as in the salty stream of water that runs down your face, reddens your eyes, and gives you the sniffles. That crying.
For whatever reason, the universe seems to have decided to bottle up all the woes and the dramatic outbursts of nearly everyone I know in this one fateful week. For any reason you can imagine, valid or not, people were crying every which way I went. Relationship and marriage issues, job troubles, family drama, health uncertainties–really, the list is quite endless. It got so frequent and widespread that, for a second there, I thought it might have something to do with me (obviously it didn’t).
And, of course, I’m not whining or anything. I have always been there for whoever needed me and have always been more than happy to offer a crying shoulder to a friend or family member (or even neither of those). But that does not deny the very fact that there really was A WHOLE LOT of crying going on, okay?
POINT IS! The crying reached such overwhelming proportions that I ended up doing some research on it to find out what the hell was up. Really.
And, after some thorough research, I’ve reached one, final conclusion: we should all cry more.
Now, hear me out here. Scientifically, it’s been proven that crying is quite the beneficial practice. In fact, it’s physiologically necessary. There are around three types of normal tears that our eyes produce. Basal (which is the kind that keeps the eyes moist and lubricated), Reflex (which is what happens when your eye senses a foreign object touching it somehow), and Emotional (when we have a psychological reaction).
My concern is with the third and final kind: the emotional, weepy crying which highlighted my entire week. Turns out these soap opera tears are actually the healthiest kind of all. Apperently those emotional droplets contain chemically higher levels of the manganese and prolactin hormones. The same hormones that can cause feelings of depression and heaviness in the body. So when we cry emotionally, we literally cry the boo-hoos away. We physically remove the hormones responsible for the horribly depressing, psychologically weighty feelings. That’s why most people actually end up feeling better after indulging in a good, long cry.
And, I have to say, when I recall all the moments of sad, sad, sadness which made up this last week, most of the people involved did, indeed, seem a lot calmer and began to think a lot clearer after crying their feelings out of their system. I myself can attest to the soothing after-effects of shedding a few, emotionally charged tears.
So, my advice to you? Cry more. Or rather when you feel like you need to wallow, sob loudly, or cry your freaking eyes out then cry. You’re not doing yourself any favors by keeping those flood gates closed. In fact, you’re stopping yourself from actually feeling better and cheering up.
And it’s not just about the heavy matters that you should open those faucets. If you get just the slightest, pinching hint of emotion, threatening a tear or two at the corner of your eye BECAUSE OH MY GOD GREYS ANATOMY IS ALMOST OVER, then you let that river flow.
Because, apparently, nothing will soothe your body, declutter your thoughts, and just make you happier than the good, old fashioned, occasional cry-fest.
All my love! (and happy crying!)
