by Lizzie Elzingre

Created on: December 16, 2008   Last Updated: January 06, 2009

Nearly everyone feels better after having what we call a good cry. These feelings of relief are not made-up. Not only can a good cry spell relieve you emotionally, it brings sense of stillness and renewal to your senses. Tears because of exposure to environmental irritants such as fumes, smog, raw onions, and pollens are lubricants to our eyes. These kinds of tears happen instinctively to protect the eye from potentially harmful vapors.

Research Psychologists wrote that tears are not only stress-buster. They also soothe the mind, and heal the body. While almost all of us shed emotional tears between 7 to 47 times annually, we are not familiar with what goes on when we shed tears, how crying helps you to heal.

How Crying Works to Calm Mind and Body

Tears associated with emotion have high levels of protein, manganese, potassium, and hormones, including Prolactin. Prolactin is a hormone involve in stress, the immune system and other body functions. The tears are not simply water in content. It is part Manganese and part Potassium, which are both essential nutrients.

Because unrelieved stress can increase our risk for heart attack and damage certain areas of our brain, the human ability to cry has a survival value. Crying is a distress signal and a means to restore psychological and physiological balance.

Humans are the only animals to evolve this ability to shed tears in response to emotional stress, and it is likely that crying survived the pressures of natural selection because of usefulness. In other words, we cry-and need to cry-in order to rid our body of hormones that can be toxic to our emotional and physical well-being.

Excess stress hormones can take a toll on immunity, weight gain, and mood, making crying as one of the nervous system's ways of reducing our reactions to grief and ache, miseries and loss, even intense joy. Thus, it is important to cry to let go of feelings due to the good news, grief, joy, or recovery from a frightening event. You will be amazed to find how crying works to calm mind and body.

These little crystals of pain release the pressures and allows your mind to create a beautiful healing setting. I have discovered, through countless tears and heavy stones of shame carried awkwardly in my pockets, that it is important to release the pain and retain the memory. The memory of the pain helps us reach out in empathy, understanding, and love to those who struggle now where we once walked.

Therefore, the next time you feel like crying, let it flow because stress is terrible for the health of your brain, heart and other organs. Crying is natural, healthy, and curative. Crying is not a sign of weakness, in fact, it is the opposite. Smart adults know the benefits of a good cry. On the other hand, lengthen crying from depression often indicates a serious brain condition that might benefit from a doctor's visit. Having said that, do not wait until your sadness becomes a depressive disorder.

Cry until you can cry no more. Then, visually toss all your cares into the water and watch them disappear. Give thanks to the pain, the lessons learned and sense how crying helps you to heal.

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