Why We Cry and Why Its so Good for Us

Crying is part of our humanity. Women are definitely better at it than men. I see crying as a gift. It's a fantastic way of releasing pent up emotion. A good cry is just what we all need from time to time.

When my Dad died I found it easy to cry. My Mum however could not cry at all and in fact she hasn't really had a full on cry since September when we lost Dad. She wants to cry. She tells me she'd love nothing more than a cry-fest. She can't though. For some reason she is unable to let go. I feel sad for her because I know just how much it aids recovery from such traumatic events.

I have always been emotional. Not outwardly. In fact people would say I am not given to displays of emotion, and I'm not. I don't do displays of stuff like that. Crying to me, is a private thing. I can cry at the TV when I see starving children, sick children, people that have endured terrible things. I will sit there and cry and I won't care. I would not however, do this in a public arena.

I cry over the loss of my Dad still. I listen to the track Dance With My Father (which is the song I chose for the funeral) and I cry like crazy. I have tears streaming down my face and I don't care. I am happy that I can cry. I feel better afterwards.

There are happy tears, there are sad tears and there are watery eye tears! I get all three. I do suffer with sensitive eyes and sometimes I will tear up in a gust of wind or a ray of Winter sunshine.

So you're in floods, if not torrents of tears looking at FB pics of you and your ex, you keep playing your song over and over and you only think about the wonderful times you had together and tell yourself you will never be happy ever again.

So how do your tears manifest? How are they linked to our emotional state? There's an area of the brain that deals with emotions and it's called the limbic system which is hard-wired into our autonomic nervous system and that's the bit we have absolutely no control over. Bummer, who doesn't want control over everything!

Not only does crying ruin our face because we didn't wear our waterproof mascara It also increases our heart rate, we sweat and our breathing also slows down a little. This all happens because our sympathetic nervous system, otherwise known as fight or flight kicks in big time activating a response to a break up or another traumatic event.

Don't fight those tears because they are there to help you recover and move on to bigger and better things. Let them flow and embrace the emotion that comes with them. Don't old them back unless you are on the bus or talking to your boss who has zero tolerance for such things. if you feel them coming, hold them back and tell yourself you'll have a good cry when you've locked yourself in the loo later.

It's been my experience that men cry, but not as easily and certainly not so often. why is that? Hmmm, probably because they are repressed or uptight...no that's unfair. Men are programmed differently. They don't have the same emotional triggers that we have and that's not just because they don't want to cry.

My husband cried on our wedding day. I was shocked as he broke down at the alter. Of course, I assumed it was because he was happier than he'd ever been and seeing me walk towards him all dressed up like a fairy tale princess was just too much for him. But maybe he was just wondering how it got that far and he'd noticed the only exit was the one where he had to pass me and all of the guests and besides that he knew my Dad would probably kill him...for real.

He cried when his dad died but not so much it has to be said. I was beside myself and one of the nurses had to usher me into a side room because I was disturbing the other patients. He cried more when my Dad died but that was because he saw a lot of him and when he died my husband realised the impact his death would have on us all as a family.

Other than that, I can't remember a time when he had a cry. Oh actually one time comes to mind. We'd been together a few months and I ended it. It was in protest at something stupid actually. I was being an idiot. He did cry then. He was desperate not to lose me for some unfathomable reason. I thought I'd bagged a crier. I hadn't.