This episode is brought to you by the Music for Scientists album,
now available on all streaming services.
[♪ INTRO]
Sometimes, when you’re feeling overwhelmed,
nothing hits the spot like a good, emotional movie.
I mean, you’ve got the swelling music,
and the ending that gives you all the feels, and then suddenly, you’re just weeping.
But afterward, you somehow feel... better? You’re not alone in that.
In studies, plenty of people have reported feeling better after a good sob.
But the reasons why are kind of a mystery. And they range from social support,
to brain temperature.
For one possible explanation, we turn to some of the most celebrated sobbers in the world: babies.
Babies cry for all kinds of reasons,
from emotional ones to physical ones like hunger and discomfort.
And it makes sense! Since human infants are pretty helpless,
it's important to have a signal for caregivers that something is wrong.
But for adults, tears might actually be a similar distress signal!
In a 2019 study published in Motivation and Emotion, researchers asked 140 participants
how much they’d be willing to help people they saw in photos.
Half the photos showed people crying. And the other half showed the same people,
but with the tears photoshopped out.
And it turns out, tears had a really big effect.
Most people reported being more willing to help when they saw those tear tracks.
In fact, tears might be an even more important cue in adults than in babies.
Another study revealed that photos of crying adults evoked
more sympathy than photos of crying children and infants.
That might be because participants rated the photos of bawling babies as more irritating.
Which I mean, is kind of unfair; they can’t help it.
But also, when babies are wailing, it’s primarily an auditory thing.
Whereas adults are more likely to quietly cry, so it’s mainly a visual cue.
So, the researchers think adult tears are seen as a subtle and sincere signal of
emotional distress that’s designed to invite others to comfort us.
Other researchers suggest that when adults weep,
it tells other people that you're in less control than usual,
and that you need help from someone who might be more in control at the moment.
So, if crying connects you to someone who can comfort and support you,
that may be one reason you’re more likely to feel better afterward.
In fact, one study examined more than 4000 people’s reports of recent weeping episodes.
And the researchers found that when criers received comfort,
they were more likely to experience improvements in mood.
And if you cry when no one’s around?
Well, it could just be your body’s automatic strategy to get support.
That said, that’s not the only idea about why crying can feel so helpful.
Others are rooted a little more in biology, and how our bodies work.
Like, one idea is that crying might serve a basic,
physiological purpose: to soothe your mind and body.
Now, crying is contradictory, because it both works you up and calms you down.
But the timing of those emotional shifts is key.
In one study that involved 60 participants,
peoples’ heart rates accelerated when they started to cry.
But then, they quickly went back to normal.
Meanwhile, their breathing became slower than normal, indicating they were calming down.
Crucially, the soothing effect lasted two to three minutes longer than the agitating effect.
So the researchers concluded that crying may be a self-soothing behavior.
It's also possible that crying triggers the
release of oxytocin -- a stress-reducing hormone associated with social bonding.
That said, it's unclear whether oxytocin levels rise due to the biological act of crying
or because the tears caused someone to, say, give us a hug.
Either way, oxytocin helps improve our mood.
And beyond that, there are several other reasons crying could make us feel better.
Some scientists speculate that weeping releases
opioids that boost our tolerance for physical and emotional pain.
Others think crying might lower the amounts of stress hormones in the blood.
And most bizarrely, some researchers say inhaling
all that cold air when we’re sobbing might cool the brain, by literally cooling our blood.
And that could alter the activity of
neurotransmitters and create a pleasurable sensation.
But these are just hypotheses, so we still have a lot to learn.
The reason there’s so much uncertainty is because
the way crying affects mood is really challenging to study.
For one, it’s hard to get people to cry on demand.
So, in a typical crying study, a participant might watch a sad movie alone.
And that means the social motivations behind crying,
like seeking support, don’t really come into play.
After all, crying participants probably don’t want to have a heart-to-heart with the scientists.
In fact, in laboratory settings, participants usually report feeling worse after crying.
That may be because of the lack of support, or because they’re often being observed or filmed,
which might make them self-conscious or ashamed about crying.
So, the way we feel about crying
and whether it’s okay in a certain situation can impact how it makes us feel afterward, too.
Like, in one study, subjects were asked to either suppress crying or let it flow
while watching a sad movie.
In the end, people who were trying to hold back tears experienced a big stress response.
But people who rarely shed tears but tried to force it also felt stressed.
So when it comes to crying, do what comes naturally.
If you want to let it out… let it out.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also be interested in the album
Music for Scientists, written and recorded by Patrick Olson.
The album is a creative exploration of the space between art and science.
We recommend checking out the song “The Idea” — and the music video too!
The music video is a hybrid of traditional art and
advanced machine learning. It’s pretty mindblowing!
If you want to check it out, click below to see the video,
or you can stream the music on all major music services.
[♪ OUTRO]