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I got my start in working in the mental health space volunteer phone counselling for Griefline. I’d hear the same thing over and over again from bereaved callers: “I can’t stop crying,” “How am I supposed to go back to work when I start crying at the drop of a hat?” And I’d tell people how much that was a normal part of loss. This really stuck with me—how many people thought that a natural reaction to loss was a sign that something was wrong, how many people didn’t want their colleagues see their pain. I wondered if what a person believed about crying might relate to how they coped with stressful life events such as as loss. When it came time for me to develop a research project for my honours thesis I decided to investigate how what you believe about crying might relate to your wellbeing.

What Do People Believe About Crying?

While crying has been shown to have many benefits12, crying is not always believed to be beneficial. Researchers from The University of Queensland investigated beliefs about the helpfulness of crying and found that people can believe3:

  • That crying is helpful, for reasons such as providing an emotional release.
  • That crying is unhelpful for social reasons, such as feeling vulnerable and embarrassed around other people.
  • That crying is unhelpful for individual reasons, such as feeling worse after crying.

These beliefs about the helpfulness of crying have a relationship on how a person experiences crying, for example believing that crying is helpful has a relationship with experiencing a positive mood change after crying4.

How Beliefs about Crying Can Relate to Wellbeing

For my honours thesis I investigated how these three beliefs about crying relate to three aspects of wellbeing: how satisfied someone is in their life, their experience of positive mood and their experience of negative mood. We found that:

  • Believing that crying is unhelpful for social and individual reasons related to how negatively people rated how satisfied they were in their life.
  • Believing that crying is helpful related to their experience of positive mood but not to how satisfied they were in life.
  • Believing that crying is unhelpful for individual reasons related to greater negative emotions.

These findings suggest that it may not matter if a person holds helpful or neutral beliefs about crying in relation to how they evaluate their life satisfaction. However, believing that crying is unhelpful can compound the experience of negative emotions and relate to how a person perceives their quality of life.

How Self-Compassion Can Help

An aspect of the relationship between beliefs about crying and wellbeing that I wanted to investigated was the role of self-compassion. Self-compassion is about treating yourself with the same kindness, care and understanding you’d offer to a close friend during a difficult time; rather than criticising yourself for your mistakes or struggles, it invites you to respond with warmth, acceptance, and a gentle reminder that being human means being imperfect. A self-compassionate mindset has been shown to have a relationship with enhanced wellbeing.5

As part of my thesis we also examined the role of self-compassion in the relationship between beliefs about crying and wellbeing and found that self-compassion has a buffering role in the relationship between believing that crying is unhelpful for personal reasons and greater negative emotions—meaning that a person who believes that crying is unhelpful for personal reasons and has a self-compassionate mindset is less likely to struggle with more negative emotions than a person who does not have self-compassionate mindset.

What Does This Mean for People Going Through a Tough Time?

If you find yourself going through a tough time—whether that be the loss of a loved one, a job or a relationship—and you find yourself crying more than usual: try to extend yourself the same compassion that you would to a friend. While this might not make the things you’re going through any easier it can help not to compound the experience of negative emotions.

If you need a little help navigating a time of loss—whatever that might look like for you—our psychologists are here to provide a safe and supportive environment to help you move forward.

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Written by Provisional Psychologist Jessica Chapman – www.creatingchange.net.au
Psychology support in the Hills District, Western Sydney & Surrounds (including Rouse Hill, Bella Vista, Glenwood, Castle Hill, Kellyville, The Hawkesbury, Penrith Nepean, Blacktown, Epping, Ryde, Pennant Hills areas and surrounds)

  1. Gračanin, A., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2014). Is crying a self-soothing behavior? Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 502. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00502 ↩︎
  2. Hendriks, M. C. P., Rottenberg, J., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2007). Can the distress-signal and arousal-reduction views of crying be reconciled? Evidence from the cardiovascular system. Emotion, 7(2), 458–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.458 ↩︎
  3. Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., & Vanman, E. J. (2019). Does crying help? Development of the beliefs about crying scale (BACS). Cognition and Emotion, 33(4), 722–736. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1488243 ↩︎
  4. Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., Baker, M., Fischer, A., Gračanin, A., Kardum, I., Manley, H., Manokara, K., Pattara-angkoon, S., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2019). The relationship of gender roles and beliefs to crying in an international sample. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 2288. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02288 ↩︎
  5. Neff, K. D., Kirkpatrick, K. L., & Rude, S. S. (2007). Self-compassion and adaptive psychological functioning. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(1), 139–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.03.004 ↩︎