Thursday, 2 December 2021
Surprising Health Benefits of Crying
BRIEF HISTORICAL VIEW – BIBLE PERSPECTIVE
Tearful cry is simply crying that is accompanied with tears. If you ask me,to state the relationship or difference between crying and tears, I would say they are cousins. While Crying is an expression of emotion, tears is the bodily manifestation of an inward emotional activity. Crying is as old as the planet.
There are so many mention of tears in the bible and I am sure in other religions Islam and the rest cannot be left out. The Shortest verse in the bible is on this subject . John 11:35 “Jesus Wept”
One of the first bible reference for tears is in the book of Genesis when Abraham wept over the death of Sarah. Hannah wept before the Lord in her barren state. Esau wept over his father Isaac, asking for a blessing. King David writes prolifically in the Psalms of his tears before the Lord.
The bible provides accounts of tears of grief (as above, also David weeping over the death of Absalom, others shed tears of repentance, sin and sorrow. The city of Nineveh wept for their sins, Peter after the rooster crowed for the third time. Prophet Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet.
A little away from bible. Crying and tears should not be restrained and suppressed. It is actually healthful to cry, crying is not a show of weakness, fear or deficiency. In mine opinion, it is courageous bold step.
OTHER WRITERS
Culturally, some are of the opinion that crying should be reserved for the feminine gender. I strongly disagree, because this will robb the men of the numerous health benefits of real emotional crying from the heart. Not Nollywood, or movie crying.
Charles Spurgeon in his exposition on Psalm 5 vs 2 in the Treasury of David stated that “Crying has a voice, a soul moving eloquence coming from our heart, It reaches God’s heart”
Coming to yourself, How long has it been since you had a good cry with tears. quite some time I believe, some people see watery eyes as a sign of weakness. I like the words of Robert Frost on the subject “No tears in the writer, No tears in the reader, No surprise in the writer, No surprise in the reader”
But being vulnerable is the best way to grow closer to another person. If everything isn’t okay, don’t say it is.
HEALTH BENEFITS OF CRYING
1. Confronting your feelings helps you move forward in life.
It’s awfully tempting to play it safe in life, but if you don’t take the occasional risk, you can’t expect much excitement or personal growth. It isn’t easy to put yourself into a new situation with feelings and emotions attached (for example: starting a new relationship after being emotionally damaged in your last one), but just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. If you have harsh feelings left over from love lost, confront them without fear. Don’t try to run and hide from how you feel. Be still and soak in it. The sooner you confront your past, the sooner you can move forward into a better future. 2.
2. Expressing your emotions helps you be creative.
“I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset–tears are words waiting to be written.” – Paulo Coelh
My honest advise is this No matter what you’re going through, be strong and deal with it.
Have a good cry if you need to, it’s healthful, I have tasted it several times and feel persuaded to write on the subject through this site having tasted its numerous health benefits .
3. Help Release toxins
Releasing your tears helps you flush out toxins. “Crying is cleansing. There’s a reason for tears, happiness or sadness.” – Dionne Warwick
A study performed by Dr. William H. Frey II at the St Paul-Ramsey Medical Centre found that stress-related tears and tears caused by physical irritants (think chopping an onion) are not one and the same. Tears that are provoked by stress help your body rid itself of nasty chemicals that raise cortisol (the stress hormone). In other words: you’ll feel a whole lot better after the emotional down-pour passes.
Says Judith Orloff MD ” For over twenty years as physician, I have witnessed, time and again, the healing power of tears, Tears are your body’s release valve for stress, sadness, grief, anxiety, and frustration”. Also, you can have tears of joy, say when a child is born or tears of relief when a difficulty has passed. In mine, own life, I feel happier after every cry, I feel cleansed, I feel purged of burdensome emotions, they nolonger lodge in my body as stress symptoms such as fatigue or pain. I reiterate and recommend moderate crying when necessary for men and women. Tears are a sign of courage, strenght, and authenticity. Letting go of your baggage helps you end suffering.
“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” says – Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
Would you rather face your feelings without fear or pretend everything is okay when it isn’t? Sure, the first option might come with temporary comfort, but pretending problems don’t exist only delays the inevitable. You cannot run and hide from how you feel forever, no matter how hard you try. Carrying all that baggage around is detrimental for your emotional health, so it’s in your best interest to cry if you need to. While this won’t necessarily solve your problems, it could help you come-to-terms with them.
4. Crying helps you deal with emotional stress.
Lemony Snicket says “you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”- Lemony Snicket
From the Huffington Post article, “Stress Relief: Why Crying Supports Emotional Wellness”
Professor Roger Baker, a consultant clinical psychologist and visiting professor at Bournemouth University, told the UK’s Daily Mail that “crying is the transformation of distress into something tangible, and that the process itself helps to reduce the feeling of trauma.”
Have you ever felt sad for no reason? Emotions aren’t always logical. Letting your emotion take hold of you, whether that results in crying or not, could help you find the reason behind your tears. And when you’re aware of the problem that requires your attention, you’ll be free to find an antidote for the stress that ails you.
5. Weeping helps you come to terms with a loss.
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.” – William Shakespeare
Losing a family member, friend, partner, or pet is one of the worst things anyone could ever go through. In situations like this, words don’t suffice. Sometimes the only thing you can do is hug someone you love and let the tears flow.
6. Having a good cry helps you feel better.
“What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.” – Jewish Proverb
A study performed at the University of Florida found that crying is more effective than any antidepressant on the market. A good cry improved the mood of 88.8% of weepers with only 8.4% reporting that crying made them feel worse.
7. Crying makes you strong.
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” – Washington Irvin
8. Being Vulnerable helps you connect with others:
While I’m not advocating that we go around crying all the time just for the sake of it. Excessive crying can sometimes point to a more serious underlying emotional issue and/or can be done as a way to manipulate others. I’m not talking about that either. I’m talking about our ability to express our emotions in a real and vulnerable way, some of the time resulting in the shedding of our tears. What if we embraced crying a bit more and let go of our negative connotations about doing so? As Charles Dickens beautifully said, “We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
Even though we may resist, fear, and avoid crying – at work, with friends or family, with members of the opposite sex, with our children, or with anyone else, we worry it wouldn’t be “appropriate” to cry in front of, there are some real positive benefits to shedding tears.
9. Crying is good for our physical and emotional health – Medical research now suggests that tears could actually be a way of flushing negative chemicals out of the body and doing us a world of good physically. In addition to removing toxic substances from our body, crying can also have the psychological benefit of lifting our mood and helping us to deal with painful situations.
10•Shedding tears reduces,mental, physical and Psychological stress – Crying is thought to help reduce the effect of many forms of stress, which can have a damaging effect on our health and has been linked to a number of health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes and obesity. According to a study by Dr. William H. Frey II, a biochemist at the St Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota, crying can help to wash chemicals linked to stress out of our body, one of the reasons we feel much better after a good cry.
.
When we cry we open up, let down our guard, and connect with others in a more real and vulnerable way I’ve seen tears dramatically shift a person’s perspective, change the dynamic of an argument. Tears have a way of breaking down emotional walls and mental barriers we put up within ourselves and towards others. Crying tends to be some kind of human equalizer, because no matter the circumstance, situation, or stress we may face, our tears have a way of shifting and altering things in a beautiful, vulnerable, and humbling way.
There’s nothing wrong with our tears, even if we get a little embarrassed, uncomfortable, or even pained when they show up. As we allow them to flow through us, we not only release toxins from our body, stress from our system, and thoughts from our mind – we tap into one of the most basic and unifying experiences of being human. Crying is powerful and important – let’s have the courage to do it with pride and support each other in the healthy expression of our tears.
Finally, Let us learn from our saviour Jesus, for He wept himself, Go on and cry if there is a cause for it. There is a bottle reserved by the Creator of heaven and earth for geniune tears from the heart and he honours them HIMSELF. In Psalm 56:9 the psalmist declared, When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.”
There is much depravity in our days because of few crying men, Again David declared, in Psalm 55:17 Evening, and morning and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice”
David was a man after God’s heart, God’s men understands the benefits of crying, no blood pressure, hypertension, headaches and the like. including all the enemies of our health. When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back. more posts coming on this
Tears I feel is so powerful that it seems to me contagious, there is something that makes you want to cry or breaks you when you behold real emotional tears.
Remember tearful crying knows no tribesman:
The Whites cry
The Blacks cry
The aged cry
The youths cry
men cry
women cry
Children cry
The poor cry and
The rich also cry
So welcome to our world
Would you rather start or stop crying
0 comments:
Post a Comment