Photo: Phil Nguyen

Why is crying healthy?

Research has found that in addition to being self-soothing, shedding emotional tears releases oxytocin and endorphins. These chemicals make people feel good and may also ease both physical and emotional pain. In this way, crying can help reduce pain and promote a sense of well-being.

medicalnewstoday.com - 8 benefits of crying: Why do we cry, and when to seek support

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Interestingly, humans are the only animals to cry tears. This article explores why we cry and what health benefits crying may have. It is not unusual to cry, and both sexes cry more than people may assume. In the United States, women cry an average of 3.5 times per month and men cry an average of 1.9 times a month.

Crying is a natural response humans have to a range of emotions, including sadness, grief, joy, and frustration. But does crying have any health benefits?

When people talk about crying, they are usually referring to emotional tears.

People may try to suppress tears if they see them as a sign of weakness, but science suggests that doing so could mean missing out on a range of benefits. Researchers have found that crying:

1. Has a soothing effect

Self-soothing is when people:

regulate their own emotions

calm themselves

reduce their own distress

A 2014 study found that crying may have a direct, self-soothing effect on people. The study explained how crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which helps people relax.

2. Gets support from others

As well as helping people self-soothe, crying can help people get support from others around them. As this 2016 study explains, crying is primarily an attachment behavior, as it rallies support from the people around us. This is known as an interpersonal or social benefit.

3. Helps to relieve pain

4. Enhances mood

Crying may help lift people’s spirits and make them feel better. As well as relieving pain, oxytocin and endorphins can help improve mood. This is why they are often known as “feel good” chemicals.

5. Releases toxins and relieves stress

When humans cry in response to stress, their tears contain a number of stress hormones and other chemicals. Researchers believe that crying could reduce the levels of these chemicals in the body, which could, in turn, reduce stress. More research is needed into this area, however, to confirm this.

6. Aids sleep

A small study in 2015 found that crying can help babies sleep better. Whether crying has the same sleep-enhancing effect on adults is yet to be researched. However, it follows that the calming, mood-enhancing, and pain-relieving effects of crying above may help a person fall asleep more easily.

7. Fights bacteria

Crying helps to kill bacteria and keep the eyes clean as tears contain a fluid called lysozyme. A 2011 study found that lysozyme had such powerful antimicrobial properties that it could even help to reduce risks presented by bioterror agents, such as anthrax.

8. Improves vision

Basal tears, which are released every time a person blinks, help to keep the eyes moist and prevent mucous membranes from drying out.

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15 Who is he? He's the 18-year-old German actor in Stephen Daldry's new film, The Reader. Kros was cast when he was 15, but filming had to be put on hold for a couple of years.

theguardian.com - First sight: David Kross | Kate Winslet | The Guardian

Who is he?

He's the 18-year-old German actor in Stephen Daldry's new film, The Reader. Kros was cast when he was 15, but filming had to be put on hold for a couple of years.

Why the delay?

For a start, they had to wait until he turned 18 to shoot sex scenes with Kate Winslet. Kross plays Michael, a teenager in 1950s Germany, and she's Hanna, the older woman he falls for. He also had to learn English to play the part.

He was willing to wait two years to get naked with Kate Winslet?

Actually, Kross says he barely knew who she was before the film (though he'd seen Titanic). There was a bit of bother with his mum, too.

Worried about the sex scenes?

More concerned that filming would interfere with his schoolwork, apparently. Kross also plays Michael in his 20s. The character, by now a law student, watches as Hanna goes on trial in a case against former concentration-camp guards.

Tough job. How does he do?

American critics have been split down the middle, both about Kross and about the film. One review called his performance "notably natural". The New Yorker, however, called it "borderline bovine". For what's it's worth, we think he really comes into his own in the later scenes, when he is saddled with the guilt of postwar Germany - one of the generation of kids who couldn't look their parents in the eyes.

What next for Kross?

Good things, no doubt. He has just been named a 2009 Shooting Star, the Berlin film festival's annual acting awards for up-and-comers. He's also filming a new German film, Same Same But Different, in Cambodia.

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