Why Crying Is Basically Your Body’s Built-In Pressure Valve

I’ll be honest: I have never once seen myself crying and thought, “Well, don’t I look

serene and ethereal.” Nope. It’s usually puffy eyes, blotchy cheeks, and the kind of

runny nose that makes me grateful there’s no paparazzi waiting outside my door. If

crying were a fashion statement, it would be the old stained sweatpants we all secretly

wear when no one’s looking.

But here’s the thing - crying isn’t designed to make us pretty. It’s designed to keep us

sane. It’s one of those biological features God, evolution, or the Universe (depending

on how you like to phrase it) baked into us so we wouldn’t completely combust under

the weight of our emotions. Because whether we like to admit it or not, emotions don’t

just politely sit in the background. They knock on the door, they shove at the walls,

and if you ignore them long enough, they’ll move into your body like squatters - tensing your muscles, giving you headaches, clamping your jaw, or wrecking your digestion.

So why does crying make such a difference?

Why is it that after a good cry - the ugly

kind, the shoulder-shaking, snot-slinging kind - you suddenly feel like you’ve been

wrung out, rinsed clean, and maybe even rebooted? Let’s break it down.

Crying Isn’t Just About Tears

Most people think crying is just water leaking out of your eyeballs. If that were true,

then peeling onions would feel like therapy, and let’s be real - it doesn’t. The

difference is that emotional tears are chemically different from reflex tears. When you

cry because you’re sad, overwhelmed, or even relieved, those tears contain higher

levels of stress hormones like cortisol. In other words, you’re not just watering your

pillowcase - you’re flushing out the very chemicals that were making you feel

overloaded.

That’s why emotional crying feels so different from onion crying. Onion tears sting.

Emotional tears soothe. They’re your body’s version of a detox bath - only without the

Epsom salts and mood lighting.

The Nervous System Reset

Here’s where it gets even more fascinating. Crying doesn’t just get rid of stress

chemicals; it also switches your nervous system gears. Most of us spend way too

much time in “fight or flight” mode - tight shoulders, shallow breathing, musclesclenching like we’re bracing for a car crash that never comes. Crying taps the brakes

and shifts us into the parasympathetic nervous system, the one lovingly nicknamed

“rest and digest.”

This is why after a really good cry, you feel calmer, quieter, maybe even sleepy. Your

body has literally flipped the switch from high alert to healing mode. Think of it like

rebooting a frozen laptop: you hit restart, the screen goes black, you wait a second,

and then everything loads smoother. Tears are your body’s Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

The Secret Cocktail in Your Tears

Now, here’s the part that blows my mind: emotional crying doesn’t just drain the bad

stuff, it also releases the good stuff. Your body responds to crying by producing

endorphins (those little natural painkillers that act like internal Advil) and oxytocin (the

same hormone you release during a hug). Together, they create a chemical cocktail

that comforts you from the inside out.

Think of it as your body’s way of giving you a hug even if no one else is around to do

it. It’s one of the reasons why crying can feel strangely good, even when it’s sparked

by something awful.

Crying and Connection

Crying isn’t just a private thing; it’s also a social signal. Humans evolved to cry

visibly - red eyes, quivering lips, sobbing sounds - because it tells others, “I’m in

distress. Please come closer.” Babies wail so someone will feed them. Adults cry to

show vulnerability and invite comfort. Even if you’re alone, the act of crying can feel

like you’re finally being honest with yourself instead of keeping up the tough façade.

And if someone is there to comfort you? That oxytocin doubles down, deepening the

sense of safety. In that moment, crying doesn’t isolate you - it bridges you to

someone else. Which is powerful when you think about it: something we’ve often been

taught to hide is actually one of our strongest connectors.

Why It Feels Like Physical Relief

If you’ve ever tried to “hold it in” during a stressful time, you know the tension it

creates. Your throat tightens, your chest feels like a steel band, your jaw clamps shut.

That’s because emotions don’t just hang out in your brain - they set up camp in your

body. Suppressed tears can turn into tight muscles, headaches, or stomach knots.When you finally cry, you’re letting that tension unravel. Sobbing, in particular, forces

you to breathe differently - those hiccupy gasps and long exhales act like accidental

breathwork. The same way yoga helps release trapped stress, sobbing does too. It’s

messy, but it’s medicine.

Crying as a Healing Tool

So here’s the part we don’t talk about enough: crying is not weakness. It’s not failure.

It’s not “losing control.” Crying is actually one of the most powerful healing tools built

into the human body. It’s how we regulate pressure, process emotions, and reset our

nervous systems.

If laughter is the best medicine, then crying is the best pressure valve. One makes you

light; the other makes you lighter. Both keep you human.

The next time you feel that lump in your throat, instead of swallowing it down, consider

what your body is really asking. It’s not trying to embarrass you - it’s begging you for

release. Suppressing it doesn’t make the emotion go away; it just sends it

underground, where it shows up later as a stiff neck, a stress migraine, or an outburst

you didn’t see coming.

Crying is honesty in motion. It’s your body and your soul working together to say: “This

matters. Let’s let it move through instead of letting it rot inside.”

My Takeaway

I think the reason crying often makes us uncomfortable is because it strips away all

the masks. There’s no pretending when the tears are flowing. You can laugh while

hiding pain. You can smile while seething with anger. But crying? It outs you. And

that’s actually the gift.

Because once you’ve cried, you can’t deny what you feel anymore. And once you’ve

acknowledged what you feel, you’re already halfway to healing it.

So maybe the real invitation is this: stop seeing tears as cracks in your armor and start

seeing them as proof that you’re alive, still moving, still releasing, still healing.

Ugly-cry, pretty-cry, quiet-cry, loud-cry… all counts. And it all heals.

So here’s my question for you: When’s the last time you let yourself really cry - not the

quick dab-at-your-eyes kind, but the full-body, can’t-stop, runny-nose kind? And how

did you feel afterward?

Because chances are, you didn’t just release tears. You released the very weight that

was holding you down.