During a church lecture on family health several months ago, the question was asked about the reasons behind the global advantage women enjoy over men in terms of life expectancy. The answers were not far to seek; women multitask, went the guest lecturer and so they tend to handle stress better than men even as they absorb the shock of their loss. The second reason was more confounding; women, he said, were ultimately quicker to tears and that being a very public display of emotion ultimately brings healing very swiftly to a grieving heart. The auditorium erupted in a din of sound as the second answer almost turned into a lecture of its own. Clearly, the lecturer had hit a raw nerve which resonated with many in the church and people wanted to know about that interesting relationship. It was therefore the impetus for this week’s essay and that was for no less a reason than the assurance of scientific enquiry which indicates that crying does have a range of positive benefits.

Crying is a natural response found in man as a reaction to various emotional states. Grief, sadness, frustration and joy all make people cry for a varying duration of time. People of either sex often cry more frequently than is apparent and this is a quality not limited to humans alone. In documented evidence recorded in the United States, it became evident that the average woman cried about 3.5 times every month while the average man did so half as many times. So now we must try to understand why people, irrespective of their sex, cry. These are broadly divided into three main categories and none is less important than the other but it needs emphasis that when people usually talk about crying in the ordinary sense, they refer to the emotional type of it and are therefore, referring to emotional tears. Among men, there is a tendency to suppress the urge to cry or to suppress tears especially if they perceive such an emotion to be a sign of weakness.

Crying in response to pain or joy or sadness is no doubt a normal development. Sometimes, crying is a prominent feature in depression which ought to be suspected if the frequency of crying is regarded as abnormal or it happens for no evident reason. One must also worry about the possibility of depressive illness if such excessive crying begins to interfere with the person’s daily activities or interferes with their work. When other features of depression are seen such as difficulty with concentrating on things or making decisions, such crying must then be determined as not being beneficial but probably suggestive of some deeper malaise.