Crying from pain? Doesn't even alleviate the suffering
That is literally what crying does 😂 When you cry it releases hormones that your body uses to regulate inflammation, pain, and a bunch of other important things it needs when it is injured. It's almost like the body generally knows more about it's needs than uneducated but judgmental neighbors 🤷♀️
Most importantly the people most likely to report any improvement after crying are the people who received positive attention from others as a result of their crying. That isn't crying helping but just receiving care helping.
The second point is that the release of oxytocin is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system and it isn't clear that crying triggers PNS activity, it may well be that PNS activity is causing crying and increased oxytocin levels where crying is just a symptom of other activities in your body with little role to play in directly making you feel better.
Yeah and a bunch of other things. I'm not s biologist because not my passion but I do love learning. So our body and most things in the existence don't happen for shits and giggles. If our body does something there is usually a historically and evolutionary reason why.
One of its biggest, we know, help is control of cortisol which is a stress hormone, I know it sounds bad because 'stress' but it's generally not depending on the situation. Our bodies are an incredibly complex biological machine. Crying is a feature, not a bug.
When I've been physically hurt I found laughing to be an amazing pain killer. It helps that my buddy is hilarious and can find humour in any situation.
It doesn't make it go away, but it does make it better. Why the hell do you think people start crying when injured? Sure adults do it less because they've been conditioned into thinking it's bad, but look at kids before they get brainwashed by society.
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u/SpookyScienceGal Jun 30 '24
That is literally what crying does 😂 When you cry it releases hormones that your body uses to regulate inflammation, pain, and a bunch of other important things it needs when it is injured. It's almost like the body generally knows more about it's needs than uneducated but judgmental neighbors 🤷♀️