Why Cry?
Within somatic therapy, we have to understand that the body is fairly consistently producing hormones, whether those be calming (leptin or serotonin), loving (oxytocin), stressful (cortisol), fight or flight (adrenaline), or many others (Addi, Hormone harmony: The inside story of balance, 2024).
When we cry, our body is releasing excess hormones. Crying helps our bodies shift from a state of fight or flight to our regulated window of tolerance. This quickly can help relieve your body from high distress states into a self-soothing state.
Crying is caused by several factors, such as removing irritants from your eyes (reflex tears), lubricating (basal tears), or ‘psychic’ tears, which are the emotional responses for crying. When crying from high emotional states, our bodies release a neurotransmitter called leucine enkephalin (“The Microscopic Structures of Dried Human Tears.” Smithsonian, Nov. 19, 2013) that is a natural painkiller!
I’m crying, but not sad, why is that?
Crying isn’t just for sadness, or even any particular emotion! Since it’s your body’s way to release excess hormones, we can cry from ANY emotion, happiness, anger, anxiety, etc. You can even cry from tiredness!
How often should I be crying then?
There’s no ‘set amount’ of crying that is ‘good or bad’, rather crying when your body asks this of you! Crying is natural and when we allow ourselves to cry, we are letting our body know “I’m listening. I understand that you need this right now”, to both release hormones as well as to feel seen.
In general, an average for female individuals is crying 5 times per month or about once a week, whereas male’s average is closer to 1.5 times per month (Olson, Crying too much? 2018). Part of the cause for this isn’t because ‘girls just cry more’ but rather female individuals actually produce 40% more hormones!
What if I can’t cry anymore?
Unfortunately, after long periods of not crying as an emotional release, the body can feel as though it has ‘forgotten’ how to cry. This is usually more so due to emotions becoming high enough in our hyperaroused state (hot emotions like anxiety and anger) that we dip into hypoarousal (cold emotions like depression or sadness) as a protective ‘functioning freeze’ state (Khiron Clinics, Hypoarousal vs Hyperarousal: Understanding trauma responses 2026). This causes us to be dissociated or depressed to a point where crying is seen as ‘dangerous’ to the nervous system as it would re-trigger the high emotions, when your nervous system may not feel ready for that.
With that being said, don’t stress about not crying, instead focus on other ways to release distress from your body through somatic practices like the ones linked in this post: https://www.solsticetraumahealing.com/group/get-more-from-therapy/discussion/19f85cbe-0bd2-4570-b014-47cf3d7c332c These resources can help with your body being able to slowly get out of the hypoaroused state, back to where your body feels safe enough to cry!
References:
Addi. (2024, April 23). Hormone harmony: The inside story of balance | by addi. Medium. https://medium.com/bouncin-and-behavin-blogs/hormone-harmony-the-inside-story-of-balance-2e752d509557
Khiron Clinics. (2026, February 25). Hypoarousal vs Hyperarousal: Understanding trauma responses. Khiron Clinics. https://khironclinics.com/blog/hypoarousal-vs-hyperarousal/#:~:text=Hyperarousal%20and%20hypoarousal%20are%20both%20protective%20survival,heart%20*%20Rapid%20breathing%20*%20Dilated%20pupils
Olson, R. (2018, July 15). Crying too much?. Orlando Health. https://www.orlandohealth.com/content-hub/crying-too-much
Stromberg, J. (2013, November 19). The microscopic structures of dried human tears. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-microscopic-structures-of-dried-human-tears-180947766/