Crying every day can be a normal emotional release, but it often signals underlying stress, burnout, grief, anxiety, or depression, becoming a problem if it's constant, causes distress, or interferes with life. While crying helps release emotions and stress hormones, daily crying can exhaust you and may indicate you're overwhelmed, pointing to a need for self-care, lifestyle changes, or professional help to address the root cause.
For most people, crying is a normal part of being human. Factors like gender, cultural background, and attachment style can impact how often you cry. Crying every day may be a sign of unresolved grief or an underlying mental health condition.
According to the German Society of Ophthalmology, which has collated different scientific studies on crying, the average woman cries between 30 and 64 times a year, and the average man cries between 6 and 17 times a year. Men tend to cry for between two and four minutes, and women cry for about six minutes.
It may surprise you to learn that too many tears can even be a dry eye symptom as your eyes try desperately to address the irritation. If excessive crying interferes with daily life, or if physical symptoms like persistent dry eyes persist, it may be time to consult a professional.
This might include techniques like deep breathing, mindfulness, or cognitive reframing, where you challenge and change your thought patterns around certain triggers. Consistent practice can gradually reduce the intensity of your reactions, helping you respond to situations with more emotional stability.
Several factors can contribute to excessive crying, including mental health conditions like depression or anxiety, hormonal imbalances, or unresolved emotional issues. Stress, grief, and even certain medications can also influence your crying patterns.
The “90-second rule,” introduced by Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, reveals that an emotional surge in the body lasts only about 90 seconds—unless we mentally keep it alive.
Bad Effects of Crying on Health
But for some, the act of crying can cause medical complications. It can lead to fits or can cause acute shortness of breath. For those with severe heart conditions, there can be a cardiac pain. Crying can take a toll on your body if you have certain medical conditions.
As for the tears themselves, Dr. Wechsler recommends rinsing them off to abate dryness. If you've cried within a half hour of doing your skincare routine, you can rinse with a gentle cleanser (or water, if you think another wash will be too drying) and re-apply your skincare products.
Ultimately, there isn't a “right” or “wrong” to crying, and factors like age, gender, and one's environment can affect the likelihood that a person will cry more or less often. (For instance, according to some research, women cry 4-5 times per month on average, men 0-1 times.)
Many people go through this situation where they can't cry no matter how much distressed they feel inside. This struggle comes from a complex emotional blockage that is linked with trauma, anxiety, stress, and sometimes physical reasons or medication side effects.
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.
Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Know the 5 signs of Emotional Suffering
The first stage of a mental breakdown, often starting subtly, involves feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and increasingly anxious or irritable, coupled with difficulty concentrating, changes in sleep/appetite, and withdrawing from activities or people that once brought joy, all stemming from intense stress that becomes too much to handle.
Crying itself doesn't directly cause pimples. However, stress and hormonal changes triggered by crying can contribute to the development of acne. Stress increases the production of sebum (skin oil) and inflammation, both associated with acne breakouts.
How to Look Like You Haven't Been Crying
Muscle tension and pain. Heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke. Sleep problems. Weight gain.
Our emotions are linked to physiological reactions in our brains, releasing hormones and other powerful chemicals that, in turn, affect our physical health, which has an impact on our emotional state. It's all connected. That's why physical sickness can be caused by a mind under emotional stress.
While crying is usually associated with distressing experiences, positive yet overwhelming experiences such as receiving an award, a marriage proposal or watching a touching movie can cause people to tear up as well. People may cry because they are overstimulated.
“After a tough crying session, have a quick catnap if possible,” advises Rhodes. “If this isn't practical, try some meditation or go for a walk in a green space. You need to actively work on calming the emotional part of your brain down. Drink some water to get your fluid levels back up.
5 of the Hardest Emotions to Control
While there are many emotions, psychologist Paul Ekman identified seven universal emotions recognized across cultures: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and contempt, often remembered with the mnemonic "CHAD SurFs," which are fundamental to human experience and have distinct facial expressions. Other models suggest different sets, like those focusing on basic brain circuits (rage, fear, lust, care, grief, play, seeking) or common emotional challenges (joy, anger, anxiety, contemplation, grief, fear, fright).
To hide your feelings from a love interest or people generally, focus on acting and speaking casually, avoiding others, or lying about your feelings. Express your emotions or channel them into healthy activities—but don't use drugs and alcohol to cope.