Research from UQ’s School of Psychology featured in an article by Best Health about the health benefits of crying.
Dr Leah Sharman, Associate Professor Genevieve Dingle and Associate Professor Eric Vanman led an experiment to test whether emotional crying facilitates coping and recovery from unhappy feelings.
The team showed sad videos to groups of criers and self-described non-criers: the non-criers breathing rates went up, whereas the criers tended to maintain theirs.
Criers also, right before crying, experienced decreases in their heart rates, seemingly in anticipation of the cry.
