Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Crying has its perks

I have found that a good cry can make me feel better.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/s-chi082415.php

Public Release: 24-Aug-2015
Crying has its perks
Study investigates the effect of crying on one's mood
Springer

Yes, a good cry indeed might go a long way to make you feel better, says Asmir Gračanin of the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, lead author of a study in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion. These findings were established after a research team videotaped a group of participants while watching the emotionally charged films La vita è bella and Hachi: A Dog's Tale. Afterwards, the participants were asked a few times to reflect on how they felt.

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The two films shown to 60 participants are known to be tearjerkers. Immediately afterwards, the 28 participants who cried and the 32 who didn't shed a tear were asked how they felt. They also had to rate their moods 20 and 90 minutes later.

As expected, the mood of the non-criers was unchanged and unaffected immediately after seeing the films. The mood of the criers, on the other hand, was distinctively low and even took a dip. Within 20 minutes, however, their mood had returned to the level reported before the screening. Finally, after 90 minutes, the criers reported even a better mood than was the case before the films started. Such a mood shift was not tied to the number of times that a person cried during the films.

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