Crying for Your Ex Can Help You Lose Weight, According to a Study

Curiosities
2 years ago

The average person cries around 16.5 gallons of tears during their lifetime, according to scientists. However, it seems that people prefer to bottle up their emotions and are sometimes even ashamed of them. But what if we were to tell you that emotional crying is another way to stop you from gaining extra weight? We think that this fact is enough to help us finally find the right exit for the gallons of tears that are buried deep inside our hearts.

We at Bright Side understand how tough our life situations can be. And that’s why today, we’ve decided to highlight once again that there are always 2 sides of the coin. Let’s discover what scientists have to say here.

You may have doubts about this being true.

Some of you may not believe that you can lose weight by letting your emotions out. There are too many of us who have been through this situation and we know that it’s a vicious circle: you stress out, eat more, and after a few days realize that your favorite pair of jeans are too tight. How could we even expect weight loss in this situation? It’s ridiculous!

But it all depends on where the cortisol finally is.

It appears that we don’t fully understand the point. It’s true that cortisol, a hormone that is released in response to stress, is linked to obesity.

Many of us know that this hormone helps us fight anything that’s nerve-wracking or stressful. The problem here is that nowadays, people do not physically fight for survival, but prefer to sit and stew in their anger and frustration. As a result, our bodies think that we’ve used some calories to deal with our stressors and that we need to replenish them, even if we haven’t.

Meanwhile, scientists have discovered that emotional tears contain hormones that increase the cortisol level. They are prolactin, leu-enkephalin, and adrenocorticotropin (also called ACTH). All of these are produced when we are under a lot of pressure.

So when we don’t suppress our emotions, and physically cry, these hormones are released and our cortisol level reduces. As a result, our body gets the signal that we don’t have to retain fat since the stressful situation is over now.

Now you see that the vicious circle is only vicious because we don’t know how to make our cortisol levels lower. And that’s why we tend to eat our feelings and gain even more weight instead. Thanks to science, we’ve discovered the secret of losing weight in difficult situations. It all depends on where the stress hormones finally are — inside or outside of our body.

Warning: Cheating won’t help!

If you are a good performer and can squeeze out a tear or hope to cry while cutting an onion, this won’t have any benefits. Only tears caused by real emotions contain the necessary hormones.

Scientists also add that the best time to cry your emotional tears out is from about 7-10 p.m. This is the time when people are mostly likely to be with the ones they love or watching a movie that can make them weep.

So, if your relationship is over or if you’re going through any other hard times, try to let it all out. A good crying session is the most effective method to calm our mind and make a fresh start with your dream body.

Do you tend to keep your emotions bottled up or let them out? Tell us what happens to your weight in stressful situations.

Please note: This article was updated in March 2022 to correct source material and factual inaccuracies.
Preview photo credit selenagomez / Instagram

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I think crying is not bad in general. Tears just help the organism reduce stress and emotional pressure

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