「哭出來」對身體好（附有趣數字）
CNN曾有一篇文章在討論「哭」，在商場上，「哭」是被禁止的情緒，因為它代表著脆弱、逃避、崩潰…尤其是女性同事，並不是被歡迎的「專業形象」。不過，最近又開始流行「哽咽」了，名人開記者會，總是會出現「哽咽」的橋段，記者會狀況特殊，面對這麼多燈光媒體，氣氛和平常不同，不小心露出最脆弱的一面，也好，記者會透過電視告訴大眾，人都是會哭的，哭不是壞事！最近有一篇來自英國的The Independent文章更引用科學報告為「哭」平反，認為「哭出來」其實有益身體健康呢。
報導先引述市調統計結果，有88.8%的人會說，哭出來，讓他們心情轉好；只有8.4%的人說，哭出來反而讓心情更糟。這個只是市調而已，文章還引用了科學家的說法，哭，真的可讓我們的身體重新「RESET」。
原來，人體會排出三種淚水，第一種是「持續淚水」(Continuous tears)，每眨一次眼睛都會製造出一點點，讓我們眼睛保持濕潤，對抗外界微物質。第二種淚水叫「反射性淚水」(Reflex tears)，有外物掉進眼睛，亦會自動產生，試圖將外物排除。第三種則是我們所熟知的「情緒淚水」(Emotional tears)，因為某種情緒而引發的哭泣，科學家發現，「情緒淚水」雖然都是從淚腺流出，但它的成份，竟然和其他種類淚水不同。它含有較多的蛋白質、錳(manganese )、以及一種叫「Prolactin」的荷爾蒙，是人體在緊張、壓力時容易產生的物質，太多太少都不好，而淚水就是在幫忙排除這些，讓身體維持平衡。科學家還發現，哭泣的時候，皮膚敏感度會增加，呼吸也會較深較沉，這些都是身體的調整，讓身體恢復到健康的狀況。
文章還提到好幾個關於「哭」的統計研究，很好玩：
目前，男性平均一年要哭7次，女性則多了6倍，要哭47次。
80%的哭泣都是半小時內會結束，只有20%的哭泣是超過半小時的，有8%則超過1小時。換句話說，當一個人哭了超過半小時，這可能就叫做「相當傷心」，當一個人哭了超過一小時，那他就是「非常傷心」。
有70%的民眾不會試圖隱藏他們在哭泣的事實，換句話說，只有30%的民眾會試圖隱藏。文章有提到，相較以往，人類正在最能接受哭泣的年代，男人都可以在鏡頭前大哭，沒關係。
有77%的哭泣是發生在家中，有15%則是發生在工作場所或車上。
有高達40%的人是自己哭的，旁邊沒人。換句話說，每次當你看到有三個人在哭，另外平均還有兩位也是會偷偷在家裡哭的。
人們哭泣的時間，以早上、下午、晚間、深夜來看，比率是16%、29%、39%、17%，換句話說，大部份的人都是在「晚間」哭泣，這可能是因為那時候總是一天的結尾，或許是一天結尾以後首次回到自己家裡（一個人）或是剛剛見到家人，因此在這個時段發生了哭泣的動作。報導更說，人們最常哭泣的時間是6:00pm ~ 8:00pm。
(摘自 Mr.6)
How crying can make you healthier
We all know a good cry helps to soothe our minds. Now doctors are discovering that tears may help to heal our bodies, too. Roger Dobson reports
It makes nine out of 10 people feel better, reduces stress, and may help to keep the body healthy. It's also free, available to almost everyone, and has no known side effects, other than wet tissues, red eyes and runny makeup. Crying may not be a blockbuster drug, but the latest research suggests it's highly effective at healing, and that it improves the mood of 88.8 per cent of weepers, with only 8.4 per cent feeling worse. So beneficial is it that the researchers suggest there may be a case for inducing crying in those who find it difficult to let go.
But while almost all of us shed emotional tears at some time – at least 47 times a year for women, and seven for men – exactly why we cry, and much about what happens when we do, remains a mystery. For crying, a uniquely human form of emotional expression, to have survived evolution, it should have a practical purpose and give some kind of survival advantage. Laughter and anger are both well known to have advantages. Laughter, for example, has been shown to promote healing, increase blood flow, reduce levels of stress hormones, boost the immune system and produce more disease-fighting compounds.
But what of crying? Emotional tears come from the same tear glands that produce the fluid that forms a protective film over the eyeballs to keep them free of irritants, and which also releases extra fluid when the eye becomes irritated, or is invaded by a foreign body.
A clue to the purpose of crying may lie in the experimental finding that emotional tears contain different compounds from regular eye watering, such as that triggered by chopping onions.
The phenomenon supports the so-called recovery theory, that emotional tears, and their contents, may be a way of getting the body back in balance after a stressful event. "I have suggested that we may feel better after crying because we are literally crying it out. Chemicals that build up during emotional stress may be removed in our tears when we cry,'' says William Frey, professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Minnesota. "Because unalleviated stress can increase our risk for heart attack and damage certain areas of our brain, the human ability to cry has survival value.''
Other evidence backs up the theory. It's been shown that tears associated with emotion have higher levels of some proteins, and of manganese and potassium, and hormones, including prolactin than mere eye watering. Manganese is an essential nutrient, and too little can lead to slowed blood clotting, skin problems, and lowered cholesterol levels. Too much can also cause health problems. Potassium is involved in nerve working, muscle control and blood pressure.
Prolactin is a hormone involved in stress and plays a role in the immune system and other body functions. Its involvement in tears may help to explain why women cry more than men. Women have more prolactin than men, and levels rise during pregnancy, when the frequency of crying among women also increases.
There have also been some claims that crying can reduce pain, although there has been little research into this area. The phenomenon, if verified, may be an indirect effect – in that crying may trigger physical contact with another individual and touch has been linked to improved wellbeing.
A counter theory is that crying doesn't so much help the body recover from whatever triggered the tears, but that it increases arousal to encourage behaviours to see off the threat. In support of this theory, some research shows that skin sensitivity increases during and after crying, and that breathing deepens. Some argue that crying could perform both these functions: "It is possible that crying is both an arousing distress signal and a means to restore psychological and physiological balance," say researchers at the University of South Florida. Others suggest that emotional tears signal distress and encourage group behaviour, as well as improve social support and inhibit aggression.
A study at Tilburg University in The Netherlands shows that both men and women would give more emotional support to someone who was crying, although they judged less positively someone who wept. Another study showed men were liked best when they cried and women when they did not. "Overall, results support the theory that crying is an attachment behaviour designed to elicit help from others,'' say the Dutch researchers.
In the latest study, at the University of South Florida, researchers found that almost everyone feels better after a cry and that personality has a big effect on how often we cry. Neurotics were more frequent criers and were more easily and quickly moved to tears. The American researchers suggest that the beneficial effects of crying may make induced weeping a useful therapy for some people. In, particular, they propose that it may be suitable for people who have difficulty expressing their emotions.
"The overwhelming majority of our participants reported mood improvement after crying,'' they say. "Our results may have also implications for clinical interventions. Currently there is only anecdotal evidence that learning how to cry and how to derive positive effects from it could help people who are having difficulty expressing sadness or crying.
"Our findings support the idea that people with alexithymic [a deficiency in feeling emotions] or anhedonic [the inability to derive pleasure from pleasurable experiences] tenden-cies may profit from therapeutic interventions that encourage crying.''
Like other researchers, the Florida psychologists suggest more work is needed to understand the origins, nature, and function of crying. New research is under way, including teams of brain mappers using scans to locate the areas of the brain involved in crying. Some of it supports the recovery theory, while other work backs up the arousal idea. More support has also been shown for the social role of crying.
Some studies are giving intriguing new insights into shedding tears. When researchers at Bunka Women's University and Nagano College in Japan, set out to investigate what they call the passive facial feedback hypothesis, they produced a surprise finding. In an experiment, they simulated the experience of tears by dropping 0.2 ml of water on to the tear duct of both eyes. They report that 53.8 per cent of the 100 or so men and women felt sad when the water ran down their cheek, compared with 28.6 per cent who were cheerful.
The increasing research into crying and its beneficial health effects may also make shedding tears less of a taboo behaviour. As Professor Frey, author of Crying: the Mystery of tears, points out, it is no accident that crying has survived evolutionary pressures. Humans are the only animals to evolve this ability to shed tears in response to emotional stress, and it is likely that crying survived the pressures of natural selection because it has some survival value,'' he says. "It is one of the things that makes us human.''
Not a dry eye: Weeping by numbers
20% of bouts of crying last longer than 30 minutes
8% go on for longer than one hour
70% of criers make no attempt to hide their crying
77% of crying takes place at home
15% at work or in the car
40% of people weep alone
39% of crying occurs in the evening, the most popular time compared with morning, afternoon, and night (16, 29 and 17 per cent respectively)
6-8pm is the most common time for crying
88.8% feel better after a cry
47: average number of times a woman cries each year
7: annual number of crying episodes for a man
Sob story: The science of tears
Three types of tear are produced by the lachrymal gland above the eye.
Continuous or basal tears, produced to keep the eye surface permanently moist and protected contain water, lipids or fats and proteins. They also contain compounds that protect against infections. Each blink of the eyelid spreads tears.
Dealing with tears at work
In a Q-and-A session with voters the day before a 2008 presidential primary, former White House-hopeful Hillary Clinton got a little choked up during her response to a question.
She didn't bawl or wail or even leave the stage to regroup in private. Her eyes watered, she continued to answer the question, and then she moved on to another topic. She handily won the primary the next day.
TV pundits and bloggers couldn't stop talking about her. Not her politics but her "show of emotion." They wondered how people would respond: Was it the end of her campaign? Was it a setback for women? Was it staged to get attention?
Her response, for what it's worth, was that her desire to improve the country kept her going during the longest presidential primary campaign in the history of the United States. Although few high profile politicians shed tears on the campaign trail, did that moment really merit all the hoopla?
Crying isn't just any emotion
When it comes to crying on the job, we are not logical beings. Peruse the articles about Clinton's tears and you'll see "emotional" appear over and over again.
Is exhaustion any more emotional than joy or anger? Do we call co-workers who laugh a lot emotional? How about screaming bosses?
Yet, as annoying as your cubicle neighbor's incessant cackling might be, it probably doesn't earn him an unfavorable reputation with his peers. If he cried on a regular basis, he might not fare so well, a fact that bothers some professionals.
"Saying that crying is inappropriate is like saying that having emotions is inappropriate," says Laurent Duperval, communications coach and consultant. "Crying is the expression of an emotion, just like any other, except that it has negative stigma associated with it."
The right time and place
Don't assume, however, that tears are always acceptable. Just like any other show of emotion, crying has an appropriate time and place. You wouldn't laugh during a conference where the boss says quarterly earnings are at an all-time low but you would laugh if the boss told a funny (or at least he thinks it's funny) joke.
"It generally depends on how and why it happened. If it is a recurring event, if it is a tactic that is used to get one's way, yes that can damage your career because eventually people will catch on," Duperval says. "If the crying is accompanied with a tantrum or with violence, it is almost always inappropriate."
Perhaps the only instance where crying is widely acceptable is when receiving bad news, such as the death of someone you know. You're not a robot, after all. Organizational psychologist Marcia Reynolds agrees.
"Though I don't think anyone should cry on purpose, a spontaneous cry is only damaging to the person who feels they are weak because they are crying," she says. "It is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human."
As in most work situations, co-workers and bosses expect you to be professional. If you cry when your boss reprimands you or gives you a negative review, you're probably not earning the best reputation.
The gender factor
When you discuss tears in the office, you can't ignore the role sexism -- both past and present -- plays. If a woman cries at work, misogynists are ready to label her as weak -- proof of women as the fairer sex.
Other co-workers are put in the awkward position of not wanting to appear too touchy and still not come off as too cold. For this reason, not everyone sees crying as just any regular act.
"It is unprofessional behavior to cry in the office," says Sandy Dumont, an image consultant for the Image Architect. "This is particularly true if you are a woman, because it causes men to feel helpless to fix the situation, as well as possible guilt at having upset you."
While being a woman complicates an already difficult situation, you can't always control your tears, just as you can't always silence laughter or quell your anger -- regardless of your gender.
And with conflicting opinions on the acceptance of workplace emotions, you can't definitively say there is a right or wrong answer. The only constant is that you know yourself and your work environment better than anybody else, so only you can decide what damage crying can cause your career, if any.
