Crying helps

Crying is a natural reaction that helps to work through difficult, unbearable emotions. If you stop the tears, there will be no emotional discharge and emotions will go deep down, and you can say hi to depression and diseases.

Tears reduce stress and restore inner emotional balance. Yes, watching others cry is hard for us but you shouldn’t force the person to stop. If there are tears, it means shock is gone and the process of experiencing it has started, it’s a very important stage!

How to help someone if they’re crying:

• Be near them. That is the most important thing. You can keep silent and not know what to say, it’s okay. Being near them is enough to serve an emotional support;

• If there’s an opportunity you can hold the person’s hand or stroke their shoulders – it will help to establish a contact between the two of you and will remind the person that you’re with them, on their side and ready to help;

• Be an active listener – respond to what the crying person says. Do not try to explain to them their wrongdoings, or build logical sequences – just listen and nod. The following phrases can be useful: “yes, it is very hard”, “I’m sorry that it has happened”;

• If the crying reaction is too long and the person wants to calm down, but they can’t – bring them a glass of water, help them recover their breathing (let’s breathe together).

Do not:

• Diminish the person’s experience or shame them: “it’s not something to cry about!”, “get it together!”, “you shouldn’t whine like that”, “stop crying!”;

• Try to stop tears by all means.

How to help yourself:

• Let yourself cry out, let the tears take away excessive tension and the heat from emotions will reduce;

• If you’re under circumstances where you need to calm yourself down quickly: drink water, do breathing exercises: concentrate on your breathing –  slowly, breathe in…breathe out. Take some 5-7 minutes.