title: The healing effects of crying.
abstract: How does crying improve and enhance the emotional state? A personal, life-changing event experienced by the author helped postulate an answer to this question. This article explores tear production, crying across cultures and eras, the gender factor in tears and crying, and the author's ethnographic study of Pakistani men and women's views of crying in terms of its spiritual, cultural, and psychosomatic ramifications. Greater understanding of natural human emotions and the language of tears benefits the nursing profession and gives a better understanding of the phenomenon of crying.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, College of Health Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, 79968, USA. mfooladi@utep.edu
authors.forename: Marjaneh M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Fooladi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003448:Crying / Q000523:psychology*; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006694:Holistic Health; D018939:Holistic Nursing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010154:Pakistan; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires