In the normal human society, men are believed to be resilient and unsusceptible to weakness. These
attributes qualify their masculinity and makes them a more formidable personality to be leaned on in times
of challenges. However, the continuous dry-eyes posturing of men like the posturing peacock even in the
midst of chronic emotional stress has raised so much dust. This article seeks to address this problem briefly.
Crying:
Crying is a process which involves the discharge of tears from the eyes in response to emotional stress of
unbelievable degree. Crying could be in different forms such as: sobbing, weeping, wailing, whimpering,
bawling, and blubbering. Thus, It suffice to say that people respond to their environment in different ways depending on the peculiarity of the individuals case and which is More soothing. Hence, when the environment pushes you beyond limit, just don’t hold it, you may be harming yourself. Rather, make bold to choose from the above
varieties and it shall be well with you.
Why Men Won’t Just Cry
Experience has shown that there are many reasons why men won’t succumb to crying irrespective of the
gravity of pains they go through. These reasons includes the following:
Society: actually, the society we find ourselves tend to be allergic to the weakness of men. At a very tender
age, the boy child is already given the impression that life is a battlefield and whoever falls down and cry
is not fit to go to the battle. As a man, his person has no place for weakness or timidity. For instance, if a
boy child falls while walking, passers by will ask him to stand up without lending him a helping hand. In
fact, the society will not sympathize with that lad. Rather they will say ‘don’t cry’ and if he dares, he gets
the scolding of his life thus: ‘why are you crying! Don’t you know you are a man! Common wipe your tears
and be a man! Men are not supposed to cry’. Strange as that is, the young lad will wipe his eyes with the back
of his tender hand and brace up for the worst.
On the contrary the girl child will get a dozen more sympathizers who will pull her from the floor, blame
the ground for throwing her down, and buy her strawberries to make her happy.
This situation was indirectly replicated by a south African music artists ‘Lucky Dube’ in one of his lyrics
titled “big boys don’t cry” the artist sang a line “ …I say don’t cry big people don’t cry. The men are regarded
as big people and as such, should not cry. This account for a reason why men won’t just cry.
According to Georgia Ray a psychologist, there are some very clear sociological and physiological reasons
for men shedding less tears than women. “Men cry less than women because of reasons linked to both
nature and nurture”.
“Men have significantly lower levels of prolactin (a hormone found in emotional tears) compared with
women.” The physiological reasoning is hormone affiliated, while the sociological justification is societal
as illustrated earlier.
With this stream of events, the question does crying hurt? Begs to question. Crying actually does not harm anyone. It is a way of responding to an unbearable emotional stress by discharging tears. According to Asmir Gracanin, a psychologist, “Crying serves two broad categories of functions. Intra-individual functions of crying which refer to the effects that crying has for the crying individual herself. These intra-individual functions are predominantly linked to stress reduction and the experience of mood enhancement
and relief that follows crying, making them important for the concept of self-soothing
Inter-individual functions, in contrast, concern the effects that crying has on other people. To this end,
crying serves the function of appeal for the presence and attention of the caregiver”. This proposition aligns with the view of Vingerhoets, a Clinical Psychologist from the department of medical and clinical psychology of Tilburg University, that crying especially visible tears promotes empathy and prosocial behaviours, including stimulation and protective responses from others, facilitates social bonding, and
reduces inter-personal aggression.
Not Crying and Mental Health:
A study published in the Journal of Counselling Psychology found that men who repress their emotions are
more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and anger. Another study found that men who don’t cry are
more likely to suffer from heart disease. The stress of holding in emotions can take a toll on physical health as well as mental wellbeing.
There is no shame in expressing emotions, it is an expression of our finite nature. Even, “Jesus wept”. In fact, bottling up emotions can lead to
negative consequences for mental and physical health. So why hurt yourself in order to appear to be strong in the eyes of men? I encourage you to shed that tears, let it run down your eyes in double streams so as to relief your emotional stress and accelerate your mood recovery. Just let it go,lose it! so you can heal and be happy.