Does crying ever solve anything?

...allow yourself a good cry because it is human and okay to be sad

(a shoulder to lean on is optional), then pick yourself up and get a move on.

You would think (and hope) that when a person reaches a certain age, she would have put all that childhood crying behind her. It is a fact, though, that women cry more than men. By the time they are 18, women cry on average four times more than men. Blame it on social conditioning. It is deemed okay for women to express their emotions but males are culturally pressured to control their feelings.

Hormones play a role, too, in particular the hormone prolactin which is connected with the production of tears as well as breast milk. Boys and girls have the same level of prolactin until they are 12. The amount in girls then rises so that when they are 18, girls have 60 per cent more prolactin than boys.

The tear glands in men and women are also anatomically different. According to Dr Frey's research, when men cry, 73 per cent of the time tears do not fall down their cheeks. Their eyes get misty but tears don't gush out. But when women cry, it's like a tap has been turned on and tears form rivulets down their face. It's been found that crying relieves stress. When you shed 'emotional' tears (as opposed to tears that come about when you peel onions or when your eye is irritated), the tears excrete toxins that had built up inside you due to stress. The act of crying also reduces the body's level of manganese, a mineral which affects mood.

However, some researchers say that it is not so much crying that makes you feel better but the effect it has on people around you. They will typically respond with sympathy and support and it is this that comforts you.

Whatever the case, it is clear that crying lessens the depth of grief, whether as a result of lowering stress levels in your body or the sympathy it gets you. That's the good news.

The bad news: The fact remains that crying does not solve anything. You cannot cry a problem away. Whatever it was that caused you to be sad - a broken heart, an illness, betrayal, loss of money - does not disappear even if you had wept buckets. It's the same as going on a holiday to 'cure' heartache.

What I've learnt is that no matter how many hours you spend gazing at the ocean, no matter how many times you trace the name of your beloved on sandy beaches, no matter how many mountains you climb or meditation sessions you attend or frenzied hours of shopping you embark on, nothing changes when you come back. A loss is a loss is a loss is a loss.

So what is one to do when the pain in your heart hurts as bad as a physical gash? How do you cope when you are so sad you find it hard to breathe, when the future looks futile and you wake up crying? 

Acute sadness debilitates the mind and body, but there are ways to fight it. Some say the key to a happier life is to lower your expectations: Aim low (or don't aim at all), and appreciate what you currently have instead of dreaming about hitting the happiness jackpot in the future.

Others point out how reconciling with loss and sadness can take several forms.

You can, for example, choose to devalue what was lost so its absence becomes less haunting. You can analyze the loss at length to delay having to come to terms with it, or you can memorialize it and subsist on mementoes and memories. You can also deny the loss and live in the past, or you can blame everything and everyone around you to lessen the guilt you might feel for the part you played in the heartbreak. You can even find a substitute for the loss to help you forget. But the best advice I've read is this: you can accept the loss and reconcile yourself to its reality. In other words, take a cue from The Ultimatum. Like the Fann Wong character, allow yourself a good cry because it is human and okay to be sad (a shoulder to lean on is optional), then pick yourself up and get a move on.

There's no other way, really, if you want to preserve your own sanity, dignity and well-being.