Originally published 2019-05-18.
Crying after a breakup is normal, and for many people it is part of how grief moves through. What it will not do is make you lose weight. A claim that went viral around 2016 said emotional tears flush stress hormones out of the body, lower cortisol and so stop the body from storing fat. That chain of reasoning rests on one small, unreplicated laboratory finding and a series of leaps that the science does not support.
Below we trace where the idea came from, what tears actually contain, how stress really relates to body weight, and what researchers who study crying say it does and does not do for us.
The short answer: tears are not a weight-loss tool
No study has shown that crying, emotional or otherwise, leads to measurable fat loss. The weight-loss version of the story is not a research result at all. It is a chain of assumptions stacked on top of a 1980s analysis of tear chemistry.
That matters for anyone going through a hard separation. Changes in weight after a breakup are common, and they can go in either direction. Some people lose their appetite for weeks; others snack more, sleep less and move less. Neither pattern is caused by tears, and neither is a sign that you are grieving "correctly".
A breakup is a loss. It deserves time and care, not a scorecard measured on the bathroom scale.
Where the claim came from
The scientific starting point is the work of William H. Frey II, a biochemist in Minnesota who studied tears at the St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in the early 1980s. His team collected two kinds of tears from volunteers: emotional tears shed while watching a sad film, and reflex tears produced by exposure to onion vapour.
According to later accounts of the study, emotional tears from 42 women were compared with irritant tears from 61 women. The emotional samples reportedly had a higher protein concentration, and Frey reported more prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and leucine enkephalin, a natural painkilling molecule. Frey suggested that crying might help the body get rid of substances that build up under stress, which could explain why some people say they feel better afterwards.
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Decades later, wellness sites turned that tentative idea into a diet tip. A 2016 item on Medindia quoted a Tennessee "stress expert", Dr Pete Sulack, who argued that releasing ACTH through tears reduces cortisol, and that lower cortisol would help people shed a few kilos. The same piece attributed to Frey the advice that the best time to cry is between 7 and 10 in the evening, when people are often with loved ones or watching an emotional film. No primary source was given for the timing claim.
From there the story spread through viral pages with ever stronger headlines, until "crying can help you lose weight, according to science" became the common version.
Why the hormone argument does not hold up
There are several weak links in the chain, and any one of them would be enough to break it.
The original finding was never confirmed
Frey's tear chemistry has not been independently replicated. Crying researcher Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University has said the work "hasn't been verified", and psychologist Lauren Bylsma has noted that while it has not been disproven, it is telling that nobody has repeated it. Bylsma suspects that any difference in tear composition simply reflects how aroused and stressed the person was at the time, not a special clearing function.
Tears are a tiny exit route
The lacrimal glands that make tears receive only a minute share of the body's roughly five litres of blood, and much of what we cry is drained back through the tear ducts into the nose and throat rather than leaving the body. Even if a few extra hormone molecules end up in a tissue, the amount is trivial next to what the liver and kidneys clear every hour.
ACTH is not cortisol
ACTH is a signal from the pituitary gland that tells the adrenal glands to make cortisol. Losing a trace of it in tears would not switch off a stress response, which is driven by the brain and continues as long as the situation feels threatening.
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Evening timing has nothing to do with fat
Cortisol follows a daily rhythm. It peaks soon after waking and falls to its lowest point late in the evening. The 7 to 10 p.m. window may be when people cry most often, simply because that is when they are home and watching films, but there is no evidence that crying then changes anything about body weight.
Finally, onion tears and fake tears were said to be "useless" for weight loss. That part is true, but only because no tears are useful for weight loss.
Stress, cortisol and weight: the real connection
The kernel of truth in the viral story is that long-term stress and body weight are linked. Cortisol is the body's main stress hormone, and while a short spike helps mobilise energy, chronically raised levels are associated with fat storage, particularly around the abdomen. Researchers have found associations between higher long-term cortisol, measured in hair samples, and larger waists and higher body weight. The very high cortisol of Cushing's syndrome is a well-known medical cause of weight gain.
Behaviour is a big part of the picture too. Stress tends to disturb sleep, push people towards quick, energy-dense comfort food and drain the motivation to cook or exercise. For readers who want the longer version of this argument, Shawn Talbott's book The Cortisol Connection explains, for a general audience, how stress hormones interact with appetite and metabolism.
What actually brings stress down over time is the ordinary, unglamorous list: sleep, regular meals, movement, daylight, time with people who care about you, and, where needed, professional support. Crying may be part of the emotional side of that process, but it does not replace any of it.
Does a good cry make you feel better?
Most people believe so. In the International Study on Adult Crying, which surveyed people in 37 countries, a large majority described crying as good for them, yet only about half said they actually felt better after their last cry.
Diary research gives a more modest picture. In a 2011 study that followed female students' everyday crying, Bylsma and colleagues found that about 30% felt better afterwards, around 60% felt no different and roughly 9% felt worse. Vingerhoets has argued that it cannot be concluded that crying is either cathartic or inherently healthy.
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What seems to matter most is what happens around the tears. People are more likely to feel relief when someone responds with comfort, and when the situation that caused the tears starts to resolve. Crying in front of someone who mocks or shames you tends to leave people feeling worse. Seen this way, crying works less like a drain and more like a signal: it tells the people around us that we need support.
There are also big differences between people. Figures cited by the German Society of Ophthalmology suggest women cry somewhere between 30 and 64 times a year and men between 6 and 17 times. Some people barely cry for years and show no obvious difference in overall wellbeing. If you are not a crier, you are not storing up harm.
Looking after yourself after a breakup
If you need to cry, let it happen. Holding back tears takes effort, and there is no reason to be ashamed of them. Just do not expect them to reshape your body. A few practical steps tend to help more than any single coping trick:
- Keep a basic routine. Regular meals and a steady bedtime protect both mood and appetite.
- Move a little every day. A walk outside counts. Exercise is one of the better-studied ways to ease stress.
- Lean on people. Comfort from friends and family is the factor most often linked to feeling better after crying.
- Notice comfort eating without punishing yourself. Having food you enjoy within easy reach, alongside simple, filling meals, is gentler than strict dieting at an already hard time.
- Be wary of "silver lining" diet advice. Turning heartbreak into a weight goal adds pressure when you need less of it.
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If low mood, poor sleep or big changes in appetite or weight last for more than a few weeks, or if you feel unable to cope, talk to a doctor. That is a sensible step, not an overreaction.
Common myths about crying
- "Crying burns fat by removing cortisol." No study shows this; tears carry only traces of any hormone.
- "Only emotional tears contain stress chemicals." This comes from one unreplicated study; the differences, if real, likely reflect how stressed the person was.
- "Everyone feels better after crying." Diary studies suggest most people feel about the same, and some feel worse.
- "People who rarely cry are bottling things up and will suffer for it." Research has not found large wellbeing differences in people who seldom cry.
- "There is a best time of day to cry." The evening window is when people often cry, not when tears have any special effect.
The kinder message is simpler than the viral one. Tears are a human response to loss, and they are allowed to be just that.
Sources: Vice: Why do humans cry? (interviews with Ad Vingerhoets and Lauren Bylsma); Wikipedia: Crying; Wikipedia: Cortisol; Medindia (2016): the weight-loss claim as originally reported. Preview photo credit: selenagomez / Instagram. Embedded post by Camihawke.
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