Personal response to covid: In defence of a good cry, and other ‘pick-me-up’ options

Mostly, her moods have been fairly positive. But then, last Sunday, her local farmer’s market was sold out of cut flowers — which she had wanted to brighten up her home. “It was the stupidest thing. I almost lost it there on the street,” she said. Zimmerman, an adjunct professor at Drexel University, made it home, “but then I was baking bread, and I just completely broke down. I was like, I feel so dumb for breaking down over flowers.” Of course, it wasn’t about the flowers. It was about everything happening in her life — and in all our lives.

There may be real benefits to the occasional sob. Furthermore, some experts say it’s OK to occasionally self-soothe with an ice cream sundae, or decompress on a gossipy Zoom call with your college besties, or indulge in a ferocious howl at the moon if that’s what feels right. If you’ve been looking for permission to sit down and have a good cry, here it is: You have our blessing to absolutely lose it. Here are some options to choose from.

“Crying can be very cathartic because when you cry, you are taking deep breaths,” said Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor of psychology at Northeastern University and author of “How Emotions Are Made.” She added that those big gulps between sobs most likely increase activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to calm us down. And just let those tears keep flowing. “Crying for longer time periods is related to the release of some neurochemicals that can make you feel better, like endogenous opioids,” she said.

Here’s the thing, though: Crying can also feel pretty bad — just think about the time you lost it in front of your boss. There’s a theory that crying evolved as a way to communicate a need for help or support, said Lauren Bylsma, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr Bylsma studies crying in a lab, which turns out to be tricky. In part, this is because it is hard to cry on cue. Also, crying with a lab tech is not at all the same as crying on a friend’s shoulder.

When you’re stressed, your brain needs glucose to fuel the neurons that keep you vigilant, said Amy Reichelt, a research scientist at Robarts Research Institute at Western University in London, Ontario. This is because our brains don’t really know whether what we’re feeling is the stress of a global pandemic or an oncoming lion we have to outrun. Dr Reichelt is a neuroscientist who studies the effects of nutrition on the brain, and yet even she keeps finding herself stressed and eye-balling the chocolate bars as she dodges other shoppers at the grocery store.

Beyond just satisfying our brain’s glucose demands, treats actually do make you feel better. Foods high in sugar and fat activate the brain’s reward system, Dr. Reichelt said. “In prehistoric times, these foods were highly valued because they were high energy, and our brains are wired for survival,” she said. More so, eating a handful of M&M’s causes neurons in the brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter crucial to the brain’s motivation system. Still, as an occasional pick-me-up sweets are absolutely fine, she said.