When nurses cry: coping with occupational stress in Thailand

Anecdotal reports of people feeling better after they cry support theories that link crying to the reduction of stress after a period of prolonged sympathetic activation. A sample of 200 nurses were asked to rate their occupational stress, job satisfaction, and crying as a coping strategy. Crying was found to be an important symptom of home/work conflicts and pressures related to dealing with patients, but did not substantially reduce these sources of stress. Supporting the stress-buffering hypothesis, nurses with lower intrinsic job satisfaction seemed to benefit from emotional crying whereas dissatisfied nurses who cry infrequently reported the highest levels of stress.