People cry because they feel awfully bad. Behind the tears though are some health benefits.

Crying has a soothing effect by calming and de-stressing the cryer. According to Medical News Today (MNT), crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps people relax.

Shedding emotional tears releases oxytocin and endorphins that relieve pain. Citing a 2014 study, MNT says: “These chemicals make people feel good and may also ease both physical and emotional pain. In this way, crying can help reduce pain and promote a sense of well-being.”

Oxytocin and endorphins can also help improve mood. Other benefits of crying are helping a person fall asleep more easily and keeping the eyes clean as tears contain an anti-microbial fluid called lysozyme.

Meanwhile, there are people who don’t cry like former National Basketball Association star Matt Barnes who played for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Jason Wilson, author of the book “Cry Like A Man,” guested on 45-year-old Barnes’s podcast titled “All The Smoke” and the ex-NBAer shared their discussion on 3 April.

“And I haven’t cried. I’m starting to feel it now. I feel like I’m almost pouring from an empty cup,” Barnes told Wilson in the podcast, as quoted by the New York Post (NYP).

Barnes admitted that he lost his family because he wasn’t with them emotionally, referring to his split from his fiancée, 46-year-old model Anansa Sims, with whom he has two children.

“How do you cry?” he asked Wilson.

“I don’t want to say I don’t know how to cry because I have cried before, but I haven’t cried in probably 30 years,” the former Laker said.

“You have to change your perspective about what crying is. It really is a sign of you being human,” Wilson told him, adding that you have to “get to a place where you can release it.”