too much emotion

hmmmm yes...

and no...

I think it's far preferable to let your feelings out than to bottle them up. It seems perfectly natural to me to cry when meeting a long lost relative, and many people are so much on a knife-edge financially that perhaps even winning a small amount of money is a big deal.

I actually think it's quite damaging to tell a child who is crying that they are being silly - unless it's the sort of screaming that accompanies a temper tantrum when a child can't get its own way.

I'm all for getting on with things and doing your best not to wallow in misery but I think the stiff upper lip thing can be taken too far.

I think it is good to express emotions openly but not to be over'showy' about it! We can look back on 'the good old days' with rose tinted glasses. Suppressing emotion is not always a healthy way to live

I think that it is healthy to cry when sad, for example when a loved one (you know) dies or you have worrying of frightening news etc. Laughing is known to be a good thing to do, and crying releases various chemicals that help to heal.

It is not healthy to be bursting into tears each time you see a sad picture or hear of the death someone you knew about but never met ! Equally laughing at everything and being 'in your face' is not always a good way to be either!

Balance and moderation in all things! (Well most)

Its healthy to laugh and to cry.

When I met my dads half brother for the first time I burst into tears because dad had died a couple of years before and here was this man who just looked like him - even down to mannerisms.

I wasn't allowed to grieve after my babies had died - it wasn't the done thing and I was told I had to be brave for my mothers sake !!!! It caused me a lot of problems for many years and so I say go ahead and cry if you feel the need. I certainly feel tearful when something like a piece of music brings back particular memories. I never tell the GC not to cry; if they feel the need they should go ahead and let it all out. Being stiff upper lipped causes a lot of problems

I cant imagine not being able to cry when a loved one dies etc but the point I was trying to make is that so many people cry for seemingly trivial reasons, my older friend told me that she found her brother dead by hanging during the war and that she just had to get on with things and go to work afterwards she just had to put on a brave face, therefore after something like that she was pretty much unmoved by lesser things.
I was watching a trivial tv show and the winner cried, it would have been better to smile and be happy.
also so many people make it public (crying), I cry when im alone I hate anyone feeling sorry for me.

Perfectly expressed, glass.

Best if we can express emotions - but also control them if the time or place is not appropriate. Are you thinking of what happens on the telly Silverfish - tv seems to feed on the exaggeration of emotion. Or are you thinking that people copy what they see on TV in normal life?

Of course it is fine to cry - no problem there. What is a problem are those ghastly TV programmes that feed on tears and keep the cameras focusing on a close-up of someone's face until the required weeping begins - vomit emoticon needed here.

Short, sharp and on the button glassfortwo

The difference being it's good to laugh in company, but much harder to cry in company.

Crying is a lonely business.

Perhaps that's why we cry at soppy films etc ... it's more socially acceptable.

Except at funerals, that's acceptable too.

It is healthy to show emotion but it does seem nowadays to be required in the extreme (tv news, tv shows). To an extent, Silverfish has a point and if the whole crying game continues then empathy may start to vanish as we become immune to it.

If current research is correct, tears play a very important part of our physiological systems but how efficient that is depends on the emotion behind the tears.

I think I read somewhere that different types of tears have different chemical formulations.

Appropriate crying is good but doing it for effect always looks very silly.

I am glad it is now acceptable to show emotion. When MiL died DH didn't feel he could cry but when many, years later, FiL died he cried for the loss of his mother, because now it was something he felt he could do.

Repressing emotions has to be bad.

Aka - you may have read the same article where it stated: 'Adrenocorticotropic hormones are also common [in tears] and indicate high stress levels. The other chemical found in emotional tears is leucine-enkephalin, an endorphin that reduces pain and works to improve mood'

That might explain why a good cry helps sometimes.

Balance in everything - but no acting except on stage.

I suppose it is like a lot of things- from the sublime to the ridiculous. The stiff upper lip was very destructive in many ways- but I agree that the near 'hysteria' shown by some people now is not healthy either.
As said, balance...

Slightly off piste.

We were looking after our 2 GSs recently 1 and 3 and we were worn out at the end of a very busy day. As we re-entered their home the 3 year old asked if he could watch Wallace and Gromit whilst I got their tea.

Excellent idea I thought, however my son has a very complicated tv/video/pvr/blue ray system and I doubted I could easily set it up with 4 remotes to sort and the possibility of a grizzling child if I was unsuccessful - do remember he was tired out too and could easily be pushed over the edge.

So I replied 'I will only do it if you don't cry and get upset if I can't find it, that's the deal.'

He sat quietly in his bean bag whilst I did all the techy stuff.

Then a little voice said 'Look at my smiling face Nan, I'm not crying'.

At that moment I located the exact film he wanted from over 100 !

We were all smiling then.

Nice story Nankate. Right on the button Hollydaze and granjura. Do you remember seeing all those silly women on tv [Escape To The Country] sniffing into tissues and doing all that crazy waving of hand in front of face [to denote emotion] when they happened to like a kitchen? Grrrrrrr.

Oh yes, all that silly 'flapping' - when did that start?