A crying spell is an episode of tears that feels sudden, hard to control, or out of proportion to whatever triggered it. Unlike a normal emotional cry after a sad movie or a tough day, crying spells often catch you off guard, and you may struggle to stop once they start. Most people cry somewhere between one and ten times per month, with women averaging about 2.7 episodes and men about one. When crying becomes noticeably more frequent, more intense, or disconnected from any clear reason, that shift is what most people mean by “crying spells.”
What Happens in Your Body During a Crying Spell
Crying is controlled by both branches of your nervous system working together. The branch responsible for “rest and digest” functions stimulates your tear glands to produce fluid, while stress-related chemical messengers ramp up the vocal and breathing components of sobbing. A stress hormone called corticotropin-releasing factor activates the brain region tied to emotional vocalizations, which is why crying spells often come with audible sobbing, a tight throat, and hitched breathing rather than just quiet tears.
Your brain’s serotonin system also plays a direct role. Higher serotonin activity tends to reduce the urge to cry, while lower levels make emotional vocalizations more likely. This is one reason crying spells are so common in depression, where serotonin signaling is often disrupted. Oxytocin and prolactin, hormones tied to social bonding, also influence how easily tears come on. Testosterone appears to suppress crying, which partly explains why crying frequency tends to differ between men and women and why hormonal shifts can trigger new patterns of tearfulness.
Common Causes of Crying Spells
Depression and Anxiety
Frequent, unexplained crying is one of the hallmark signs of depression. The tears may not be tied to a specific sad thought. Instead, they well up during ordinary moments: at work, in the car, while eating dinner. Anxiety can produce a similar pattern, where the emotional buildup from chronic worry spills over into tears without a clear trigger. In both cases, crying spells tend to come alongside other changes like disrupted sleep, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and a general sense of being overwhelmed.
Hormonal Fluctuations
The phase of the menstrual cycle between ovulation and menstruation brings a rise in progesterone and estrogen that some people are especially sensitive to. For those with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), this sensitivity triggers extreme mood shifts, emotional reactivity, and a feeling of being out of control. Everything feels amplified, from sounds and lights to thoughts and interactions. Crying spells during this window are common and typically resolve once menstruation begins.
Perimenopause produces similar unpredictability as hormone levels fluctuate more erratically. And in the postpartum period, the hormonal crash after delivery causes what’s known as the “baby blues” in 50% to 70% of all women who give birth. These episodes typically start around day three or four and resolve within two weeks, though they can linger for up to three months. Crying spells, insomnia, fatigue, and anxiety are the defining features. If symptoms persist beyond that window or worsen instead of improving, it may signal postpartum depression, which most commonly develops within the first three months after delivery.
Pseudobulbar Affect
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is a neurological condition where crying (or laughing) erupts suddenly and doesn’t match how you actually feel. You might burst into tears during a casual conversation or start laughing that quickly turns to sobbing. The episodes typically last only a few minutes, but they’re completely involuntary. PBA is often mistaken for depression, but the key difference is that depression involves a persistent feeling of sadness, while PBA produces short bursts of emotional expression that don’t reflect your underlying mood. It occurs in people with brain injuries, stroke, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and other neurological conditions that disrupt the circuits connecting emotion to its outward expression.
Stress, Grief, and Burnout
Sometimes crying spells don’t point to a clinical condition at all. Prolonged stress, unresolved grief, sleep deprivation, and emotional exhaustion can all lower your threshold for tears. Pain is another significant trigger. A study of nursing home residents found that about one in six cried daily, and physical pain, restless nights, and clinical instability all independently increased the likelihood of crying. Social isolation made things worse, while regular social activity and general sociability were protective.
How Crying Spells Are Treated
Treatment depends entirely on the cause. When crying spells stem from depression or anxiety, the same approaches that address those conditions, including therapy and medications that increase serotonin activity, tend to reduce tearfulness as mood improves. For PMDD, hormonal treatments and certain antidepressants taken during the luteal phase can blunt the emotional sensitivity that drives the crying.
PBA has its own specific treatment. One FDA-approved medication works by modifying brain signaling pathways involved in emotional expression. Antidepressants can also reduce PBA episode frequency, even though PBA itself isn’t depression.
For crying spells rooted in stress or overwhelm, grounding techniques can help you regain control in the moment. Physical approaches tend to work fastest: clench and release your fists, run cool or warm water over your hands, or try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique where you identify five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. This pulls your attention into the present and interrupts the emotional spiral. Deep breathing, particularly inhaling for four counts, holding for seven, and exhaling for eight, activates the calming branch of your nervous system and can slow tears once they start.
Mental techniques help too. Counting backward from ten, reciting the alphabet, or categorizing nearby objects by color or texture gives your brain a task that competes with the emotional wave. Repeating a simple, kind statement to yourself (“I’m safe right now, this will pass”) can also reduce the intensity. These aren’t permanent fixes, but they can help you get through a meeting, a phone call, or a drive home.
When Crying Spells Signal Something Deeper
A single crying spell after a rough week is normal. What changes the picture is a pattern: crying most days for two weeks or more, tears that come with no identifiable trigger, episodes that leave you feeling out of control, or crying that disrupts your ability to work, parent, or maintain relationships. If the spells started after childbirth and haven’t improved after two weeks, that timeline matters. If they coincide with a neurological condition and feel disconnected from your actual emotions, PBA is worth investigating. The cause shapes the solution, and identifying it is the most important step toward fewer tears.