Can Crying Actually Help a Migraine?

The short answer is yes, crying can do far more for your body than you realize.

God did not make tears by accident. He created your body with ways to respond to stress, grief, pain, and emotional overload, and crying is one of those responses.

When emotional pressure builds, your body responds physically. Your muscles tighten, and the nervous system becomes activated. Stress hormones increase, your breathing changes, and for some people, those physical changes accompany or contribute to migraines.

But here’s the part we often overlook: God also designed the body with mechanisms for release and recovery.

Crying is one of them.

Research on crying has found physiological changes associated with emotional tears, including activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, changes in breathing and heart rate, emotional regulation, and natural pain-relieving processes. Crying has also been associated with the release of oxytocin and endorphins, chemicals involved in calming and pain regulation.

That matters when we talk about migraines because stress and emotional regulation can be closely connected to migraine symptoms.

So instead of beginning with the assumption that tears are merely an emotional reaction we need to control, I want to ask a different question:

What if your tears are part of the way God designed your body to release some of what it has been carrying?

That doesn’t mean every migraine has the same cause or that crying will stop every migraine. But it does mean we should stop dismissing tears as weakness or treating emotional release as irrelevant to physical pain.

Your emotions, nervous system, muscles, thoughts, and physical body were not created as unrelated pieces.

God created one whole person.

And sometimes the tears you’ve been fighting may be part of the very release your body needs.

The Connection Between Stress, Suppression, and Migraines

Your body doesn’t separate emotional stress from physical symptoms. It just doesn’t work that way. When tension builds, and you push past it, stuff it down, or tell yourself to just get it together, that stress doesn’t simply disappear. It relocates.

Stress is one of the most commonly reported migraine triggers.

There’s a reason for that.

When stress increases, your body releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Muscles tighten in your neck, jaw, and temples. Breathing becomes shallow, often without you even noticing it. Your nervous system shifts into fight-or-flight mode and stays there, as if it’s preparing for a threat that never arrives.

Over time, that persistent internal pressure can contribute to migraine symptoms.

Here’s the irony that catches most people off guard. Trying to appear strong by suppressing what you’re feeling can create the very physical conditions that lead to more pain.

Many of us respond to stress the same way. We push through, ignore it, or tell ourselves we’ll deal with it later. But unaddressed emotional stress doesn’t disappear simply because we refuse to acknowledge it.

An ignored stress will more than likely show up physically. Why? Because God, in His design, gave your body a way to release some of that pressure.

It sits right behind your eyes.

What Actually Happens When You Cry

Emotional tears function completely differently from the tears your eyes produce when you chop an onion. Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that emotional tears contain measurable concentrations of cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), the stress hormones that build up in your body. Researchers have theorized that crying flushes stress hormones/toxins out.

Wow! God is good!

Multiple peer-reviewed studies, including research published in the journal Emotion by Sharman and colleagues in 2020, confirm that crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch responsible for rest and recovery. Your heart rate slows, breathing deepens, and your blood pressure often drops. The muscles around your face and head that contribute directly to migraine tension begin to release.

Research published in PMC by Bylsma, Robinson, and Vingerhoets in 2018 documents how crying triggers the release of endorphins and oxytocin, the same natural pain-relieving and mood-stabilizing chemicals your body produces during exercise and physical comfort. Frontiers in Psychology published research by Gračanin and colleagues in 2014 describing crying as a genuine self-soothing behavior, one that measurably reduces physiological arousal after an emotional episode.

Harvard Health and Verywell Mind both report consistent findings: controlled, completed crying episodes reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure, improve mood, and promote muscular relaxation. Research from the University of Colorado Anschutz published in December 2024 reinforces these findings with updated data on the biological benefits of crying across multiple body systems.

God designed tears to do far more than wet our eyes. Emotional crying engages processes involved in soothing, emotional regulation, and physical recovery. Tears are not a design flaw. They are part of the body God created.

Five Signs Stress May Be Contributing to Your Migraines

Let’s think about this for a minute, because I want you to really pay attention to your body here. Your body talks to you. It’s constantly giving you signals, and most of us have just gotten so good at ignoring them that we miss what it’s trying to say.

So here are five signs, and I want you to be honest with yourself as you go through this list.

Tightness in your jaw or neck before a migraine develops.

This is huge. I’m going to tell you: this is your body holding tension somewhere because your mind hasn’t dealt with it elsewhere. Think about it. When you’re stressed, where does it go first? Most people clench their jaw without even realizing it. They carry their shoulders up around their ears. That’s not random. That’s your nervous system saying, I’m bracing for impact, and I’m not sure when it’s coming.

Increased anxiety.

If you notice your anxiety climbing right before a migraine hits, or even during one, that’s not a coincidence. Remember, anxiety and worry aren’t bad things in and of themselves. God gave us the ability to anticipate for a reason: self-preservation. But when that anxiety has nowhere to go, when we’re not bringing it to the Lord, not talking it out, not releasing it, it has to land somewhere in the body. And a lot of the time, it lands right behind the eyes.

Difficulty sleeping.

Now this one is sneaky because people don’t always connect the dots here. But sleep is one of the most biological, physical needs God built into us. When we don’t sleep, our cortisol stays elevated. Our bodies don’t get the chance to reset and heal as they’re designed to. So if you’re lying awake at night replaying conversations, worrying about tomorrow, running through your to-do list, that unprocessed stress is just sitting there, and it will eventually show up somewhere. Often it’s a migraine.

Emotional exhaustion.

This is that feeling of just being wrung out, like you have nothing left to give. And here’s what I want you to understand: emotional exhaustion isn’t weakness. It’s a warning light. It’s your body telling you that you’ve been pouring out and pouring out without ever refilling. If you’ve been carrying other people’s burdens, holding it all together for everyone else, and never letting yourself feel the weight of your own struggles, that exhaustion has to go somewhere.

Frequent tension headaches.

These are often the early warning before the full migraine even shows up. Think of it like a smoke alarm. It’s not the fire itself, but it’s telling you a fire could be coming if you don’t address what’s underneath it.

Now, if you read through that list and you’re nodding along thinking, that’s me, that’s me, that’s me, I want you to hear this. Paying attention to your emotional health isn’t optional if you want to actually manage your migraines. It’s not separate from your physical health. God did not create us in pieces. He created us as a whole person, mind, body, and spirit, all connected.

So instead of just reaching for medication and hoping the pain goes away, I want you to start asking some deeper questions. What am I not dealing with? What am I stuffing down instead of bringing to God? Where am I trying to hold it all together on my own strength instead of releasing it to Him?

Because here’s the truth. Your body was never meant to carry what only God was meant to carry.

What the Bible Says About Your Tears

Scripture never treats crying as spiritual failure. The Bible blesses tears, honors them, and presents them as a natural and even sacred part of human experience.

Psalm 56:8 tells us God collects our tears in a bottle and records them in His book. Every tear you have cried in pain, confusion, grief, or exhaustion carries enough weight that the God of the universe keeps a record of it. That is not the language of a God who wants you to stop crying. It’s the language of a Father who finds your tears worth treasuring.

John 11:35 gives us two of the most significant words in Scripture. Jesus wept. The Son of God stood at the tomb of His friend with full knowledge that He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and He still wept alongside the people who grieved. Jesus did not suppress His sorrow to project spiritual strength. He felt it, and He expressed it, because doing so honored the reality of human pain.

Psalm 34:18 promises that God stays close to the brokenhearted and saves those who feel crushed in spirit. He doesn’t require you to collect yourself before He draws near. God moves toward you in the moment the tears fall.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 establishes that a time to weep exists as part of the natural order of a healthy life. Weeping does not contradict faith. It fulfills the design of the One who created both the human heart and the human tear duct.

How Crying Specifically Targets Migraine Tension

When a migraine builds, the physical warning signs often begin with tight muscles in the face, neck, and scalp, shallow breathing, and a nervous system stuck in high alert. Allowing yourself to cry during that window interrupts the cycle before it intensifies.

Here is what happens in the body when you let tears fall during mounting tension.

The constricted muscles around your temples, jaw, and forehead begin to release as the crying response moves through your body. Cortisol levels drop as stress hormones exit through your tears. Your nervous system shifts from sympathetic activation, which drives the fight-or-flight response that tightens everything, to parasympathetic activity, which signals your body to rest. Oxygen delivery to the brain improves as breathing deepens and slows. The physical pressure contributing to migraine pain begins to ease.

None of that requires medication or costs you anything. God built every bit of it into your original design.

A Simple Practice When Pressure Starts Building

When you feel emotional weight and physical tension rising together, try this before you reach for anything else.

Find a quiet and dim space where you can stay still for a few minutes. Take several slow breaths and invite the Holy Spirit to meet you exactly where you are. Speak out loud: “Lord, you see me. You designed my tears. I release this to you.” Let the tears come without trying to manage or shorten them. When they subside naturally, stay still. Drink water, stretch your neck and shoulders gently, and rest in the quiet for as long as your situation allows.

This practice doesn’t replace medical care for chronic migraines. It supplements it by addressing the physiological stress component that most migraine management approaches leave completely untouched.

Your Tears Tell the Truth About Who Made You

Stop apologizing for crying and treating every tear as evidence that something has gone wrong with your faith or your emotional strength.

Your tears tell the truth about the God who made you. He created a compassionate Creator in whose image you bear, and compassion feels things deeply. Your capacity to weep reflects His nature in you, not your weakness.

Releasing control through tears honors the One who holds all things together. The next time physical or emotional pressure builds, do not fight your tears. Let them fall as an act of surrender to a Father who collects every single one, designed each biological response that follows, and promises to stay close through all of it.

We have been far too quick to treat crying as weakness when both Scripture and research give us reasons to see tears as a meaningful part of God’s design for responding to pain, stress, grief, and emotional overload.

When Your Emotional and Physical Health Need More Support

Sometimes the stress driving both your emotional pain and your physical symptoms runs deeper than a crying practice can reach alone. Unresolved trauma, chronic anxiety, or prolonged grief can keep cortisol levels elevated in ways that no amount of self-care fully addresses.

That’s where professional support makes the difference.

At Are You Ready Counseling, I work with women navigating the intersection of emotional and physical health through a clinical framework grounded entirely in Scripture. For nearly 30 years of experience, licensure in both Illinois and Missouri, and an open Bible in every session. If chronic stress, anxiety, or unresolved pain drives your physical symptoms, counseling addresses the root rather than the surface.

Through Anchored Woman Christian Coaching, women anywhere in the world access the same biblical depth and 30 years of insight without geographical restrictions. Coaching helps you build the emotional and spiritual practices that reduce the chronic stress load your body carries daily. No insurance required. No state limitations. Available to women anywhere.

Both services begin with a free 20-minute consultation that costs you nothing but honesty.

Bring the pain and bring up the question of whether what you carry has anywhere to go. Come exactly as you are.

Are You Ready Counseling and Anchored Woman Christian Coaching
Jane Perkins, IL-LCPC, MO-LPC-S

Visit: www.AreYouReadyCounseling.com
Email: jane@areyoureadycounseling.com
Book your free consultation: calendly.com/areyoureadycounseling

References

Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2020). Physiological responses to stress following tears of sadness. Emotion. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31282699/

Bylsma, L. M., Robinson, M. D., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2018). The neurobiology of human crying. PMC – PubMed Central. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6201288/

Gračanin, A., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2014). Is crying a self-soothing behavior? Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00502/full

Is crying good for you? Harvard Health Blog. (March 1, 2021). https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-crying-good-for-you-2021030122020

6 Ways Crying Can Improve Your Mental Health. Verywell Mind. (March 20, 2025). https://www.verywellmind.com/ways-crying-can-improve-your-mental-health-6745650

The Benefits of Crying. News CU Anschutz. (Dec 9, 2024). https://news.cuanschutz.edu/ophthalmology/the-benefits-of-crying

Do not face your struggles alone.

Jane Perkins provides the tools and encouragement to approach Jesus with confidence, receive His immediate help, and live a life anchored in His truth. Reach out today to schedule a complimentary consultation and begin your journey toward profound spiritual growth and lasting peace.

You deserve to experience the powerful, immediate help Jesus offers. Jane Perkins can show you how.

Can Crying Help Migraines?