ANSWERS

QUESTION: Since watching 1 hour comedy strengthen immune system, so will watching 1 hour of sad show have an adverse effect on our immune system?

It has long been assumed that crying is psychologically and physically “good for you” and that, conversely, chronically suppressing tears is “bad for you.” A group of researchers in the late 1980s hypothesized that weeping would “release tension, reduce toxicity, and thus buffer the effect of negative events on mood disturbance” (Labott & Martin, 1987).
To everyone’s surprise, this study, like most others to date, found that instead of improving moods, relieving tension, or enhancing the immune system, crying did the opposite: it left people feeling more depressed and weakened the immune system.

Even though these researchers refined and repeated their study three times using hundreds of subjects, they consistently found that high weepers of both sexes showed more mood disturbance than low weepers. Levels of immunoglobulin A – an antibody in the saliva that protects against respiratory and gastrointestinal tract infections – decreased when a group of women cried during a sad film and increased when they laughed while watching a comedy. (Labott, Ahleman, Wolever, & Martin, 1990)

Crying is complex enough to bring us down in mood and suppress our immune systems in the short term while, over time, helping to restore our physiological equilibrium and enhance our overall health.