How Many Calories Do You Lose By Crying? | Raw Data Now

Why Crying Feels Draining

A hard cry can leave you wrung out. Your face feels tight, your throat feels scratchy, and your breathing may come in quick bursts. That “wiped out” feeling is real, even when the calorie number stays small.

Two things create that mismatch. First, crying changes your breathing pattern, and breathing work can creep up when you’re sobbing or sniffing nonstop. Second, your muscles don’t stay relaxed; your jaw, brow, neck, shoulders, and even your stomach wall can tense and hold.

There’s also plain wear-and-tear. Tears and mucus dry on skin, salt stings, tissues rub, and your eyes work overtime. None of that burns much energy, but it can still feel like you ran a sprint.

What Actually Burns Calories During A Cry

Calorie burn comes from work your body does, not from the tears themselves. Tears are mostly water plus salts and tiny amounts of proteins. You’re not “losing” calories in the fluid the way you lose water in sweat.

During crying, the calorie spend comes from small, stacked tasks: facial muscles scrunching, your chest and belly driving faster breaths, and repeated movements like wiping your face, blowing your nose, and shifting position. If you pace, rock, or shake, the number climbs a bit.

Most crying happens while sitting or lying down. That matters because “sitting quietly” is the baseline used in activity research. One unit of that baseline is called a MET, and light activity sits close to it.

What Changes The Burn	What It Does	What You May Notice
Duration	Longer crying keeps breathing and muscle tension active for more time.	Dry eyes, sore cheeks, slower bounce-back.
Body Size	Heavier bodies spend more calories per minute at the same intensity.	A bigger gap between “still” and “worked up.”
Breathing Pattern	Sobbing and rapid sniffing make the breathing muscles do extra work.	Lightheaded feeling, chest tightness.
Muscle Tension	Clenched jaw, hunched shoulders, and a tight stomach add small costs.	Neck soreness, headache.
Movement	Pacing, rocking, or standing lifts intensity above quiet sitting.	Warmer skin, faster pulse.
Room Temperature	Shivering or overheating can change energy use while you recover.	Goosebumps, sweaty palms.
After-Cry Recovery	Snacking, rehydrating, and sleep timing can change your next hour.	Hunger, thirst, heavy eyelids.

If you want a “control” to compare against, start with your resting calorie burn. A quiet cry often sits close to that baseline.

Calories Burned While Crying: What The Math Shows

There isn’t a standard lab table that says “crying burns X calories.” Researchers do have a way to estimate energy use from activity intensity. The tool is the MET: 1 MET is the energy cost of sitting quietly.

Once you pick a MET value, the math is simple. Calories per hour equals MET × body weight in kilograms. That’s why body size changes the number even when the crying looks the same from the outside.

Step-By-Step Estimate You Can Do In One Minute

1. Pick a time. Use minutes of crying that include the sniffles and sobs, not the calm minutes before or after.
2. Pick an intensity. Quiet tears while sitting can fit near 1.1–1.3 MET. Hard sobbing with lots of tension can fit near 1.4–1.8 MET.
3. Find your “extra” above rest. Subtract 1.0 MET to get the added burn above quiet sitting.
4. Do the quick math. Extra calories ≈ (extra MET) × (weight in kg) × (time in hours).

Say you weigh 70 kg and you sob for 15 minutes. If that bout averages 1.4 MET, the extra MET is 0.4. Extra calories: 0.4 × 70 × 0.25 = 7 calories. That’s the “extra” above sitting quietly.

If your crying is softer, the average may sit closer to 1.2 MET. Using the same 70 kg and 15 minutes: extra MET 0.2 gives 0.2 × 70 × 0.25 = 3.5 calories.

If it’s a long, tense spell with rocking or pacing, you might hit the upper end of that range for parts of it. Even then, a typical session still lands in single digits to a few dozen extra calories, not hundreds.

Weight Scaling Shortcut

If you don’t know your weight in kilograms, use this shortcut: pounds ÷ 2.2 = kilograms. Then plug that number into the formula.

Say you weigh 150 lb (68 kg). A 20-minute cry at an extra 0.3 MET adds 0.3 × 68 × 0.33 = 7 calories. At 200 lb (91 kg), the same bout adds 9 calories.

If you like a simple mental check, think “extra MET × weight × time.” When any of those is small, the final number stays small.

What The Numbers Mean In Real Life

One spoon of sugar is 16 calories. A small cookie can run 60–120 calories. So even a hard cry can be “spent” again by a snack you grab while you’re still feeling shaky.

That’s why crying won’t drive weight loss on its own. It may feel intense, but most of the time your body isn’t moving enough for the calorie meter to climb fast.

Why You Won’t Find One Perfect Calorie Number

Crying varies a lot from person to person. Some people cry silently with a steady breath. Others gasp, rock, clench their hands, or pace. Those moves change intensity more than the tears do.

Body weight and fitness also change energy cost. A lighter person burns fewer calories at the same MET level. A person who tends to tense every muscle may run a higher intensity than someone who goes limp.

Timing matters too. A short cry that spikes for two minutes then fades won’t match a long spell that keeps you hunched and tense. The best you can do is treat any number as a range.

Does Crying “Burn Fat” Or Make You Lose Weight?

Fat loss happens when you run a calorie gap over time. A cry adds only a small amount of extra energy use, so it’s not a fat-loss tool. If the cry replaces a workout, the day’s total burn may even drop.

Some people eat less after a cry, while others crave salty or sweet foods. The scale reacts to the full day: food, water, sleep, and movement. Tears alone don’t steer that whole picture.

Also, crying can leave your face puffy the next morning. That’s water shift, not fat change. A one-day spike or dip doesn’t tell the story.

After A Cry Reset That Feels Good

When the tears slow, your body still needs a minute to settle. These small steps can help you feel human again without turning the moment into a project.

Start With Water And A Gentle Rinse

Drink a glass of water. Then splash cool water on your face or use a damp cloth. Salt and dried tears can sting if they stay on your skin.

If your eyes feel hot or gritty, a preservative-free saline rinse can feel soothing. Skip anything that burns or has perfume.

If hunger hits fast, start with something plain: yogurt, a banana, toast, or soup. Big sugar hits can swing energy up then down, which can feel rough after tears.

Ease Your Breathing Back To Normal

Try a simple rhythm: inhale through your nose for four counts, exhale for six. Do five rounds. Longer exhales can ease the “tight chest” feeling that comes with sobbing.

Release The Muscles You Didn’t Notice

• Drop your shoulders and let your jaw hang for ten seconds.
• Unclench your hands and wiggle your fingers.
• Stand up and stretch your back with a slow reach overhead.

A Simple Range Table For Extra Calories

Use this table as a rough check. It lists extra calories above quiet sitting for a 70 kg person. If you weigh more, scale up; if you weigh less, scale down.

Crying Time	Extra MET Above Rest	Extra Calories At 70 kg
10 minutes	0.2 to 0.5	2 to 6
20 minutes	0.2 to 0.8	5 to 19
40 minutes	0.3 to 0.8	14 to 37
60 minutes	0.3 to 1.0	21 to 70

How To Use This Info Without Getting Stuck On It

If you track calories, treat crying like any other low-movement moment: it sits close to rest. The more helpful step is to keep your normal meals steady after a rough day.

If the day has you on edge, a short walk, some sunlight, or a light stretch does more for your calorie total than tears. It also helps your sleep, which can steady appetite the next day.

If you notice crying is frequent, paired with chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting, or other scary symptoms, reaching out to a licensed clinician is the safer move.

Putting It In A Bigger Calorie Plan

Weight change comes from patterns, not one crying spell. Want a steady baseline? Try our daily calorie target.

Once your baseline is set, you can treat “odd” moments like crying as just that: moments. They matter for how you feel, not for the math on your tracker.