"Crying is good for you. And after three months of doing it in public, I'd know."

I’ve spent a large chunk of the last three months crying. A combination of grief, work, men, a suffocating New York summer, over-crowded subway cars, and the very real experience of a stranger throwing a mango smoothie squarely at my chest in Times Square, has left me visibly and audibly upset in public.

All the time.

And I’d like to solemnly vouch for it as one of the best cures out there for, well, everything in the aforementioned combination. I promise you. So does science, for that matter.

In the 17th century people believed emotions—mostly love—heated our hearts and made “heart vapor”, which rose to our heads to escape through the most obvious orifice, our eyes, in the form of tears.

"This is why we cry," olden-day scientists proclaimed.

Science has come a long way. Most living researchers now agree our eyes create tears to keep our eyeballs lubricated—simple. But this doesn’t explain why humans are the only animals to cry when we’re emotionally distressed…Interesting.

And the modern research is split on crying generally, too. Some theories hold that it's an evolutionary technique we've developed to fast-track connection at times of stress. Emotion researcher and psychology professor of psychology Jonathan Rottenberg says, “Crying signals to yourself and other people that there’s some important problem that is at least temporarily beyond your ability to cope."

Others say it's the body's way of dealing with adrenaline.

Either way, I've done a lot of it recently. Earlier this year, I returned to New York City after an unexpected family death. It felt like stepping into a soap opera of my life—one I hated. The show ran everyday, monotonously, without substance or meaning.

I stared at the sky and cried. I walked around piles of rubbish crying. Everywhere I looked in the city, I found a reason to burst into tears. The subway became a one-hour, twice-daily crying commute. I stared at the ground, listened to Neil Young’s 'Like a Hurricane', and wept uncontrollably.

Songs can stir up a memory so visceral, you can pretend you're in a different place and the person you love is still alive. I realized after maybe the seven-hundredth play, that if I just listened to 'Cinnamon Girl', or 'Expecting to Fly'—or any track from Harvest reminding me of the person I'd lost—I would most likely cry.

And I learned something important. Crying makes you feel good.

It's like a cleansing for your soul. It does something that chips away at the impossible knot of agony in your heart, and by the end of the song, when everyone on the subway is staring at your salty, tear-soaked face, you realise you’re just a little closer to being okay.

So, I’m sticking with the white-coats from the 1600s.

“Heart vapor” is real, and it needs to be released somehow. Who cares where you are, let yourself cry…And don’t be that person who stares on the subway. Come on.

This post originally appeared on Spring Street. It’s a happy place for smart women, come say hello.