How to Avoid (or Delay) Crying at Work When You Really Need to Keep it Together

How to Avoid (or Delay) Crying at Work When You Really Need to Keep it Together

Learn more

Next page

How to Avoid (or Delay) Crying at Work When You Really Need to Keep it Together

Have you ever felt an ominous lump form in your throat during a meeting? Maybe you’ve noticed tears forming and then slowly gathering, giving the office a slight blur as you try to sniffle them away.  If you’ve been there, you might also have wondered how to stop crying, or how to avoid or delay getting there in the first place.

Next page

How to Avoid (or Delay) Crying at Work When You Really Need to Keep it Together

Denise Dudley, a behavioral psychologist and the founder and former CEO of SkillPath Seminars, says that no one ever reaches out to her to ask about “how not to cry in a movie or how not to cry in a funeral, how not to cry in social situations with my friends.” But people do frequently ask her how to stop crying at work. In other words, what’s considered a normal reaction in other settings feels taboo at work.

Next page

When and Why Crying at Work Could Hurt You

Is it okay to cry at work? The short answer is that it depends—on what kind of situation you’re in when the tears come, how frequently it happens, who’s around when it does, what kind of environment you work in, what your personal philosophy around crying is, and more.

Next page

When and Why Crying at Work Could Hurt You

Kimberly Elsbach, a professor of management at UC Davis Graduate School of Management who’s studied perceptions of crying in the workplace, found in research with her colleagues that, at best, you can expect a neutral response. When someone cried because of a personal issue (such as a death in the family, a divorce, a layoff), 

Next page

When and Why Crying at Work Could Hurt You

they were perceived neutrally, “as long as the person didn’t cry extensively or disrupt work of others.” But crying in other circumstances—during a performance review, while facing a stressful deadline, or in a formal meeting—could lead others to “perceive you as weak, unprofessional, manipulative.”

Next page

When and Why Crying at Work Could Hurt You

Dudley agrees that there are situations in which it’s best not to cry. “Not that I approve of the environment I’m about to describe. I’d prefer to say let’s make an effort to change it, but in the meantime let’s face facts,” she says. And so until the culture around crying can change, she advises trying to avoid tears when you’re in a “one-down position.”

Next page

What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

It’s impossible to talk about crying at work without talking about gender. In a survey of 700 people by Anne Kreamer, author of It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace, 41% of women admitted they’d cried at work, compared to only 9% of men.

Next page

What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

There are biological and physiological reasons that play into why women are more likely to cry at work as well as socialization factors. “The expectation in our society is girls should not be expressing anger, but it’s okay for girls to cry,” says Mollie West Duffy, co-author of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work.

Next page

What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

But although girls are socialized to cry, when they become women and cry at work, that’s not necessarily considered acceptable either. In That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together, Joanne Lipman says that many of the men she spoke with for the book told her they dread women’s tears.

Next page

What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

That dynamic can end up hurting women’s careers if their male bosses hold back crucial feedback for fear of tears in a way they don’t for their male reports. So crying at work—or even the notion that you might cry—can have real and lasting consequences.

Next page

7 Ways to Stop Crying (or at Least Avoid or Delay It)

So let’s start with the caveat that you don’t necessarily have to consider crying at work a career crusher—or even something you need to be so afraid of, depending on the situation. But here are a few things you can do to tamp down oncoming tears, to delay them long enough to find a safe place to let them out, or to make you less likely to cry in the first place.

Next page

1. Take a Deep Breath

A common suggestion for avoiding tears is to practice deep breathing when you feel the waterworks coming on. “I think that’s ambitious,” Dudley says. It’s not quite realistic to think you can go into full deep breathing mode when you’re sitting in a staff meeting (at least, not if your goal is to fly under the radar).

Next page

1. Take a Deep Breath

Instead, Dudley suggests trying a mini version of the technique. “Inhale one deep long breath, hold it for a moment, not too long, and then exhale,” she says. “Even if it takes 10 seconds, it resets a few things in your brain or throat.” And you might just stave off those tears until after the meeting.

Next page

2. Use Your Tongue, Your Eyebrows, or Your Muscles

If you’re trying to stop crying without drawing attention to yourself, you can also try one of a handful of other tricks that won’t be too obvious in public. “Simply push your tongue to the roof of your mouth,” body language expert Janine Driver told The New York Times, or try to relax your facial muscles, particularly those behind your inner eyebrows, which tend to come together when you’re sad.

Next page

3. Take a Break and Get Away From the Situation

If you think you might start crying and you’re in a setting where you don’t want that to happen, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation. If you’re leading a meeting, you can tell everyone to take a 10-minute break and reconvene. Otherwise, you can quietly step out—people go to the bathroom all the time, after all.

Next page

3. Take a Break and Get Away From the Situation

So go somewhere you can be alone—whether that’s to your office (if you have one), the bathroom, or outside for a walk—get a drink of water, take some deep breaths, and tell yourself it’s okay. And if you could use the support, grab a trusted colleague on your way or text them and ask them to meet you.

Next page

4. Stop the Thoughts That Are Making You Cry (This’ll Take Some Practice)

If you can’t physically get away from the situation, that doesn’t mean you can’t mentally get away. You can borrow from an intervention technique sometimes used in therapy called thought stopping or thought replacement. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Whatever it is that’s provoking your crying response, try to put that out of your mind and think about something totally unrelated instead.

Next page

4. Stop the Thoughts That Are Making You Cry (This’ll Take Some Practice)

Dudley recommends having a go-to replacement thought. Maybe it’s your dog, who always makes you laugh. “I love my dog so much,” you might think to drown out the thoughts about how poorly your co-worker just treated you. “She’s going to be so happy when I come home.”

Next page

5. Pretend You’re an Actor in a Movie

Dudley has another suggestion that’s a bit unconventional, but she insists it’s helped her get through difficult interactions when she worked at psychiatric hospitals and in frustrating moments at home. “If you feel you might be about to cry or are going to scream or say something you might regret, pretend that you’re an actor in a movie.

Next page

5. Pretend You’re an Actor in a Movie

What’s the script?” she says. “Now it’s not just me, Denise, who’s really upset because my boss just told me I didn’t get a raise,” she explains. Instead, you can distance yourself and play “the role of the employee who is a quintessential professional,” one whose words are “calm and well thought out.”

Next page

6. Eliminate or Reduce Stressors in Your Life, if You Can

You can take steps to avoid crying well before you find yourself in a tear-inducing situation. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep and that you’re properly fueled (i.e. fed) and hydrated. Try to reduce or eliminate other stressors in your life, too.

Next page

6. Eliminate or Reduce Stressors in Your Life, if You Can

For example, if you’re constantly fighting with your spouse or roommates, doing what you can to address those situations could help you establish a less precarious baseline.

Next page

7. Figure Out What Might Make You Cry, and Why You Cried Last Time

If you go into a performance review expecting a glowing assessment and instead get some pretty significant criticism (constructive as it may be), the shock of it may make you react more severely. But “if you’re expecting it, if you know going in, you can kind of prepare yourself for that, gird yourself,” Elsbach says. 

Next page

7. Figure Out What Might Make You Cry, and Why You Cried Last Time

So try to anticipate situations that might be difficult and prepare yourself. It could help you keep your composure until you can get a moment alone.

Next page

7. Figure Out What Might Make You Cry, and Why You Cried Last Time

If you notice that crying has become a regular occurrence, it might be a sign that there are bigger issues to address than how to stymie tears in the moment, such as depression or a truly toxic work environment you need to figure out how to leave behind.

Next page

The Argument for Not Avoiding Tears at Work

Next time you’re thinking about how to stop crying, consider that it might not always be such a terrible thing, and you can help make it just one more normal response in the spectrum of what’s acceptable at work. Dudley, for one, would like to live in a world in which crying is normalized and just as unremarkable as laughter, though hopefully less frequent.

Next page

The Argument for Not Avoiding Tears at Work

And don’t forget that you can play a role not only when you’re crying, but also when you notice someone else in the office crying. “We can only start changing this if we start to change how we think about [it] with others as well,” Duffy says.

Next page

The Argument for Not Avoiding Tears at Work

So don’t be so hard on yourself if you feel the tears coming at work once in a while. And don’t be so hard on your colleagues if and when they cry at work. As Duffy says, “I actually think crying is a sign of our humanity and we want to see humanity in our colleagues and in our leaders.”

More

Read

10 New Job Fields for Women in 2022

10 Steps to a Resume That Will Get You Hired

10 Important Career Tips for Women

See More

See More

See More