Crying and being overly emotional can make life more difficult. While it’s normal to feel sad or upset at times, some people tend to cry or throw fits over minor issues. If you’re prone to being a crybaby, there are steps you can take to handle your emotions better. With some self-awareness and effort, you can learn how to not be a crybaby.

Recognize Triggers That Make You Cry

The first step is understanding what situations tend to trigger tears. For some people, crying is a reaction to feeling:

Overwhelmed
Frustrated
Embarrassed
Rejected
Lonely
Helpless
Criticized

Make a list of times when you’ve found yourself crying or throwing a fit. Look for any patterns. Are there certain people, places, or events that tend to bring up these intense emotions?

Paying attention to triggers helps you anticipate situations where you may need to manage your reactions better. You can’t change the outside factors, but you can work on how you respond internally.

Build Your Emotional Resilience

Once you know your triggers, take steps to build resilience. Resilience is the ability to cope with challenges and bounce back from adversity. Some ways to become more resilient include:

Practice self-care – Make sure you get enough sleep, healthy food, and exercise. Taking care of your overall well-being helps you better handle stress.
Develop healthy thinking habits – Catch yourself when you start thinking negative thoughts like “I can’t handle this” or “It’s too hard.” Replace unhelpful thoughts with more realistic perspectives.
Surround yourself with supportive people – Choose relationships that make you feel secure. Avoid people who belittle or mistreat you.
Learn coping techniques – When you feel overwhelmed, take deep breaths, go for a walk, listen to music, or do an activity you find calming. Having healthy ways to process emotions prevents crying spells.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable – Accept that life involves pain, sadness, and setbacks. You won’t always get your way. But you can tolerate discomfort without falling apart. It takes practice, but it’s a skill that builds resilience.

As you strengthen your ability to handle challenges, you’ll rely less on crying as a crutch.

Be Mindful of Your Emotions

Many crybabies react instantly based on their feelings without much self-awareness. Begin to recognize when an emotion like anger or disappointment starts brewing. Take a moment to observe it instead of getting carried away.

What physical sensations do you notice in your body?
What thoughts is your mind generating?
What unhealthy urges do you feel like acting on?

By becoming more aware of your inner experience, you can pause before reacting. This helps prevent knee-jerk crying or outbursts.

Over time, you can also learn to tolerate uncomfortable emotions without needing to vent them dramatically. Accept the feeling without judgment, knowing it will pass. This equanimity takes practice but reduces reactivity.

Use Coping Statements to Get Grounded

When you find yourself getting worked up, use coping statements to calm down. Say phrases like:

“This too shall pass.”
“Getting upset won’t fix anything.”
“I can handle this.”
“Let me think about how to solve this.”
“Getting angry won’t help.”

Verbalizing these statements, either silently or aloud, activates your rational brain. It puts the brakes on the emotional reaction. The simple act of talking yourself through a situation in a measured way reduces the likelihood of crying.

Come up with your own set of coping statements that you can use as part of your toolkit for staying calm and clear-headed. Having go-to phrases ready helps you respond thoughtfully instead of just crying.

Set Healthy Boundaries

A common reason people become crybabies is lack of boundaries. They repeatedly let others mistreat them until they reach a breaking point.

Learning to set firm boundaries reduces this type of emotional volatility. Don’t tolerate behaviors from others that feel disrespectful or abusive. It may be as simple as saying:

“Please don’t raise your voice at me.”
“I’m not comfortable with you going through my things.”
“It hurts when you call me names. Please don’t do that anymore.”

If certain people won’t honor your boundaries, you may need to limit contact with them. Walking away demonstrates self-respect and removes sources of distress that can lead to crying.

Setting healthy boundaries applies to your own behaviors too. For example, learn to tolerate minor frustrations without raging. Regulate your reactions so you don’t end up causing emotional damage to yourself or others.

Release Tensions in Healthy Ways

Bottling up emotions never works well. But there are many healthy ways to release tension, frustration, sadness, and other difficult feelings.

Talk it out – Instead of crying, have a conversation with a trusted friend or counselor. Verbalizing your feelings can help diffuse them.
Write it out – Keep a journal to express your emotions on paper. This can bring clarity and perspective.
Get moving – Physical activity like running, kickboxing, or dance is a constructive way to work through frustrations.
Get creative – Making art, playing music, or doing a DIY project lets you channel your feelings productively.

Find outlets you enjoy that allow you to work through challenging emotions without breakdowns. Use these tools preemptively when you sense upset brewing.

Seek Professional Help if Needed

For some people, frequent crying spells or emotional meltdowns may signal an underlying mental health issue like depression, anxiety, or trauma. If you find your crying excessive or uncontrollable, seek counseling. A therapist can help you:

Get to the root of why you’re so emotionally volatile.
Learn cognitive and behavioral skills for managing reactions.
Process painful issues from your past that influence current behaviors.
Develop greater self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

With professional guidance, you may be able to find relief from excessive crying or drama. Don’t just dismiss it as being “overly sensitive” – take it seriously and address the problem.

Gradually Build Your Tolerance

Like any skill, not being a crybaby takes time and effort to develop. Start small by noticing your emotions and catching cries before they happen. Over weeks and months, you can build tolerance and find new ways of responding.

Don’t beat yourself up for slip-ups. It’s a process. With consistent practice, emotional regulation and resilience become habits over time. Eventually you’ll be able to handle challenges without regularly dissolving into tears.

Be compassionate with yourself throughout this journey. But keep focusing on rewiring ingrained reaction patterns. With guidance and determination, you can break free of constantly crying and gain more control over your emotions.

Tips for Managing Specific Triggers

Now that we’ve covered core strategies for controlling crying overall, let’s talk about handling some common scenarios that can trigger outbursts. Use these tips for keeping your cool in tricky situations:

Criticism

It’s easy to feel hurt when someone criticizes you. But lashing out in tears only makes you seem immature. Try this instead:

Take a few deep breaths to calm down.
Listen without interrupting. Don’t get defensive.
Thank them for their feedback.
Later, reflect on what they said. Is there anything you can learn from it?
If the criticism seems unfair, let the person know calmly.
Remember you can’t control others’ opinions. How much you let it bother you is up to you.

Rejection

Being turned down romantically or socially can certainly sting. But rejection is part of life. Use healthy coping methods:

Let yourself feel the disappointment, but don’t wallow in it.
Talk to a friend about how you’re feeling.
Remind yourself that it’s not a reflection on your worth.
The person may not have been the right fit anyway.
Focus on other positive connections in your life.
Get back out there! Rejection means you’re trying.

Failure

When you don’t succeed at something important to you, of course you’ll be upset. But failure often leads to growth. See it as an opportunity:

Identify what went wrong and how you can improve for next time. Failure is a teacher.
Talk to someone who has overcome failures. How did they bounce back?
Remember that everyone fails sometimes. It’s part of achievement.
Look at the big picture. This one setback doesn’t define you.
Allow yourself to feel sad, but don’t lose hope. Try again!

Loss

Losing a loved one, a job, a relationship, or anything else significant is terribly hard. Be patient with your grief:

Cry if you need to, but also take good care of yourself.
Share positive memories of what you lost with others.
When you’re ready, start planning your new normal without what’s gone.
Look for meaning: How has it shaped you? What matters most now?
Consider counseling if the loss starts to consume you.

Disappointment

When life doesn’t go as expected, it’s easy to get down. But sulking over spoilt plans won’t make you feel better. Instead:

Process the disappointment: Let yourself feel it, then start to let it go.
Be grateful for what you do have rather than dwelling on what fell through.
Make new plans to look forward to.
Learn from it – consider why things happened this way. What’s meant to be will happen eventually.

Anger

Anger can feel overwhelming in the moment. But blowing up never improves situations. Next time you feel rage bubbling up:

Take deep breaths. Count backwards from ten.
Say calming coping statements like “getting angry won’t fix this.”
Go for a brisk walk or do something physical to release energy.
Identify what triggered this anger. Is it justified? Let small things go.
Communicate reasons for your anger respectfully when emotions have cooled down.
Consider counseling if anger frequently becomes unmanageable.

Embarrassment

We all have awkward public moments that make us want to crawl into a hole! But outbursts draw more unwanted attention.

Try to laugh at yourself – it diffuses the tension.
Don’t obsess over it – most people forget before you do.
Remind yourself it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme.
Now you’ve got a funny story to share later on!
Next time, you’ll be more prepared for situations that catches you off guard.

When Is Crying a Good Thing?

Letting loose with tears now and then can actually be healthy. A good cry during stressful times releases built up emotions so you can regroup.

Crying is fine when you’ve experienced genuine trauma, like:

The death of someone you love
The end of a serious relationship
A major failure after working incredibly hard
A terrible accident or health diagnosis
A victim of violence or abuse

In these cases, crying is a normal part of the grieving process. It helps you express pain and start to heal.

Tears of joy are also beautiful at major life milestones like:

Welcoming a new baby
Your wedding day
Reuniting with a loved one after long separation
Achieving a lifelong dream

Letting happy tears flow adds to the magic of these treasured moments.

The difference between appropriate crying and being a crybaby is that the latter involves frequent, excessive tears over minor issues. It hurts your quality of life and relationships.

With emotional awareness and resilience, you can absolutely learn to control unwarranted crying. Save those tears for when they really count.

In Closing

Being highly sensitive or prone to tears is not a character flaw. But repeatedly breaking down into fits whenever life gets hard can hold you back from health and happiness.

If you feel like you’ve been a crybaby your whole life, have hope. With guidance and personal development, you can outgrow extreme emotional reactivity.

Implement the strategies suggested here for building resilience, managing triggers, and responding thoughtfully instead of dramatically. Be patient with yourself and keep practicing new habits.

Over time, you’ll gain skill and confidence in handling challenging situations calmly. Your life will feel more stable, and your relationships more secure.

Becoming a grounded, even-tempered person doesn’t mean you have to shut down emotionally. Feelings will come and go. But you get to choose how to react.

Keep working on self-control and tolerance. They are muscles that strengthen with use. Soon you’ll realize that being a crybaby was only holding you back from your full potential. With your newfound emotional intelligence, anything is possible!