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Crying is a reaction caused by a heightened state of emotions and the relaxing effects of breathing can help you to stop yourself from crying. Perhaps you’ve just thought of a sad memory, you’ve been broken up with, or something tragic has happened in your life. Calming yourself is a big part of stopping yourself from crying. Focusing on breathing, as in meditation, can help you to control the emotions you are feeling and help you to restore a sense of inner peace.  When you feel the tears coming, breathing in slowly and deeply through your nose, then exhale slowly through your mouth. Doing this will both relax the lump that forms in your throat when you are on the verge of tears, and will stabilize your thoughts and emotions. Try counting to 10. Breathe in through your nose when you count a number. Exhale through your mouth when you are between numbers. Counting helps you to focus solely on your breath and not whatever is making you want to cry. Even taking just one deep breath can steady you when you are faced with something that makes you want to cry. Draw one deep breath in, hold it for a moment, and then let it back out. In that moment, focus only on the air going in and out of your lungs. Taking this deep breath will also give you a moment to pause before you have to deal with the cause of your sadness. If you are in a situation that is making you want to cry, but you don’t want to show your emotions to others, moving your eyes can help you to control those tears. Some research has actually shown that blinking may help stop the flow of tears.Blink a few times to clear your eyes of any tears.  Cross your eyes or roll them several times. Of course, you may only want to do this when you know that no one is looking at you. Aside from mentally distracting yourself (you have to focus to cross your eyes) it will also physically keep the tears from forming. Close your eyes. Closing your eyes gives you a moment to process what is happening. Closing your eyes paired with taking several deep breaths will help you to calm down and focus on not crying. When you are on the verge of tears, it is important to get your mind onto other things. Physically distracting yourself is one way to keep yourself from crying.  Squeeze your upper thighs or squeeze your hands together. The pressure should be enough to distract you from the reason why you feel like crying. Find something else to squeeze, whether it is a stress toy, a pillow, a part of your shirt, or a loved one’s hand. Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth or up against your teeth. Furrowing your brow and frowning may make it more likely that you will start crying because our facial expressions can affect our emotions. To help stop yourself from crying, try to adopt a neutral facial expression in any situation where you feel like you are going to cry. Relax your brow and the muscles around your mouth so that you are not wearing a look of concern or distress. If it is appropriate or you can get away for a few minutes, try smiling to stop yourself from crying. Some studies have shown that smiling can alter your mood in a positive way even if you don’t feel like smiling. One of the hardest parts of trying to hold in your tears is getting rid of the lump in your throat that forms when something makes you want to cry. When your body registers that you are under stress, one of the ways the autonomic nervous system reacts is to open up the glottis, which is the muscle control the opening from the back of the throat to the voice box. When the glottis is opened, it makes it feel like there is a lump in your throat when you try to swallow.  Take a sip of water to release the tension caused by the glottis being opened up. Sipping water will relax your throat muscles (and calm your nerves.) If you don’t have water on hand, breath steadily and swallow slowly several times. Breathing will help you relax, and swallowing slowly will help tell your body that it doesn’t need to keep the glottis open. Yawn. Yawning helps to relax your throat muscles, which means that it helps ease the tightness you feel in your throat when you glottis is opened.
Focus on your breathing. Move your eyes to control your tears. Distract yourself with a physical movement. Relax your facial expression. Remove the lump in your throat.