Never cry yourself to sleep.
Why it works: Sleep has been shown to make memories more vivid and durable, particularly emotional ones—perhaps as an evolutionary mechanism to help us learn from these experiences (we remember how angry Ug got when we made that comment after the mammoth hunt, so we never, ever say it to him again).
Strange, true thing that might convince you: People shown disturbing images at bedtime had strong reactions both before and after sleeping, found a study published in
The Journal of Neuroscience. But when shown upsetting images first thing in the morning and then after a day awake, they didn't seem nearly as fazed. Staying awake after an upsetting experience neutralizes some of the emotion, the scientists concluded, while
going to sleep helps "preserve" the emotional response.
