H: Bill Dodd, Host
K: Kate Fox, Social Anthropologist

H: Hello there, welcome to today's edition of the Lifestyle Show with me, Bill Dodd, brought to you by Kleenex. Now I don't know about you but I find it very difficult to express my emotions and I think that's very typical of British men. We're going to be discussing emotions, not just with men but also women, but interestingly enough Paul Gascoigne and of course David Beckham, they've been seen to be crying on the football pitch and I think that sort of emotion is slightly different to real personal issues and emotion, but today we're going to be talking about a campaign run by Kleenex, it's interesting they've done a research campaign on whether us Brits still retain a stiff upper lip. Now they've done this in association with Social Issues Research Centre. Now joining me on today's webchat we have Kate Fox, she's a social anthropologist and has written a book “Watching the English”. Now Kate this is going to be very fascinating to discuss emotions in general – firstly why do you think Kleenex decided to carry out this survey?

K: Well we'd actually done some research for them a little while ago, specifically on men and crying as you just mentioned -

H: I thought they would!

K: So this time it was kind of a follow-on from that and this is as you said their “Let it out” campaign which I supposed is designed to encourage us to let it out and use a lot more tissues

H: But as you say, and I've been saying as well, the British man is he very different to other European males, do the French and the Spanish become more emotional and let it out?

K: They do, I mean there are some things which are common to all males across the world and across the world women probably for example cry 2-3 times as much as men do, and when they do cry it tends to be more intense, you know more sort of blubbing and sobbing rather than one manly tear trickling down the side of the face, but given that the English do tend to be rather more – and I say English deliberately rather than British because the Scots and the Welsh are rather better than us, the English tend to be particularly bad, males and females but particularly males, at expressing emotion, at letting it out

H: That's interesting you say the female English are just as retentive in their emotions as other people, that's interesting

K: Well we're not as reserved or inhibited as the English males but compared to women in say France, Spain, Italy and so on, I mean if you say watch an English woman talking to an Italian woman, the Italian themselves joke that you can silence an Italian completely by making him sit on his hands, because if he can't use them he can't actually talk, and I've seen Italians talking on the telephone, where they'll put, they'll have the phone kind of clutched up against their ear like that, in order to use both hands to gesticulate, while talking on the phone

H: Did the research show the best ways people like to show their emotions, for example people would be happy to cry down the phone or maybe express emotions by email or face to face?

K: Mostly people like to do it face to face. There is a sense in which, the email question is very interesting because I found in other research actually that people are less inhibited when on email or internet chat rooms and so on than they are in what they persist in calling real life, so although people may say they prefer to show their emotions and let their feelings out face to face with another person, they actually, they actually become less inhibited less restrained when they're doing it by email, there's something about being in cyberspace

H: That's interesting, we're becoming well part of a new era now aren't we with this -

K: Exactly

H: And that's why we're sitting here, we're getting lots of questions coming in by email and we'll go to our first question here, Kerry-Jane she wants to know “do you think people are getting worse or better at expressing their emotions?”

K: That's a good question actually, the Kleenex study showed that we're certainly getting better at being more articulate about our emotions, we all speak therapy speak now, do you know what I mean? We all talk about low self-esteem, the inner child, everybody knows these kind of phrases, they're in the ether, so we're quite good at talking about it. We've also come to an awareness that we ought to be expressing our emotions more, that it's perhaps not good for us or healthy to bottle it all up -

H: Right that's what I was going to say because this “Let it out campaign” for example is saying it is a good thing, surely to let it out, because it's not necessarily good for you to keep it in?

K: Well we all believe that or at least 70-odd percent of us believe that it's a good thing to let it out, although it's not good to keep things too bottled up, but what we're still not quite good at, there's a mismatch between what we believe and what we say and what we actually do, because when it comes to actually expressing emotions, we're pretty much as stiff upper lip as we ever were, and we're not all that good at it

H: It's interesting isn't it because I mean, society in general, well the British society tend to cringe sometimes, if you look at the American society TV or whatever, people are quite happy to express their emotions very openly, but for us it's almost not the done thing is it?

K: Oh God and when we see it, this universal want to be sick gesture when we see for example American actors doing their Oscars -

H: Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean that was fantastic wasn't it -

K: Acceptance speech and that was you know front page ridicule in every newspaper in this country. I'm sure a lot of Americans just thought it was sweet that she was thanking –ah bless, she's thanking her mother, and bursting into tears, but no we hate that. And politicians, I mean Bush not so much but Clinton was always blubbing. Imagine if Tony Blair went around crying his eyes out you know every time someone told him a soppy story or something, the way Clinton did? I mean he would be out. We have a rule that I call – among the English that is – that I call the importance of not being earnest rule, as in the Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde -

H: Yes sure

K: Which is basically we hate earnestness, we draw a line between sort of seriousness which is ok, to be serious about a serious subject which is fine, but we hate pomposity, solemnity, gushing, heart on sleeve, hand on heart type -

H: And there is a balance there isn't there -

K: Patriotism, religious fervour, all of those whole sort of cluster of behaviours that all make the English either cringe and want to go under the table, or want to be sick

H: Right I know exactly what you're saying there, we've got some more questions here, we're going to move on now to Lenny, wants to know “do you think that men prefer to talk about their problems where women just simply like to cry?”

K: Actually I think mostly men prefer to do neither of those things, and women like to do both. Men on the whole don't like to talk through their problems too much, they like to think through their problems, usually privately and silently and on their own, and preferably not with some woman saying “tell me how you feel?”

H: Yes I think we tend to bottle it up don't we?

K: Yes whereas women like to, as opposed to thinking through their problems, silently the way men do, women like to talk through their problems, and what's difficult, and you know preferred generally to do it with their mother or a female friend over a cup of tea, that kind of thing – box of tissues – whereas men would rather be on their own, and they'd be better off in fact, women choosing the mother or the female friend, because when you try and talk through your problems, emotional problems as a woman, with a man, he keeps offering solutions – ah well what you should do is….that ain't what women want. Women actually want sympathy and comfort mostly, bit of empathy

H: A listening board -

K: They do not want, they want to be listened to, they want a good listener, and not someone, and a good listener is not someone who constantly offers advice and solutions. Now a man when a woman is crying, and obviously distressed and emotionally in a turmoil, he feels this is a problem and he's got to fix it, so he tries to fix, he tries to offer practical solutions to the problem when actually mostly all the woman wants is to be held and stroked and comforted -

H: And to be able to let it out, to really cry

K: To let it out, and to have someone listen

H: Alright now following on from that Lola wants to know “why do you think there is so much pressure on men not to cry in today's society?” I know we've been talking about that a little bit earlier, about the stiff British upper lip and all the rest of it, but it's a good question isn't it?

K: Yes I mean I think actually it's not just in today's society, there has always been a great deal of pressure on men not to cry, and I think this goes right back to you know probably the Upper Palaeolithic, the Stone Age which is our, anthropologists like me call it environment of evolutionary adaptation, it's where our brains are basically stuck -

H: Sorry let me write that down, that sounds pretty good

K: Environment of evolutionary adaptation – it's where our brains are essentially stuck. I mean the human brain hasn't changed at all since the Stone Age, so although we're living in a very different world now, we still have this Stone Age brain, now if you think about our sort of hunter / gatherer ancestors at that time, crying for a man would have made him weak and vulnerable, appear weak and vulnerable, which would have made him open to attach from other males and also would have found it difficult to attract females because the females at the time, quite frankly, needed a strong virile protector and provider, not someone who is going to burst into tears if they got a thorn in their foot or something. So although the world is now a very different place, and it's not full of Savour Tooth tigers and you know dangerous beasts and weather, and you know famine and starvation and so on, the primitive instincts that are kind of hard-wired into our brain by millions of years of evolution are still there and I think it's quite likely that there is still possibly even a biological mechanism of some sort in the male brain that stops men from crying too much

H: So there is a biological reason, we can explain that by -

K: It's not your fault, it's not your fault!

H: I'm not an emotional retard, it's because of the way I am -

K: You're not emotionally challenged -

H: But that is very interesting isn't it, that does make sense doesn't it when you look back, I know you think ok surely we're a long way from the cave man now but we're not -

K: Well the brain isn't

H: So – yes exactly the brain and also the way we eat and the way we live. But as you say the environment around us has changed so much but intrinsically we're pretty much the same

K: We're still, we're sort of Stone Age brains trying to live in a space age world and the two often don't quite match up properly. I mean some people would argue with me on that, the sort of nature versus nurture thing, you know some people say well hang on, hang on, newborn babies, newborn baby boys and newborn baby girls cry about the same amount for example, in fact the boys cry a little bit more. The differences really start to be very marked at around puberty, when the boys – it's not that the girls start crying more but the girls start crying a lot less, and they'll say well hang on that must be social conditioning, that must be because boys, you know if they start of the same, it must be because boys are taught, you know be a good little soldier, be brave, you know boys don't cry etc etc. But if you think about a newborn baby boy doesn't have a beard nor does it have a deeper voice than a girl, those things happen at around puberty, and nobody I think would try to claim that they're due to social conditioning. So it's entirely possible that the same mechanism, if you like, that gives the boy you know facial hair and a deeper voice at around that age, also triggers some biological mechanism that kicks in and makes it easier for him not to cry. And that's me speculating! I don't have hard evidence for that

H: No sure, I appreciate that, you're qualifying by saying that

K: Yes

H: But it's an interesting theory and it does seem to be quite logical

K: Yes. Something to do with testosterone maybe, I don't know

H: Absolutely. Jo from Bedford wants to know “it staggers me that when I see someone in public crying people stare without offering to help that person, now what is it that makes people so afraid of someone showing emotion?”

K: That's interesting. I think a lot of the time when you see the English doing this, they're actually trying to be polite
H: You almost ignore it, this is not happening, we haven't clocked it

K: Yes, they're trying to be polite, the English operate a form of courtesy which sociolinguists call negative politeness, and that means it's a kind of politeness that's concerned mainly with a concern for other people's need not to be intruded or imposed or impinged upon, as opposed to what they call positive politeness which is about recognising other people's need for inclusion, social approval, warmth and friendliness. There's nothing very warm or friendly about English politeness, so what we do is we tend to judge others by ourselves. We assume that everyone, including this person crying, shares our need, our obsessive need for privacy and therefore we respect that by ignoring them

H: Interesting, a bit of a dilemma there, even the other day I saw somebody in a park in London crying on a bench, and I ignored them because obviously I think they're there for a bit of solitude, and to be able to go through whatever emotion they had, but there was part of me thinking I want to go up and say “are you alright?” but that would be intrusive wouldn't it?

K: That is certainly the way, I mean in other countries, no it wouldn't, people would automatically perhaps not in very big cities, even though the Americans are closer to the positive politeness end of the spectrum, if you go to a big city on the East coast, New York or something, you will get people walking straight past someone, you know whose crying or laughing or talking to themselves or whatever in the street, because there's that kind of big city, urban alienating effect and people don't know each other and are scared of each other. But certainly in this country it's not just if you're crying but if you talk to a stranger without “good cause” as they used to say on the buses, you know do not distract the driver without good cause, if you talk to a stranger in this country, if you address them at all without a jolly good reason then you'll usually be supposed to be either drunk or on drugs or an escaped lunatic

H: Yes true

K: Whereas in other countries addressing a stranger does not automatically make you a drunk and a junkie and a loony

H: Yes well you can have a field day observing all these different cultures and the way people work, which you do, I mean that's your business isn't it?

K: Hard business, but someone has to do it!

H: Exactly, fascinating. Now KitKat wants to know “are you interesting in British behaviour and do you think your work has uncovered findings which can improve people's quality of life?”

K: Well that's interesting, the reason I wrote the book about Englishness was because I didn't understand Englishness, and that was bugging me and that was keeping me awake at night, and I know I should get a life -

H: We could spend ages saying what is Englishness actually

K: I've spent 400 pages doing precisely that

H: That's precisely what you've done

K: Yes watching the English is precisely about, that's trying to answer the question “what is Englishness?” I couldn't find a book that explained it so I figured I had to do my own research and write my own book. As to it improving the quality of people's life, I think, I mean without wanting to sound boastful, it probably has, I mean I've had lots of letters and emails from people, from English people saying it's helped them to understand themselves and their own quirks and foibles and so on and particularly from foreigners, you know immigrants or visitors

H: I was going to say, yes people who've integrated into this society –

K: Or are having problems integrating, and they're all saying, you know some of them are saying you know it's totally transformed their life and they finally understand stuff about these weird bloody English people that they'd never understood in 10 years of living here or whatever

H: You see are we quirky, are we strange, I don't know – probably we are aren't we?

K: We are

H: But then again we look at other nationalities and think they're a bit weird

K: Well my father has a saying, he calls it fox's first law which is all foreigners are funny, and that's universal, wherever you live, foreigners are funny, but actually I find my own sort of native people quite amusing as well

H: We are halfway through already I can't believe it -

K: Yes

H: This time is going so quickly. We've got so much response here ,and another question coming in, Cathy wants to know “I was shocked at the start of the show”, the statistics actually sorry, let's just read that again – we're getting these as they're coming in – “I was shocked at the stat that shows that men feel happier after expressing their emotions. Why do you think this is?” I think that's true, I mean of course we've all had a good cry, us men in private, I hasten to add but you do actually feel better for it, it's good for you isn't it?

K: It is I think men probably feel better specifically as opposed to everyone – everyone feels somewhat better after a good cry, but men probably feel this more intensely, and certainly the Kleenex survey showed, I think it was something like 43% of men feel happy after a good cry and it was only 36% of women or something like that, so men are happier than women as a result of a cry or letting out your emotion or whatever

H: You've got to think of the reasons -

K: It's not necessarily crying it could be laughing and all sorts of other things -

H: Yes

K: But I think there are two reasons for that, one is that particularly if we're talking about crying is that men do it much less often and therefore when they do have a good cry it has more of an impact on their mood, on their state of mind, it's a bigger event for them, so if there is a sense of release it's going to be more intense for a man. The other thing is that because men do it less often, you see you have to understand that your feelings as a result of letting out emotion are entirely dependent on how other people around you react to that, you know if other people respond to you positively, with sympathy, with interest etc etc then that's going to be a therapeutic cathartic experience for you

H: Sure

K: If they either totally ignore you or respond negatively and tell you to just pull your socks up or stop being such a woos or whatever, then it's not going to be a positive experience and you won't feel happier. Men are more likely to get a positive response because they do it less often it has greater novelty value quite frankly

H: Yes it's true

K: When a woman bursts into tears, you know it could be because she's lost her keys or you know her computer swallowed a document or you know some minor frustration, she can't find a parking space. You know when a man bursts into tears we tend to assume that it's because of something rather profound and important has happened in his life, and therefore we're more likely, a) to take it seriously, to listen, to rally round to offer sympathy -

H: Sure

K: You know to try and do something to make him feel better, therefore men are more likely to have a positive experience than women

H: That's touching on what I was going to mention earlier, there are various reasons why we cry of course, it could be bereavement, it could be the loss of a loved one, it could be all sorts of reasons but often the source of that emotion and sadness I suppose could have a bearing on how you're going to express emotions. I mean a man crying at a funeral is not unusual is it?

K: No

H: And I think -

K: Even at funerals men cry less than women, there's a very strange, there's a whole sort of complicated, unwritten social rules about the kind of tear quota at funerals -

H: Really?

K: I've got a whole chapter on it in my book, I won't bore you with it, yes but more or less precisely how many tears you're allowed depending on how old you are, what sex you are, how closely related you are to the deceased etc etc

H: Interesting. Ok let's move on, slightly more cheery things here, James wants to know “my girlfriend always makes fun of me for crying in films. Now it seems from what you're saying that it's ok to cry in films, surely? Thank you very much” he says

K: It's interesting because in the previous study we did for Kleenex called the Crying Game which was mainly about men and crying, we found that men were more likely to cry, I think it was 45% of men had cried at a sad or moving film. Only 39% of men had cried at the break-up of a relationship!

H: Is that right?

K: So they're more likely to cry at a fictional event on a screen than at a real you know quite distressing event in their own lives

H: That's extraordinary

K: But actually it sounds more silly than it is, because what was mostly happening we then went and interviewed these men in much more depth, we found that they actually had quite a lot of insight, and most of them were saying that the crying at the film, they weren't really crying at the film it was either stored up emotion, you know that they needed to release -

H: It was a release, yes

K: Or it was a trigger, you know and they were really crying about some other event in their life where they had perhaps not even really fully acknowledged their feelings or not expressed them fully -

H: Interesting

K: So when you see a man crying at a film, he may be crying for something completely different

H: It's a catalyst -

K: He's not really crying because of ET or Bambi or -

H: Yes alright. Interesting just the other day I saw a really happy moment where somebody won a huge amount of money on a well-known TV game show and to see somebody so happy, I actually felt quite emotional and even the TV host had tears welling up in his eyes, there's a man showing emotion – it was a joyous experience, it was something that made me emotionally feel happy

K: Oh you get that with men at football matches, if their team wins – tears of joy yes

H: Yes and Bergstrom, he wants to know “my wife jokes that I'm emotionally constipated and that this is because I'm Swedish – do you think there's any truth behind this?” Here's a Swede with a sense of humour!

K: Sweet

H: That's pretty good! But what about truth, the sense of emotion?

K: I think that – well I'd have to meet him obviously to really know if there was any truth behind it, I mean in general certainly the Swedes are no more emotionally constipated than the English. I think that if his wife is English in particular what she might be talking about is the difference between the English and the Swedish sense of humour, or rather it's not in terms of quality it's more in terms of quantity in that in Sweden, as in the entire rest of the world apart from England, there is a time and a place for humour, you know it's a kind of separate category of interaction and conversation and speech and so on for humour, whereas among the English humour is sort of omnipresent, it's more like a knee-jerk reflex, every conversation, every social interaction involves humour. Not necessarily ha ha side-slapping kind of belly laugh kind of humour, but you know the sort that raises a wry smile and so on, and we're always in this kind of state of readiness for irony, so to us nations that are somewhat less relentlessly humour-driven than we are seem somewhat, can seem somewhat dour and heavy and solemn and earnest and humourless, so that maybe what his wife is talking about

H: Yes well following on from that we've got Lucas, he's emailed us and says why do different nationalities express their emotions differently?” Now that's touching on what we discussed earlier it's interesting you said that we are definitely, the British are definitely very different in expressing their emotions and even English as you said, you did qualify the fact that the English are different but interesting question about different nationalities – although you say yes we suppress our emotion more, but surely other nationalities will express them in probably a different way? The Italians more volatile and really openly emotional or what?

K: Yes I mean it's interesting I mean this raises the whole issue of national character, which is a big sort of tricky and very thorny issue – I mean some people say there's no such thing as national character -

H: Yes

K: Other people say that it's been totally eroded by globalisation, you know that we're all sort of becoming Americanised -

H: Uniform, yes become the same

K: I don't agree with either of those I think there is such a thing as national character and I think actually everybody intuitively knows that, you know we all know that there's a difference between the French and the Germans and the English and so on, you can see it immediately. But in terms of the expression of emotion, there are some things that are universal, right across all cultures, and that's the facial expressions that we use to convey the different – you know sadness, fear, disgust etc etc are the same across all cultures -

H: So it comes from the cave man days I suppose?

K: Yes exactly, that goes so way back that it's fixed, so at least there if you travel to other countries and you look at someone's face, you will know what they're expressing, or at least you will if you're female, men are not so good at reading facial expressions, anger and fear is the same thing and that kind of thing, whereas women can tell the difference, even from quite a young age women are better at that, but in many other ways cultures do differ quite markedly in expression of emotion, particularly in the sheer quantity of how much do they express their emotions, and the Latin / Mediterranean cultures you know as you say are likely to be more demonstrative, warmer, friendlier, gesticulate more, be more sort of open and expansive and flamboyant in their expression of emotion than we are. I mean my sister was / is married to a Lebanese man and lived in a Lebanese village, and I used to go – I went to stay with her a few times, and you know it was like living in the middle of an Italian opera, everything was conducted at top volume, pitch of intensity, everything that had to be said was repeated six times, at least, you know always loud and shouting and screaming and banging you know by the end of the day poor little English brain here was just exhausted, I couldn't deal with it

H: That wasn't unusual, I mean amongst Lebanese people -

K: No it was perfectly normal family life, you know to me it was literally like an Italian opera, it was crazy

H: Very very interesting, now we'll go onto another question, Grey wants to know “should I be making being more emotionally expressive New Year's resolution?” I'll just read that again “should I be making myself be more emotionally expressive a New Year resolution?” In other words he's touching on the fact, is it going to be good for me, is it a good thing to do?

K: Is Grey male or female do we know?

H: I don't know, I've no idea

K: Never mind

H: I don't know really I'm just assuming it's a him but I don't know why I assumed it's a him, anyway -

K: It sounds as though, it sounds as though he or she probably has some difficulty, or feels they have some difficulty in expressing emotion

H: But this whole thing is about let it out

K: Yes

H: And letting it out as I think we've already established, surely can be no bad thing?

K: It's no bad thing, it's a good thing, it makes people feel better, it also helps social bonding, it's a facilitator of social bonding. There's a thing that psychologists call reciprocal disclosure which is basically you tell me your secrets, I'll tell you mine. If you reveal something personal about yourself the other person almost feels obliged, as though there's a rule about it -

H: They've got to return –

K: To come back with something equally personal about themselves, and that way the relationship actually progresses towards intimacy a lot faster than if you, Grey, held back and didn't say anything too personal because the other person would carry on doing the same thing, it could take you a very long time before you actually edged towards being closer to each other emotionally and psychologically, so it's good for your relationships, there's no direct evidence that it's good for your health, although possibly laughter releases endorphins. The evidence on crying is a bit equivocal, in terms of direct health benefits. There's one study that shows a positive association between people who cry a lot and being very healthy. But all of the others show either neutral, nothing, no difference or that in fact people who cry an awful lot are in fact less healthy. So there's a question of moderation, which I'm sounding very English -

H: No I was just thinking you're talking about the physical thing of crying, it's extraordinary isn't it?

K: Yes

H: How do we suddenly just produce tears, are they there waiting to come or what?

K: It's weird isn't it?

H: How does it work?

K: There's a duct - no a gland, the tear duct is where the tears are supposed to go and they overspill as tears, otherwise they drain into the nasal cavity, but we're the only animal that cries emotional tears, other animals have tears but it's just for washing the eyes, it's not connected to emotion

H: Of course yes

K: So when you see other animals crying they're not really crying, they're not crying because they're sad, they're just washing their eyes out. But in us it is about emotion so that does make us a highly unusual animal

H: Listen don't get emotional, don't get tearful, but we're getting towards the end -

K: Ok

H: Alright, we've got one more question from Hazel, wants to know why do I find it easier to confide in friends than relatives?” That's interesting isn't it?

K: Yes. In a way there's a funny sort of reverse hierarchy of whom we prefer to confide in and in some ways, some people – is this a male or a female?

H: It's Hazel

K: Hazel – female. A lot of men actually find it sometimes easier to let out all their feelings and express their emotions to a complete stranger you know a taxi driver -

H: True

K: Or a stranger on a train or a bar man in a foreign hotel or something

H: Is it because there's a detachment really isn't that why she mentions -

K: Because you'll never see that person again there's an element of detachment. Letting it out to people closer and closer to you, in other words friends would be the next step closer wouldn't they? And then family even closer, people who know you extremely well

H: Or do you think there's another thing where maybe relations see more of each other and they might talk, you know

K: It can be difficult yes -

H: Amongst themselves and you think well that friend doesn't really know any of my other friends as such – I don't know

K: Well also because your emotion affects the person that you're talking to, the person that you're letting it out to, and to some extent we want to try and protect our family and our friends from our emotions sometimes

H: Of course

K: Do you know what I mean, we feel that inflicting our emotions on them is more difficult, what did she said – finds it easier to confide in friends than relatives, I mean maybe there's less of that sense of having to protect someone, I know I sometimes would protect my mother and particularly my father from too much emotion, you know whereas I might pour my heart out to girlfriends you know who perhaps I feel is a bit stronger, better able to deal with it because she's not so closely linked to me

H: Good point, I think so many people – it's a shame we haven't got longer because some of the comments you're giving us and your observations are making us think more deeply about all this and -

K: And also it really depends on how the person responds, I mean it may be that Hazel's friends are better listeners than her relatives, you know -

H: True

K: That her relatives try and jump in with too many solutions or something, whereas her friends will actually act as a bit of a sounding board, let her talk it out, talk it through

H: Yes. Kate thank you very much for sharing all your observations, as I say the book you've written, or as you say, it's what 400 pages or whatever, there's just a huge amount there -

K: Mostly jokes!

H: Yes well it sounds fascinating -

K: Very English

H: And certainly observing people and it's been very interesting to get your take on this emotional side and how we do differ and I know we talked about the male and the female aspect and also how we differ not just within the United Kingdom but how different geographically we are across the world, it's absolutely fascinating so thank you very much. And this survey I think has been quite revealing too hasn't it?

K: Yes I know it's great fun to do, very interesting because actually when we run focus groups on a subject like this they turn into therapy sessions – you'd be amazed

H: I'm sure

K: At how much people let out

H: Well thank you very much for joining us today, and it's been great to get all your questions here on the Lifestyle show. For more information on this, there's loads more to find out, go to the website, all the w's letitout.com that's www.letitout.com and I'd like to thank my guest Kate Fox, it's been fascinating talking to you, thank you very much indeed and don't forget if you feel like a good cry it's good for you, let it all out, thanks for joining us, bye bye