We have lots of reasons to suppress the urge to cry, from throwing a bully off your scent in grade school to trying to appear professional in an important meeting. You may have preconceived notions about how crying can make you seem weak, or that it’s an undesirable vibe to put out in tense situations. However, good things can come from crying when you do it in the safety of an emotionally supportive environment. Not only does it let people around you know that you need their help, it lets you release endorphins and stress so you can start feeling better.

Why do we cry, anyway?

Why we cry as a result of intense emotions or physical pain is an ongoing area of study. Consensus says crying functions a social signal to elicit comfort and support from other people. But from an evolutionary perspective, it’s very hard to study, researchers say, because humans are the only animals who cry. Other animals whine and vocalize, but humans are the only animals who do this coordinated action of producing tears, vocalizing, facial contractions, collapsing posture, and shuddering that we call crying.

Generally speaking, humans produce three types of tears: 

• Basal: produced all the time for general eye health.

• Irritant: for flushing harmful things out of the eye.

• Emotional: caused by strong emotions and pain.

Reasons it’s good for you to cry

Like I mentioned, the main scientific theory for the value of crying is that it triggers empathy and compassion in others, thus promoting human connection. It’s a way for you (or a baby or anyone) to signal you need help and to make people who see and hear you crying more likely to help.

Aside from the social benefit, it’s widely believed that crying has physiological benefits, too. Some research shows that crying could be a form of self-soothing. It may help relieve pain by releasing opioids and oxytocin. In 2020, a small study showed that crying therapy improved emotions and physiology in breast cancer survivors. Grief therapist Gina Moffa, author of Moving on Doesn’t Mean Letting Go: A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss, says not only can crying elicit empathy from others, it helps us release stress and pent up emotions.

“Crying can be a therapeutic release that releases endorphins and helps to create a sense of calm,” she says. “Emotional tears can help us flush out toxins in our bodies, lubricate our eyes, or lower blood pressure and reduce distress. It can have a social benefit of eliciting empathy or care from people around us that can help us feel safer and coregulated.”

While there’s no evidence that you need to cry on a certain schedule, she says, it is encouraged to let your tears flow in a safe way and in a safe place.

How to turn on the waterworks

So, we’ve established that crying is important, but how do you do it? If you’re a person who has worked hard to hold back tears in the past, letting them flow freely may take some practice.

“For some people who were taught emotions were not safe or for those who have not been modeled how to express emotions, crying can seem elusive,” Moffa says. “Some of the ways I recommend to allow the emotions to be released through tears is to make a playlist of moving and personal songs, to journal and write freely about feelings, watch a meaningful or sad movie, [try] somatic release, or on a more positive note, create a genuine gratitude practice.”

Maybe you’ve seen the trending TikToks about a somatic release technique to induce crying. It’s worth a try, Moffa says, but be sure to do it in an environment where you can get emotional support.

“I believe in the safe release of our emotions, whether through tears we have naturally or tears we trigger. It can be a healthy release to try a somatic release exercise we have been seeing all over social media. My caveat is that you are in a safe place and have support if needed afterward,” she said.

Seven techniques to help make yourself cry

If you need some additional resources to help open the floodgates, try one (or several) of the techniques below.

• Make a sad playlist of songs that get you every time (you know the ones).

• Just ask TikTok or YouTube for videos that will make you cry. See what pushes your tear button, whether it’s inspirational, sentimental, sad, or tragic.

• Try somatic self care.

• Listen to a sad podcast.

• Watch a guaranteed tearjerker movie.

• Journal about your personal sadness and grief.

• Try a yoga pose to release sadness. (Pigeon is often cited to cause crying.)

WASHINGTON, February 7, 2024 – U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to date, has awarded over $270 million through cooperative agreements with state departments of agriculture to build resilience across the middle of the food supply chain and strengthen local and regional food systems. The funding is being awarded through the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program which is administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for February 7, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium; I got it in four. Beware, there are spoilers below for February 7, Wordle #963! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

They’re almost all common letters today! Four of them are in our mnemonic, and there’s one letter that isn’t but is also fairly common. No unusual letters today.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Not before. 

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

No repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels today. 

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with A. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with R. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is AFTER.

How I solved today’s Wordle

After ARISE and TOUCH, I only had one letter to figure out. I tried ALERT in an attempt to eliminate another common letter, and the results gave me a pretty good hint as to the placement of the other letters I’d confirmed, leaving AFTER as the only feasible solution. 

Wordle 963 4/6

🟩🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: 

• Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Using Siri, your iPhone’s voice assistant, can be a quick and easy way to accomplish a variety of tasks—if you know how to use it. Many Siri features aren’t as well-known as they should be, which gives me the chance to tell you about some of the more useful commands you probably haven’t used yet. There’s a more exhaustive list of Siri commands over on GitHub, but I’ve highlighted a few of the most useful and interesting commands below.

Tweak iPhone settings

Siri can control quite a few useful iPhone settings. You can use it to toggle features such as brightness levels, flashlight, dark mode, Night Shift, wifi, Bluetooth, and many others. You can even ask Siri to change the volume or to quickly take a selfie.

Toss a coin or roll dice

Want to flip a coin to decide who does the dishes, but too lazy to actually fetch a coin? Ask Siri to toss a coin and it’ll do the honors. Siri can also roll dice for you, which can be great when you’re at a board game night but someone lost the die. 

Give information on stocks

Siri can be a good stock market companion. You can ask it for information such as the current price, P/E ratio, or market cap for any stock. You’ll need to do more research to make informed investing decisions, of course, but Siri can be a good starting point.

Solve math problems

When you’re out with friends and want to calculate how much to tip, Siri can help. You can ask Siri to calculate 20% of any dollar amount and it’ll do the job. It’s also great at basic math problems, so feel free to throw arithmetic at it when a calculator is out of reach. 

Help with music streaming

You probably know that Siri can be used to control music playback, but it’s also great for precise control forward or backward. When you’re playing a song, ask Siri to find a timestamp of your choice and it’ll do this instantly. If you don’t know the timestamp, you can ask Siri to rewind 15 seconds, for example, or forward a minute. 

Play your favorite podcasts

Those who listen to podcasts using Apple Podcasts should try using Siri to play their favorites. You can also ask Siri to tweak playback speed when you’re listening.

Read out articles out loud

With iOS 17, Siri got a useful new feature, which enables it to read articles out loud. As long as the webpage is open in Safari and supports Reader Mode, you’ll be able to ask Siri to read out the entire article for you.

Help you manage alarms

There are some people who have just a couple of alarms set up on their iPhones, but there are many others who have set up several alarms in the Clock app. If you want to trim the list, it’s a huge task without Siri. You can ask Siri to delete all alarms or even disable or enable all of them. 

Find your Apple devices

Siri is also the fastest way to ping your Apple devices. You can ask Siri to ping your Apple Watch, MacBook, or other Apple devices listed in the Find My app. 

Cast Harry Potter spells

Siri won’t make you a powerful magician, but it’ll let you pretend to be one. You can use it to cast some Harry Potter spells, which effectively allow you to open apps or toggle the flashlight. 

The fastest way to open Apple Wallet

“Hey Siri, show my wallet” is the command you need to quickly open the Apple Wallet app on your iPhone. This is faster than opening the app manually and is handy when you want to quickly access your boarding passes or concert tickets.

Establish your relationships for a faster Siri

When you know five different people called Jim and one of them is your significant other, it can be a bit of a hassle when you call or text them using Siri. To fix this problem, you can say something like, “Hey Siri, Jim Smith is my boyfriend.” The next time you want to contact these people, you can ask Siri to call your boyfriend, and it’ll reach out to the right person. Similarly, you can tell the voice assistant that certain contacts are your relatives, or other types of professionals that you contact regularly.

Find out what things sound like

Siri can play the calls of various animals, birds, and the sounds of vehicles. If you’re unsure what a fox sounds like, you can ask Siri to tell you. It will play an audio file of the bird’s call or the vehicle’s noise.

Use Siri for translations

When you want to say something in a different language, Siri can speak it for you. You can ask Siri to “say hello in French,” or replace hello with any other phrase you can think of. As long as Siri supports the language you’re seeking, it’ll translate and play the audio. You can use this to communicate with people who don’t speak your language.

Have some fun, too

Not all Siri commands have to be useful. Sometimes, you can chat with Siri and have fun. These are a few examples of funny Siri commands:

• Tell me a joke

• Rock, paper, scissors

• I love you

• Tell me a riddle

• Beatbox for me

• Sing me a song

• Dance for me

• Tell me a haiku

Even more useful commands

This is just a glimpse at what Siri can do for you. There are many more features, such as controlling your Tesla, that are equally useful. This GitHub page, mentioned at the top of this post, has an exhaustive list of even more useful Siri voice commands that we won’t go over here. Be aware though, the list is four years old, so some commands may not work as expected.

All three models of Apple’s AirPods are discounted on Amazon right now, with two of them matching the lowest price they’ve ever been. The 2nd Generation AirPods Pro are $189.99 (originally $249), which is the lowest I’ve ever seen them. The 3rd Generation AirPods are $139.99 (originally $169) and are also matching the lowest price I’ve ever seen after looking at price comparison tools. 2nd Generation AirPods are $89.99 (originally $129) after a 30% discount. This isn’t the lowest price they’ve been, but it’s still a decent discount.

If you’re not sure which type of AirPods to pick, we have a breakdown of all three to make the choice a little easier.

• Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) $189.99 (originally $249), matching lowest price ever

• Apple AirPods (3rd Generation) $139.99 (originally $169), matching lowest price ever

• Apple AirPods (2nd Generation) $89.99 (originally $129)

The AirPods Pro are the best one of the bunch, if you have the funds for them. This newest model, which came out in September, is the first to feature charging via USB-C as opposed to a lightning cable. They have a few new features, like adaptive transparency, but the change in charging port is the biggest difference. You can expect solid battery life, with Apple claiming up to 30 hours of listening time on a single charge.

If you have yet to wade into the smart home world, or if you’re simply considering the best voice assistant and speaker combination to add to your space, you’re probably looking at an Amazon Alexa vs. Google Home showdown. Both ecosystems integrate with thousands of smart home devices, from video doorbells to lightbulbs, and both smart assistants can perform basic functions like playing music, scheduling alarms, and reading weather reports.

However, while these two platforms are closely matched across the board, there are a few differences to consider before buying.

Alexa vs. Google Home: Devices

Amazon’s Alexa-enabled hub is the Echo, which comes in several models: the Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Pop, and Echo Studio are all smart speakers, while the Echo Show (5, 8, and 15) and Echo Hub are smart displays. Google offers a similar lineup of assistant-enabled devices, including the Nest Mini and Nest Audio (speakers) and the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max (smart displays). The price points are similar for comparable products. Note that there are also plenty of third-party devices (such as Sonos speakers) that work with Amazon Alexa and/or Google Assistant.

Alexa vs. Google Home: Compatibility

Smart home control is a primary use case for Alexa and Google Home. Google’s assistant works with more than 50,000 smart home devices, and while there’s no firm number from Amazon on how many are compatible with Alexa, it’s at least double that. This may seem like a significant advantage for Alexa, but if you’re choosing a hub for your smart home, it doesn’t matter how many tens of thousands of devices you could connect—rather, you’ll care whether the specific devices you own or plan to add are compatible. Note that the Alexa ecosystem includes products from Blink and Ring, while Google integrates seamlessly with Nest.

Both Alexa and Google (alongside many other smart home players) have also signed onto Matter, an interoperability standard meant to boost device compatibility.

Alexa vs. Google Home: Features

On the surface, Alexa and Google Home have a lot of similar features: The hubs can play audio, respond to commands, and control your smart home devices. However, there are a few differences that could sway your choice:

• Google Assistant is a little bit better at natural language recognition than Alexa, and you can ask multiple questions without having to repeat the wake word thanks to a feature called Continued Conversation.

• Google Assistant pulls from, well, Google for search, while Alexa uses Bing by default.

• Google Assistant supports more languages than Alexa, but both offer multilingual support (with some restrictions).

• Alexa has more “skills” than Google has “actions,” but both support major third-party platforms and services like Spotify and Netflix.

• Google is a great choice for YouTube fans, while Alexa offers more robust voice and video calling.

Alexa vs. Google Home: Bottom line

Alexa and Google Home are comparable in terms of form, function, and compatibility, so the choice comes down to which ecosystem is the best fit for your needs. For example, if you already have Ring devices, Alexa will work seamlessly versus Nest products that pair with Google Home. You may also prefer the specific features or aesthetic of one hub over another, which can help you narrow down your choice. While Alexa has a slight advantage for smart home integration thanks to its broad device compatibility and skill range, Google Home’s voice assistant and search capabilities are a bit more polished (and it’s native to Android devices). Neither is a bad choice.

Mozilla has a solid reputation for preserving user privacy and security on the internet, starting with Firefox, which is all about offering a useful web browser that also block trackers from following you, especially after you start adjusting its settings.

It’s fitting the company has a service like Mozilla Monitor (formerly Firefox Monitor) to help find and secure your stolen data. Mozilla Monitor promises to scan over 190 sites across the web for data that belongs to you, usually obtained following data breaches from companies you have accounts with. These sites are known for selling such data, so services like Monitor can help stop those transactions before bad actors can buy up your information.

This data can range from email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses, to financial information and even the names of your direct family members. (A lot of data about you is probably floating around the internet.) If you don’t use a service like Mozilla Monitor, you might never know that your data is being sold on one of these sites, especially if you never got the memo that one of the accounts you hold was breached. Once found, Mozilla lets you know which sites have your data, so you can reach out and request they delete it.

Mozilla Monitor Plus automates the process (for a fee)

Mozilla Monitor is a free service that offers a one-time scan of these known sites. However, the company is rolling out a paid version of the service today, called Mozilla Monitor Plus. For $13.99 per month, or $8.99 per month when paid annually, you get monthly scans of these 190+ sites. In addition, when Mozilla does find data that belongs to you, it reaches out on your behalf to get it removed. That places Mozilla Monitor Plus more in line with proactive data monitoring services like DeleteMe.

Speaking of which, there are already quite a few services out there to help you delete yourself from the internet. The aforementioned DeleteMe, for example, asks you to provide an extensive list of information about yourself, so it can better find that information across the web (it costs a bit more, at $10.75 when billed annually). Incogni offers a more affordable option at $6.49 per month, billed annually, while Kanary offers a 14-day free trial before a $14.99 per month plan (billed annually, of course).

Mozilla’s paid plan just launched today, so it’s difficult to know exactly how it stacks up against these other options. But it might be the right choice for those who already use the free version, since it will free you up from doing the legwork to actually get your data offline.

Check out the data removal tools mentioned in this piece:

• Mozilla Monitor Plus

• DeleteMe

• Incogni

• Kanary