People who don’t swear regularly, can actually produce short-term pain relief when they do curse, according to a new U.K. study published in the Journal of Pain.
The research took into account how often people swear in everyday situations, and found that swearing just a few times a day doubled the amount of time participants could withstand an ice water challenge experiment.
On the other hand, people who admitted to the highest levels of everyday swearing (the maximum was 60 swear words per day), did not show any benefit in withstanding the ice water.
Researchers believe that swearing helps most people better tolerate pain by provoking an emotional response in the speaker – possibly aggression or anger – leading to “stress-induced analgesia.” This natural form of pain relief is part of the body’s “fight or flight” response, along with the well-known surge in adrenalin.
However, it seems that people who curse more often get used to profanity, so they don’t get the same level of emotional response and, consequently, don’t get the same pain relieving effect.
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