Psychology Duo Finds Swearing Can Help Reduce Pain

Richard Stephens and Claudia Umland working at Keele University's School of Psychology have done a series of tests and experiments to find out if hollering out expletives when suddenly experiencing pain, does any good. And surprisingly, as they discuss in their paper published in the Journal of Pain, for many people, it seems to help a lot.

To find out, the team devised a means of subjecting volunteers to a type of pain that many are willing to endure; sticking their hands in a bucket of ice cold water. They then rounded up a bunch of student volunteers, quizzed them on their current swearing habits, and then set them down before the afore mentioned bucket. When asked to do so, one group of volunteers was asked to not swear while the other was allowed to swear at full volume. All volunteers wore heart monitors both to ensure their safety and to provide feedback for the researchers.

Astoundingly, the researchers found, after studying the data, that those volunteers who swore very little or not at all in their regular lives, found that doing so while being subjected to pain, seemed to somehow block it out. Those that swore all the time however, found they received little benefit from doing so in response to the pain of the cold freezing their hand. Also, the group that was asked not to swear (the control group) during the test reported experiencing what would be considered a normal amount of pain.

And it wasn't just all in their minds. In looking at the heart monitors, the researchers noted that those who found relief from the pain, also showed less dramatic heart pounding as the test continued. And not only that, those that found relief by swearing were able to hold their hands in the chilled water for much longer periods of time than everyone else in the study.

Though it wasn't addressed in the study, it's likely that even those volunteers who received little to no relief by swearing, would likely find such a benefit in a different environment. This is because most everyone has some part of their vocabulary that is not used for one reason the other, and while they may not be swear words in the technical sense, if they have the same hot-button effect as swear words do for non-swearers, it's likely they would find the same benefits with a pain test.

At any rate, the study does seem to indicate that for people who don't swear much, doing so if they happen to hit their thumb with a nail, will likely help alleviate the sensation until it subsides on its own.