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Swearing May Relieve What Ails You

If you are one of those that slip a swear word into every sentence just for the hell of it, you may be doing yourself quite a favor by doing so. A study appearing in the August 5 NeuroReport suggests that four-letter words may help alleviate pain.

“Swear words are unique,” says Timothy Jay, a psychologist at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, who has studied the role of naughty words in linguistics. “They’re really the link between the language system and the emotional system.”

Well…being mad and cursing like a trucker who sails is not always an emotional pull I would guess. At least not when you swear at that rate since it is basically just you talking as you normally would.

Undergraduate students (38 males and 29 females) each immersed a hand in cold water (about 5º Celsius) for as long as they could stand it, while repeating either a swear word or an innocuous word.

While it would be nice to take Florida vacations to relieve some stress, the swearing is pretty fun too and maybe even helpful :D .

When people had a swear word for their mantra (popular choices: the s-word, the f-word, two b-words and a c-word), they were able to keep a hand in the chilly water longer. What’s more, after the ordeal, people who swore reported less pain.

Of course many more studies would need to be conducted, and I find this study to be rather weak, it is still a bit of an interesting tidbit. You can use it on your parents when they catch you swearing, or anyone I guess if you are good enough at BSing people.


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