Did you know that foul language can reduce pain?

Imagine: you are walking calmly around your house, and then bam - you hit your little finger on the nightstand! All sorts of indecent expressions, pronounced with maximum volume, are asked to speak on the tongue. However, educated people do not allow themselves this - they make faces, make faces, groan, but do not utter a single dirty word. And in vain: scientists have proven that obscene swearing literally has an analgesic effect. Such a strange property of the human psyche calledR. Stephens, O. Robertson. Swearing as a Response to Pain: Assessing Hypoalgesic Effects of Novel “Swear” Words / Frontiers in Psychology "hypoalgesic effect of scolding".

Scientists from the University of Keele in Staffordshire, England, heldWhy the #$%! Do We Wear? For Pain Relief / Scientific American such an experiment. They forced the subjects (of course, student volunteers) to keep their hands in ice water until the pain became unbearable. At the same time, one test subject was allowed to use only neutral words or soft euphemisms like "Damn!" (in original

focus), replacing real curses. Others were allowed to swear as much as they liked. As a result, the subjects who swore at the top of their lungs managed to endure pain almost twice as long as their more restrained comrades.

The effect, discovered back in 2009, has since confirmedR. Stephens, O. Robertson. Swearing as a Response to Pain: Assessing Hypoalgesic Effects of Novel “Swear” Words / Frontiers in Psychology other experiments, but it is still not very clear how it works. There is assumptionWhy the #$%! Do We Wear? For Pain Relief / Scientific Americanthat swearing increases aggression, which possibly affects the brain's amygdala and triggers the fight-or-flight response. At the same time, more adrenaline is released into the blood, which suppresses pain.

It has also been found that dirty swearing helps to cope not only with physical, but also with mental pain. Researchers at Massey University in New Zealand discoveredM. C. Philipp, L. Lombardo. Hurt feelings and four letter words: Swearing alleviates the pain of social distress / European Journal of Social Psychology that people tend to view emotionally traumatic memories as less painful when cursed hard.

If you get hurt - whether physically or mentally - swear without embarrassment, and it will become much easier.

The main thing is not to get too carried away. The studies of the same Kiel University also demonstratedR. Stephens, C. Umland. Swearing as a Response to Pain — Effect of Daily Swearing Frequency / The Journal of Painthat people who swear very often (do not swear, but speak it) are less susceptible to the analgesic effect of swearing.

So it is better to keep the speech clean in everyday life and use obscene language only when it is really necessary to alleviate suffering.