Why swearing can help you beat pain - Times of India

LONDON: Swearing can really help you beat the pain, but only if you don't use foul language very often, a new study claims. Researchers at Uk's Keele University found that people who don't normally use expletives in their everyday life could tolerate pain for longer by swearing than those who regularly pepper their conversations with such words.

Swearing often "watered down" its pain relieving effects, said the researchers who found that people who did not swear regularly could hold their hands in the ice water for 140 seconds when they swore - twice as long as when they used a neutral word, the Daily Telegraph reported. However, people who usually swore up to 60 times a day could only hold their hands in the water for 120 seconds when they used foul language - the same as when they used a neutral word.

The new research, published in the Journal of Pain, was conducted by Richard Stephens and Claudia Umland from Keele's School of Psychology. The study replicated Dr Stephens's 2009 findings showing that people can withstand an ice-cold water test for longer by repeatedly swearing compared with reciting a neutral word.