When you got up, when you banged your shin against the foot of the bed and then when you burned your fingers getting your toast out of the toaster, you swore. Scientists are convinced: it did you good. Because swearing causes hypoalgesia or analgesia, that is to say relieves pain.
>> Endometriosis: “I have put in place solutions to live better on a daily basis with my pain”, explains Cindy, diagnosed after 17 years of medical wandering
This study summarizes several experiments carried out in the past. In some of them, the scientists asked the participants to keep their hands as long as possible in a bath of ice water. Some had the right to swear, to throw insults, not the others. Result: in all the experiments, those who kept their hands in the water the longest were those who swore. And they are also the ones who said they felt the pain the least.
Scientists found this in English, since the experiment was conducted in English-speaking countries. But also in Japanese, because the same experience took place in Japan. Authors’ conclusion: The link between swearing and pain reduction is universal.
Researchers put forward several hypotheses to explain this phenomenon, the first would be “the distraction effect“. When, after aiming with your hammer not the nail but your finger, you let go of a curse, then you are concentrating on something other than the pain, in a way you forget about it. However, it is not the hypothesis that is retained by the researchers of this new British study.
They doubt that the distraction effect is sufficient, significant enough to lessen the pain. According to them, the most probable cause would be that the act of swearing is linked to a “emotional arousal“. It activates the autonomic nervous system, the one which, in the event of imminent danger, prepares the body to act, to react. In particular, it releases adrenaline in the blood, it also increases your heart rate (a phenomenon by the way observed in some swearing subjects.) Scientists have not yet fully understood the mechanisms involved. But for them, it is in this “emotional arousal“that the explanation for the reduction of pain must be sought.