Rx for pain: #@%&^$#!

I have heard of someone who, when she is startled maybe by pain or what have you, says “Cheesecake!” For people like her, science may have found something else for pain.

Try this at home preferably with no one around to be offended or annoyed by what you will do. Immerse your hand in a container of freezing water while repeating a swear word of your choice. See how long you could last. Time it. Now, try it by saying a non-curse word. Time it as well. If you were able to endure the pain longer while swearing, then you have just confirmed a recent experiment.

Keele University in the UK had its researchers led by Dr. Richard Stephens conduct this experiment on 64 volunteers. Their study was published in the journal NeuroReport. They did the same thing I previously described and found that on the average, when the subjects swore while in pain, they endured for two minutes, and when they did not, they only lasted one minute and 15 seconds. Dr. Stephens was reportedly inspired to do the study when he accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer during a gardening activity. None of his family members have been interviewed to verify what swear words Dr. Stephen actually uttered.

They did not test further for any explanations they may have on why swearing seemed to make the subjects endure the pain longer. They only speculated that perhaps it has something to do with how we are motivated to fight or flee a scene. They think that perhaps swearing gives the “swearer” a sense of bravado which somehow mentally diminishes the threat, making one able to deal with it. In this case, the subjects seemed to have not just dealt with it but dealt with it longer. I think further studies linking swearing and pain endurance would have to extend their methods so they could peer into what happens to brains who swear while in pain. That would give us more clues to the story of pain and expletives.

I was surprised that at the end of the reports about this study, most newspapers around the world mentioned a certain Rohan Byrt of the Casual Swearing Society who reportedly said that it was the first time the benefits from swearing have been proven. First of all, I looked him up and his association and it turns out that this Society is only a Facebook page with a picture of Byrt in what seems to be a typical swearing mode. Lastly, Dr. Stephen himself said that this experiment in fact caution us against casual swearing if we want to benefit from its pain-relieving effects. He said this is because as an emotional language, swearing will lose its effect if it is done too casually. I guess the punctuating effect of a swear diminishes with repeated use.

Some of you must be scratching your heads now, wondering at the nooks and crevices that science goes to probe. I tell you, it is why the IgNobel Prizes — the awards that “honor achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think” — have become such a hit. I have this regular habit of finding science news in all forms and sizes to weekly share with you and I still am intrigued as to how much of a straight face you can muster when reading research like this. Humans are especially quirky with their behavior so I would think the journals in Psychology are the prized deposits to be mined. I nominate this study for the next IgNobel awards. And if Dr. Stephens does not win it, he can always say, “Oh, #%&(&%#@!!!” to ease the pain.

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