Swearing actually helps you tolerate pain according to science - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Life Swearing actually helps you tolerate pain according to science By You Magazine - July 24, 2019 We’re all guilty of using the odd swear word when we stub our toes or endure any other kind of minor (but very painful) accidental injury. For many, it is a way of letting out your frustration. But what if we told you it actually helps ease the pain, too? Getty Images New scientific research has revealed that swearing does indeed help us tolerate pain, hence why it is such a natural reaction for many. In fact, it highlighted that using the the F-word in particular whenever pain strikes, increases pain tolerance by up to a third. As a result, the study – which was conducted by a team of experts including Keele University’s senior lecturer in psychology, Dr Richard Stephens, language expert and author, Dr Emma Byrne and acclaimed lexicographer Jonathon Green – then went onto explore how effective real and new, made-up swear words are in helping us increase pain tolerance and threshold. They invented two new ‘socially acceptable’ words for the experiment ‘twizpipe’ and ‘fouch’ to see if the public could use them in moments of pain as a replacement for swear words. Participants were then invited to test the new words along with a traditional swear word and a control word while their hands were submerged in an ice water bath that tested their pain tolerance and threshold. The findings showed that the new words did not alleviate pain in the same way traditional swearing did even though participants rated them as emotion evoking and humorous. Getty Images ‘It seems that swearing has a strong emotional connection, and this is likely due to the circumstances in which we first hear swear words,’ said Dr Richard Stephens. ‘From a young age we typically learn to associate them with high-stress situations and that they are forbidden. ‘The study found that these strong sentiments cannot be mimicked by newly created swear words.’ He continued: ‘Although the words we created, twizpipe or fouch, were shown to be similar to existing swear words in that they were rated as emotion evoking and humorous, they didn’t cut it when it came to pain relief – repeating the f-word was the best option for increasing tolerance to pain. ‘The volunteers rated the emotional impact of the f-word, as one and half times more emotional than the new words.’ RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR Everything we know about The Crown season 5 Aldi s exercise equipment is on sale with up to 50% off The best Halloween events for 2022 across the UK Popular in Life The You magazine team reveal their New Year s resolutions December 31, 2021 Susannah Taylor The TLC tools your body will love January 23, 2022 How to stop living in fear February 6, 2022 Susannah Taylor My pick of the fittest leggings February 27, 2022 Women’ s Prize for Fiction 2022 winner announced June 17, 2022 These BBC dramas are returning for a second series June 30, 2022 Susannah Taylor gives the lowdown on nature s little helper – CBD April 17, 2022 The baby names that are banned across the world April 27, 2022 The Queen has released her own emojis May 26, 2022 Sally Brompton horoscopes 27th June-3rd July 2022 June 26, 2022 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved