F*%# It - I Feel Better Now

My son has been staying with me for a few days, and made the observation that I tend to shout and swear a lot when things aren't going right. The gist of his comment was why do I do this, since it doesn't help the situation 'and just sounds stupid'.

Why indeed? I've written previously about bad situations that I handle calmly and those that are met with shouting, swearing and general banging around, and I seem to recall that the slow painful losses were the ones most likely to trigger an outburst whereas the sudden hit was more likely to be met with a stoical silence.

But it seems I am not alone with swearing when faced with a threat. A recent article in Scientific American reported on a study conducted by Richard Stephens, a psychology professor at Keele University, who became interested in the function of profanity after hearing an earful of it from his wife while she was in labour, and wondered if it served some practical purpose.

In one experiment he conducted, participants who were encouraged to curse freely were able to keep their hands in ice-cold water for 40% longer than those asked to utter words of the type they'd use to describe a table. Afterward, they also reported feelong less pain than their polite counterparts.

Swearing seems to elevate the heart rate and may, by raising aggression levels, trigger the flight-or-fight response. (My son had better be careful about the timing of his next comment, or I will be running away from him - he's bigger than me!) This repsonse is known to mute the sensation of pain, so that we can respond quickly to a threat.

The most popular sear words for people in pain were identified by Richard Stephens as F**k, S**t and 'the two B-words' (although I can think of at least four that start with B). I must have a foul mouth.