Have A Habit Of Dropping The ‘F’ Word? Study Says Swearing During Exercise Gets Better Results

As it turns out having a foul, pirate-cursing mouth may not be so bad after all, not at least when you are working out. A new study on the exertion of curse words towards workout showed that swearing may be able to bring about improvements in physical performance and help deal with pain. A study that was conducted by U.K.'s Keele University and Long Island University Brooklyn and recently published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise added,  

"Swearing appears to be able to bring about improvements in physical performance that may not be solely dependent on a stress response arising out of the shock value of the swearing.

"We know that swearing appears to be handled in brain regions not usually associated with language processing. It is possible that activation of these areas by swearing could produce performance improvements across many different domains." Richard Stephens, the study’s co-author and professor of psychology at Keele University said in a statement:

During one experiment, researchers asked participants on a stationary bike to swear while peddling. They found that using foul language produced a 4.6 per cent increase in initial power during a 30-second cycling test compared to those who held back the curse word.

"What is clear is that swearing triggers not only an emotional response but a physical one, too, which may explain why the centuries-old practice of cursing developed and still persists today," the researchers.

In that separate study where people to asked their hands in icy cold water found out that those who expressed their pain via curse words actually showed more tolerance to pain.

"Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophise," the study said.