Swearing helps make you stronger, says study

We've all been there - whether struggling to open a jar or summoning that little extra from the tank while jogging uphill, the odd swearword slips out.

It often feels that turning the air blue brings a sort of guilty catharsis that helps push ourselves further, although it does risk offending those on the adjacent exercise bikes.

However, rather than feeling guilty about effing and blinding, a new study claims there may be power in such language.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

According to researchers at the University of Keele, repeating profanities while engaging in intense exercise can cause a dramatic increase in stamina and muscle strength, allowing for large performance boosts.

They asked a group of volunteers to swear repeatedly in "an even tone" while either intensively using an exercise bike for a 30 seconds or gripping a device designed to measure hand strength. Other test subjects were asked to repeat more "neutral" words.

The London Evening Standard, says volunteers were asked to use "whatever swearwords they would use if, for example, they suffered a bang to the head", and that the most frequently used words were "f***" and "s***".

Volunteers using neutral words were asked to pick a word they might use to describe a table, such as "brown" and "wooden".

The swearers "enjoyed significant increases in stamina and muscle power" over those who used neutral words, say the researchers. The highest power output from the exercise bike increased by an average of 24 watts by swearing, while the average hand grip strength increased by 2.1 kilograms.

Presenting the results at the British Psychological Society meeting in Brighton, psychologist Richard Stephens said: "In the short period of time we looked at there are benefits from swearing.

"Quite why it is that swearing has these effects on strength and pain tolerance remains to be discovered.

"We're not telling people something they don't already know, but we're verifying that in a systematic and objective way. I think people instinctively reach for swear words when they hurt themselves and when they're looking for an extra boost in performance."

The research follows a 2009 study, also by Stephens and Keele University, which found swearing can significantly increase pain tolerance. When asked to swear while submerging their hands in ice water, the subjects' "heart rates accelerated and their pain perception reduced".