When you stick your hands, for example, in freezing cold water, you can stand it for about half as long again if you’re using a single swear word than if you're using a single neutral word.

HZ: Another reason swearing is good for you: it relieves pain.ĮMMA BYRNE: That is really potent and surprisingly well documented. It's also really useful individually, both for a cathartic side of things when you do something painful or frustrating, letting it out there. Sometimes it needs to be something stronger than just putting your arm around their shoulder going, 'Oh there, there'. I feel the strength of your emotions,' like saying 'Fuck that shit' when someone comes to you with something that's obviously upset them. It's also a really good way of bonding, of saying 'I hear you.

Packed with the results of unlikely and often hilarious scientific studies?from the “ice-bucket test” for coping with pain, to the connection between Tourette’s and swearing, to a chimpanzee that curses at her handler in sign language?Swearing Is Good for You presents a lighthearted but convincing case for the foulmouthed.EMMA BYRNE: It's good for us socially, in that it is this really useful telegraph of our emotions it's a good way of avoiding physical conflict. Taking readers on a whirlwind tour through scientific experiments, historical case studies, and cutting-edge research on language in both humans and other primates, Byrne defends cursing and demonstrates how much it can reveal about different cultures, their taboos and their values. Not only has some form of swearing existed since the earliest humans began to communicate, but it has been shown to reduce physical pain, to lower anxiety, to prevent physical violence, to help trauma victims recover language, and to promote human cooperation. With humor and colorful language, she explores every angle of swearing?why we do it, how we do it, and what it tells us about ourselves. In this sparkling debut work of popular science, Emma Byrne examines the latest research to show how swearing can be good for you.

But the latest research by neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, and others has revealed that swear words, curses, and oaths?when used judiciously?can have surprising benefits. Dictionaries have traditionally omitted it and parents forbid it. We’re often told that swearing is outrageous or even offensive, that it’s a sign of a stunted vocabulary or a limited intellect. An irreverent and impeccably researched defense of our dirtiest words.

Swearing Is Good for You by Emma Byrne