By Jesse Hunter

D irty language,curse words,swearing.These are all ways of describing words people consider socially unacceptable.But such words are commonly said after a painful injury.So,do they serve a purpose in reducing physical pain?That is what researchers in Britain set out to discover.

Psychologist Richard Stephens wondered if using curse words truly helped people reduce physical pain.To test the theory,he asked more than 60 college students to take part in an experiment.

The students were asked to write down five words they might say after injuring their finger.One of the words was chosen as their swear word.The students were also asked to choose five words they might use to describe another object：a table.These words were their control words.

The students were then asked to hold their hand in freezing water for as long as they could.While holding their hand underwater,they were asked to repeat a swear word.Then they repeated the experiment using their control word instead.

There searchers found a link between swearing and an increased ability to deal with pain.When students repeated a swear word,they were able to hold their hand longer in the cold water.They said they experienced less pain when using swear words.

The experiment showed thats wearing caused people's heart rate to increase,which permits the body to experience or ignore pain better.It also found interesting differences between men and women.The heart rate of both men and women increased.Yet swearing had a greater effect on women.

It is unclear to scientists exactly how swearing affects physical reactions to pain.Professor Stephens believes that swearing activates a different part of the brain than normal language.He says more experiments on different kinds of pain are needed to better understand the effect of swearing.

The researchers note that swear words have existed for hundreds of years.Their findings offer one reason why the custom of cursing may have continued for so long.Swear words are said with emotion.For that reason,the more someone swears,the less of an effect the words have.