Why we love to swear

If you've always tried to avoid a fuck or bugger when in the company of others, it turns out you might be missing out. That's according to author Emma Byrne and her book Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language.

In it she digs into research from neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, and other experts to make a strong case for swearing being a downright healthy response to stress and pain. Here’s a few snippets:

• Swearing at work can boost company morale - According to a 2007 study out of the University of East Anglia, swearing creates a code that others are capable of understanding as a socially acceptable (if slightly subversive) means of communicating high emotion. Bascially, swearing is a really quick way of sharing your frustration with someone and helping a team bond.
• Swearing can increase pain tolerance - “People with terminal or chronic illness use swearing as a way of dealing with fear and frustration,” says Byrne. In a weird experiment at Keele University, subjects were able to keep their hands submerged in ice water for longer when they swore than when they replaced it with a more PG alternative.
• Swearing can make you feel stronger - Yep, it can. According to more research, when people swore they could lift more and cycle further.
• Swearing exercises important parts of your brain - when we swear, it uses both “emotion-oriented and language-oriented parts of your brain,” which no other words or terms do, according to Byrne, who has also stated that it is because of this double brain activation that swearing “can help stroke victims re-learn their capacity for language.”

So what the fuck are you waiting for?