Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "
|
|
||||||||
18.05.2010 |
|
Swearing reduces pain
Study
That's the question the researchers set out to answer with an experiment they did on 67 students. They immersed a hand of each of the students in ice-cold water. On one occasion the students had to swear and on the other they had to keep quiet. The students were told to take their hand out of the water if the pain became too much for them. The researchers measured how long the students managed to keep their hand in the water [cold-pressor latency].
Results
The researchers asked the students how much pain they felt [perceived pain]. Swearing reduced their sensation of pain.
Now some people tend to dramatise. If they feel a cold coming on, they imagine they're going to be ill for a month. If they made a stupid remark to a friend, they are convinced that the friendship is over. These people build up exaggeratedly negative expectations of disaster.
Psychologists have questionnaires they use to measure this characteristic, so they can place test subjects on a catastrophising scale, as it's called. When these researchers did this with their subjects, they discovered that swearing had no painkilling effect for the male students with a high catastrophising scale score. In fact, swearing reduced their pain tolerance.
Pain arises in the brain. If you are fighting on running for your life, you feel less pain. The researchers suspect that swearing induces a fight-or-flight modus in the brain.
Conclusion
"No studies have investigated the effect of manipulating level of aggression on pain tolerance. Future research could usefully examine whether invoked aggression induces hypoalgesia."
Source:
More: Archives:
|
|