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Anecdotally I find swearing makes it worse. Now I just saw "ow!" or "that hurt!" Which honestly feels like it synchronizes my brain past the insult and I can

Anecdotally I find swearing makes it worse. Now I just saw "ow!" or "that hurt!" Which honestly feels like it synchronizes my brain past the insult and I can move on much faster past it.

ethan_smith 1y ago
This matches research on pain catastrophizing vs. neutralizing - your approach of acknowledging pain directly without emotional amplification may be activating different neural pathways than those enhanced by taboo-word usage.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Yeah, I never get the compulsion to swear when doing something stupid to myself lol. People have impulse control, but it may be stronger in some than others.
kulahan 1y ago
I use a mix of both, but when I’m in really serious pain, I also find it’s more effective when I’m just like “Wew. WOW. Yeah that’s pretty good there. Phew. Wow. WOOOW.” I dunno why, but wow seems to work well for me.
Supermancho 1y ago
In primates there are commonly 3 noises as a reaction to danger. Initially the work from the 70s-80s on vervet monkeys https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7433999/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7433999/ which was then found to be generalized for a host of other primates ~1 for danger in the air ~1 for danger on the ground misc for unspecified danger I would bet that modern swearing maps to these calls in a less specific way. Equivalents of "this shite" "that arsehole" and "damnnit" may have an evolutionary origin.
- ArtRichards 1y ago
  I was looking for this comment! That being a possible reason why certain words alleviate, they actually operate at a different level in our conciousness.
MisterTea 1y ago
Similar: I say something amusing/funny, e.g. I hit my head on a piece of metal and yelled "ah ya mother was a tin can you metal bastard" which breaks your thought from the pain. Screaming fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... only keeps you focused.
- chrisweekly 1y ago
  hahaha, I'm going to try this
- bombcar 1y ago
  This is the Captain Haddock method. It’s quite effective as you get distracted thinking up new terms.

Anecdotally I find swearing makes it worse. Now I just saw "ow!" or "that hurt!" Which honestly feels like it synchronizes my brain past the insult and I can move on much faster past it.

ethan_smith 1y ago

This matches research on pain catastrophizing vs. neutralizing - your approach of acknowledging pain directly without emotional amplification may be activating different neural pathways than those enhanced by taboo-word usage.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Yeah, I never get the compulsion to swear when doing something stupid to myself lol. People have impulse control, but it may be stronger in some than others.

kulahan 1y ago

I use a mix of both, but when I’m in really serious pain, I also find it’s more effective when I’m just like “Wew. WOW. Yeah that’s pretty good there. Phew. Wow. WOOOW.” I dunno why, but wow seems to work well for me.

Supermancho 1y ago

In primates there are commonly 3 noises as a reaction to danger. Initially the work from the 70s-80s on vervet monkeys https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7433999/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7433999/ which was then found to be generalized for a host of other primates ~1 for danger in the air ~1 for danger on the ground misc for unspecified danger I would bet that modern swearing maps to these calls in a less specific way. Equivalents of "this shite" "that arsehole" and "damnnit" may have an evolutionary origin.

ArtRichards 1y ago
I was looking for this comment! That being a possible reason why certain words alleviate, they actually operate at a different level in our conciousness.

MisterTea 1y ago

Similar: I say something amusing/funny, e.g. I hit my head on a piece of metal and yelled "ah ya mother was a tin can you metal bastard" which breaks your thought from the pain. Screaming fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... only keeps you focused.

chrisweekly 1y ago
hahaha, I'm going to try this
bombcar 1y ago
This is the Captain Haddock method. It’s quite effective as you get distracted thinking up new terms.