Michelle Dickinson: How swearing can make you stronger

A study published this week in the journal American Psychologist has said that swearing can make you physically stronger.

Participants were required to do a chair push up and those who swore were found to perform better than those who didn't.

Michelle Dickinson and Francesca Rudkin discuss the study and how it might help people push through the Christmas season.

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it is time now for our science study doctor Micheldikin. So,
good morning, Good morning. This is a it's.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Christmas, everybody stressed out. I thought i'd put you a
science story that you might want to pull out of
the hat in the next few days.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, I really resonated with me because I've actually got
a bit of a might be a surprise to people,
because of course I'm very well behaved on the radio,
but I've got a bit of a body mouth, Francesca,
I know, not in public, just at home or in private,
or you know, in a moment like this where you're
struggling to get up a hill, you know, and you
just feel the need to let go of a few
you know, words and things. And it turns out it's

(00:48):
a good idea.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Swearing makes you stronger.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
There week I study.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
We're talking about today so published this week in the
journal American Psychologist. And they wanted to know. And it's
a lovely experiment. And I always wonder how scientists come
up with these things. But anyway, they wanted to know
because you know, sometimes if you're trying to do something
really hard, or like you're pushing more way at the
gym or something doesn't work, you hear people swear and grunt,
and they were like, does the swearing help? So they

(01:12):
did this lovely set of studies where they took one
hundred and ninety two volunteers and they did some experiments.
And the experiment they did is making them do what's
called a chair push up. And I had to look
at the picture of this because they didn't know what
a chair push it was. But basically, you sit on
a chair and then you put your hands by your
side or your hands on the arm rest, and then
you push and hold your whole body so your bomb

(01:32):
is off the chair basically, and you're being held by
hand your arms. And they tested number one, how many
of those you could do, and number two how long
you could hold yourself up for before you had to
sit back on the chair. And they said, okay, we're
going to do these studies. We're going to make you
do these chair push ups. We're going to measure how
long you're holding yourself up for. And you've got two choices.
One you can say a neutral, non emotional word while

(01:54):
you were doing it, So just fix something that is
really boring. Yeah, totally pineapple all of those things. And
they said, oh, you can take a swear word of
your choice and yell it and shout it as many
times as you want. And how do you select your
swear word? They specifically said, pick the word that you
would use if you bump your head on a cupboard
and you hurt it. That was their definition scientifically, so

(02:17):
think of that word. And then what they did is
they measured how long the people could hold on for.
But also they surveyed how they felt. Were they focused
or not focus, were they confident not confident? Were they distracted?
And did they experience what they called flow where actually
there's you know, it's sort of like you don't really
notice what you're doing anymore because you're in the moment
and the good news. So I'm telling you this because

(02:38):
it's Christmas time and stuff is going to be stressful
and you might want to help yourself push through the chaos.
So what they found is swearing increases number one physical
performance in short, intense tasks. So if you've got to
move some furniture because people are coming over for dinner,
you just sway your way through it, and it acts
like a mental switch, helping people to stop second guessing

(02:59):
themselves and just simply go for it. One of the
scientists and I love this, it's delightful describe swearing as
a hallory, neutral, drug free, low cost, readily available tool
available for when we need a performance boost.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And look, I suppose if you are you know it
is Christmas and you do have people over, you could
always grab the nearest cushion or.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
And this is not a public outage, but if you
just need some help.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I was just thinking, I imagine if we've replaced all
the grunting in tenis, well, there would be a nightmare.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Imagine that there's like a whole like eighteen plus version
of tennis. But while I was reading this, there was
another story. There is another story that came out that
I didn't realize, but it studied how people swear and
they found that Australians are the most creative around their
swear words including that doesn't surprise me. No, British and sorry, yeah,

(03:50):
British and Americans use classic swearing, but Australians add things
like face to it and to it, and there's a
whole list of ways that Australians have made swearing creative.
So if you want to add that to your repertoire,
then yeah, get stronger, swear more.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I tend to stick to the classics. And look, if
you've got a child who has been listening to this
episode and manages to a few little things slip out
and then and then you try to blame it on
Michelle and the fact that you're getting stronger. I hope
that you know when you swore at the time time
you were also you know, playing a game attendants to.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Do it science. I'm all for the scientific study and
we can blame it on that instead of blaming You're
not going.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
To be able to get away with that. I love it, Michelle.
Have a wonderful Christmas with your children. Must now kind
of be able to understand what Christmas is all about
three year olds.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
It's the most delightful time. That's going to be our
first Christmas where Santa Israel. So I'm having a magical time.
Oh fantastic.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well, have a lovely time with your family and we
look forward to catching up with you next year.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio