Friday, May 22, 2020

Effin Ay

Repeating the “F” word can improve threshold for pain during an ice water challenge
A recent study found that repeating the “F” word during an ice water experiment increased subjects’ tolerance and threshold for pain. However, reciting made-up swear words showed no such pain-reducing effects. 

This article makes me so incredibly happy.   
They are wrong in most of their conclusions, but the data is amazing.  (data are amazing?  whatever!)

I can't believe I'm not verbal ticcing...  finally all those years of observing my blurting and cursing comes in handy.  I have been meaning to write this up for a while:

Physical effects of spoken words have nothing to do with their meanings.   It is a result of the activation of certain cranial and cervical nerves via speech production...
This became obvious to me after I moved to Arizona and started saying "I hate you" as soon as I woke up in the morning.  Every. single. day.  I actually did not hate anyone at the time, and I knew it, and I said it anyway...
It was perplexing.   I thought about it for a long time.   Until it got so bad the answer was obvious.

The reason the work FUCK is so therapeutic is it activates certain muscles.
  -The initial F pushes the mandible forward and bites the lower lip, pinching the face and tightening the neck
  -The UH sound in the middle stimulates the diaphragm.
  -And the terminal hard K pulls in the abdominals.

The whole sequence expels your breath and tightens your core. Increases your endurance.
The word Shit is similar, but more staccato.  More diaphragm, less abdominal.
Their made-up words don't have the same effect.

Hard C/K sounds are very common in tics.  
I used to repeat "Corey, Corey, Corey" when stressed or tired.   Always in threes.  I wondered why for a decade after we broke up.   It did not make sense, I did not miss him, but I did it anyway.  Now I realize it was an involuntary breathing exercise...

I have repeated a number of other words for periods of time- most of them seem to have been a method of relieving various transient dental problems.   Certain words move the tongue, cheeks and lips more effectively than others.  ("I despise you" moves the upper lip, "I hate you" does not.)

For the record, this is my favorite hypothesis of mine.  The one that was the biggest mystery.
It took the last 7 years to figure out the physiological triggers, effects, and benefits of cursing like a drunken sailor..