Study shows one specific bad habit can positively impact workouts
You might think that your workouts only benefit from good behaviour, but there’s one little frowned-upon trick you might want to include.
There is constant research being done to find out how humans can improve their lifestyles, how to be healthier, what impact all kinds of things have on our bodies and much more.
Not to mention, scouring the internet or social media for fitness tips and advice can leave you more confused than you were before.
If you are looking to change your lifestyle into a healthier one, you might have to throw out all your sweets and skip the junk food, but there’s one bad habit that will actually make your life easier.
A new study led by Dr Richard Stephens, a psychologist at Keele University, has found that swearing can help enhance physical performance.
The researchers stated that people often hold themselves back in certain situations, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, confident and less distracted, and go for it a little more.
Previous studies have found that swearing increases strength and pain tolerance.
The test involved having participants push themselves to the limit, e.g., cycling at maximum effort or placing their hand in icy water, while repeating swearwords.
It was initially hypothesised that swearing triggered a “fight or flight” response, but no supporting evidence, such as increased heart rate, was found.
Now, the most recent research shows that swearing instead triggers a state of disinhibition.
By swearing, people remove any social constraint and allow themselves to push harder.
Dr Stephens and his fellow researchers ran two experiments with 192 people.
In each experiment, participants were asked to either repeat an expletive of their choice or a neutral word every two seconds while performing chair pushups.
After the exercise, participants answered questions about their mental state during the task.
Their answers revealed that swearing:
- boosted self-confidence
- improved psychological “flow”
- distracted them from the task
These are all important aspects of disinhibition, and researchers also found that swearing increased the length of time people could maintain a chair pushup by 11%.
The results also confirmed earlier findings.
These findings help explain why swearing is so commonplace. Swearing is literally a calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool at our disposal for when we need a boost in performance.
Dr Stephens also admits that the power of swearwords could be a result of their taboo nature.
His team are now testing whether more offensive language produces greater physical gains.
The "dose-response" trial will test how long participants can tolerate holding their hand in icy water while repeating either mild or strong swearwords.
Other tests will also be conducted to find whether the confidence boost associated with swearing could help in other contexts, such as public speaking or making a romantic approach.
Stephens also believes that hesitancy could be people's biggest detriment.
You could go into a quiet room, go for it, swearing for a minute, and then go out and give your talk. I bet people do it already.
Of course, swearing isn't completely risk-free.
If you want to test this out, this could be the best example of "right time, right place".
Make sure you don't offend anyone around you or let it slip in front of an impressionable little kid.
As very serious, scientific people, we had to try it for ourselves and see if it really did work:
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