Cortesia do Andrew Charlton
The Best Medicine
It's said that laughter is the best medicine - and yet what is your most primitive instinct when you hit your thumb with a hammer? You swear. The louder, the more obscene the better. And in my experience it does help.
Perhaps it's an effect similar to the breathing exercises practised by pregnant women (At least on TV. I must confess I have no personal experience in this area). Is saying "shitshitshit!" much different from the sharp shallow breaths of those exercises?
I don't profess to know the mechanism, or even if it actually works on any objective level. I would be very interested to see research done to see if swearing, cussing and yelling reduces actual or percieved pain levels. If that proves worthwhile, further research could be done to determine the best sounds, and thus determine the perfect swearword.
I can just imagine a doctors prescription:
"What? I can't say this!"
It's said that laughter is the best medicine - and yet what is your most primitive instinct when you hit your thumb with a hammer? You swear. The louder, the more obscene the better. And in my experience it does help.
Perhaps it's an effect similar to the breathing exercises practised by pregnant women (At least on TV. I must confess I have no personal experience in this area). Is saying "shitshitshit!" much different from the sharp shallow breaths of those exercises?
I don't profess to know the mechanism, or even if it actually works on any objective level. I would be very interested to see research done to see if swearing, cussing and yelling reduces actual or percieved pain levels. If that proves worthwhile, further research could be done to determine the best sounds, and thus determine the perfect swearword.
I can just imagine a doctors prescription:
"What? I can't say this!"
posted by Narcisista at 9/02/2004 05:12:00 da tarde
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