說髒話能鎮痛?

Swearing is good for you. Well, kind of. A growing body of research suggests that, under the right circumstances, simply saying taboo words out loud seems to make people feel less pain – but not just any swear words will suffice, new findings reveal.

說髒話對你有好處。嗯，是有一點好處。新的研究結果顯示，越來越多的研究表明，在適當情況下，僅僅是大聲說髒話就能減輕人們的痛苦，但不是僅僅說髒話就夠了。

Exactly how and why the act of swearing manages to make things seem less painful remains largely hypothetical, and it's worth noting that much of the hypothesising to date in this area has been led by a single researcher, British psychologist Richard Stephens from Keele University.

說髒話究竟是如何以及爲什麼能減輕痛苦基本上還都是假設，值得注意的是截至目前這方面的很多假設都是一個研究人員做出的，就是英國基爾大學的心理學家Richard Stephens。

Nonetheless, what Stephens has uncovered is certainly very interesting. A little over a decade ago, he and his team found that if people immersed their hand in ice water, the simple act of swearing during the experiment enabled participants to perceive decreased pain and tolerate increased pain.

儘管如此，Stephens的發現真的很有趣。十多年前，他和他的團隊發現如果人們把手浸在冰水裏，在實驗期間僅僅是說髒話就能使參與者感受到更少的痛苦，並承受更大的痛苦。

Related follow-ups found that the benefits of this pain-lessening (hypoalgesic) effect brought about by swearing are constrained by how often you swear ordinarily, with frequent swearers receiving a lesser increase in pain tolerance than those who don't tend to swear as much.

相關的後續研究發現這種由說髒話產生的減輕痛苦（痛覺減退）效應的好處受到你平時說髒話的頻率的限制，總說髒話的人疼痛耐受性的增加值要比不經常說髒話的人少。

The hypoalgesic phenomenon seems to transcend language barriers, and appears to be related to other oddities that alter people's perception and abilities; swearing seems to make people stronger too, and taboo gestures, in place of verbal swearing, can also have a positive effect when people are in pain.

這種痛覺減退現象似乎跨越了語言障礙，與改變人們認知和能力的其他反常行爲有關，說髒話似乎也使人們變得更強了。如果用不雅手勢代替髒話的話，也能對處於痛苦中的人產生積極的影響。