Lalochezia Is The Emotional Relief Gained From Using Abusive Or Profane Language

Have you ever stubbed your toe and immediately started screaming out profanities? Well, hopefully this didn’t happen in front of your grandma, who immediately started praying for your eternal soul under her breath while you watched yourself bleed out through said toe (okay, so I’m being dramatic, but it was a lot of blood). But I digress, this is the norm. People feel pain and then act out by cursing. Now, a follow up question – have you ever noticed that right after cursing you realize that you might actually feel a little bit better? Like, the pain just magically disappeared. Well, good news! This sensation is actually not just something in your head.

Lalochezia is actually the relief you feel after cursing. That is to say, this phenomenon is the relief from pain experienced after the use of profane language when you are in pain. Furthermore, lalochezia not only soothes our physical pain, but also can go so far as to relieve emotional pain.

Cursing, it would seem, is a good means of relieving pain and stress, because it is a way of being able to voice yourself and can be as aggressive as you need it to be; thus making you feel better. One reason for this, according to Drake Baer of Business Insider, can be found through research conducted by Richard Stephens at Keele University in the United Kingdom. Keele, who has been studying the use of curse words as a means of pain alleviation, states it could be due to the fact that these words are seen as taboo that we, in a sense, seem to give them power. As such, when we then say them we make ourselves feel more powerful; through this, we are better able to withstand and or alleviate the pain.

Is possible that there are more words which can have this power, or is this something only curse words can do? Food for thought.

-Cassey

Edited by: Brandon Harrower and Zoe

SOURCES

Abrahams, M. (2013). Does swearing make you feel better? Retrieved October 16, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/18/improbable-research-art-pain-education

Baer, D. (2014). Here’s why swearing is f—ing good for you. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com/study-swearing-is-healthy-2014-5

Black, R. (2009). Cursing makes you feel better and relieves pain, research shows. Retrieved October 16, 2014 from http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/cursing-feel-better-relieves-pain-research-shows-article-1.429039

Joelving, F. (2009). Why the #$%! do we swear? For pain relief. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-swear/

Lalochezia. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2014, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lalochezia