By Lindsey Siegele

For a recent Jayplay article, I attempted to quit swearing for a week. “Doing without” articles require Jayplay writers to give up something they hold dear and write about the experience. I had written a handful of these articles in the past, and in the days leading up to researching my last one — the one about swearing — I found myself stumped.

I generally force myself to live without something that I really do cling to. Living without speeding, for instance, was a challenge. Living without makeup, for me, would be a little too easy.

For a few days, I considered my options. Swearing crossed my mind on a number of occasions, but I truly believed that a life without swearing would be a piece of cake. I’ve hung out with relatives and my in-laws for hours or days without cussing. Why would this experience be any different?

Finally, after failing to find a better option, I settled on a swear-free week. I discovered immediately that giving up swearing was not only challenging for me, it was damn near impossible. When I’m not around relatives or in-laws, all thoughts of propriety fly out the window. I swear about anything and everything. When I’m excited, I swear. When I’m mad, I swear. Even when I’m happy, I swear jokingly.

While researching my article, I spoke with Jim O’Connor, the author of Cuss Control. He told me that swearing often evokes negative emotions. Moreover, he said, using cuss words shows a lack of ingenuity. Thousands of words exists for expressing ourselves — why resort to the downright dirty ones?

O’Connor’s aversion to swearing made me think. As a seasoned swearer, I’m often surrounded by friends and family members with dirty mouths. This is all part of life for me. I clean my act up around certain people, but the real me says what she thinks and feels, no matter how crass.

But can’t swearing be positive? In certain situations, I simply can’t think of a better way to express myself than uttering a bit of filth.

In a stroke of luck, I found precisely the swear-friendly verification I needed in a TIME article from 2009 entitled “Bleep! My finger! Why swearing helps ease pain.”

The article reveals details from a Keele University (Britain) study, in which college students put their hands in buckets of icy water. This, of course, caused them pain. One group of students was allowed to swear throughout the experience, and another group kept its language PG. The result? The foul-mouthed students were able to keep their hands in the ice water for longer and they even experienced less pain intensity than their PG counterparts.

Interesting.

The study suggests that swearing is linked to better pain tolerance. I find myself wondering what other types of “pain” might be soothed with dirty words. Traffic jams? Fights with significant others? Term papers?

I may be reaching for an excuse to avoid soap-in-mouth self-modification, but in the end, I have to say that I’m a swear supporter. Cuss words are only words, after all, and if they make us feel better, where’s the real harm?