Technologies

Hot Damn! New Study Finds That Cursing Can Actually Improve Your Workout

The study shows that using swear words improves physical performance by counteracting your social hesitation.

Can swearing help you push through a workout or other challenging physical task?

According to a new study published on Thursday in the journal American Psychologist, dropping that F-bomb does more than express your frustration at a physically intensive situation. It can help you focus more, let go of whatever is holding you back and help you finish the task.

The study proposes that «swearing, a simple and universally accessible linguistic tool, can function as an effective intervention to counteract tendencies to hold back, and enhance performance,» says Richard Stephens of Keele University’s School of Psychology.

The study was conducted by four researchers from two institutions: Richard Stephens, Harry Dowber and Christopher Richardson from the School of Psychology at Keele University in England; and Nicholas B. Washmuth from the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The group conducted two experiments to determine whether swearing can enhance physical performance and whether the act facilitates a state in which individuals are less likely to hold back on their behavior.

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In both experiments, researchers asked participants to raise and support their body weight using only their hands against a chair seat for as long as they could.

The participants chose a swear word and a neutral word and were asked to repeat the two selected words every two seconds. The results found that using the swear word significantly increased the amount of time participants were able to maintain holding up their body weight, versus using the neutral word.

The second experiment doubled down on the first with 94 new participants, but introduced bystander apathy, which is linked to disinhibition. The idea was that people performing strenuous exercise at the gym might feel concerned about how others view them, only to realize that those people are too invested in their own workouts to care about what others think. Acknowledging the apathy of others, according to the study, can boost your own efforts and enhance your performance.

Ultimately, the experiments supported the idea that swearing allowed participants to maintain a longer hold time. Using the swear word allowed them to break through previously held restraints and reach their goal, thereby increasing self-confidence and fostering a positive psychological flow state.

So swear away, it might improve your next workout.

Technologies

The FCC Just Approved Charter’s $34.5B Cox Purchase. Here’s What It Means for 37M Customers

Technologies

Spotify Expands Into Audiobook Rankings With Weekly Charts

The feature is available to both free users and Premium subscribers. Wuthering Heights is reaching the heights on both the US and UK charts.

If you’re a Spotify user, you may be familiar with features like the year-end summary Wrapped, as well as your daily usage stats. Now, the service has a new popularity chart tracking audiobooks.

Spotify’s audiobook charts are now available to free and Premium users within the service’s Audiobooks hub. While only Premium users receive 15 hours of audiobook listening per month, the company offers a larger selection of titles you can buy.

US charts and UK charts are both available now.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services for 2026

Spotify says that the audiobook charts will help customers discover new and popular titles in real time.

«As we’ve proven with Music and Podcasts Charts, when content is easier to access, discover, and enjoy, the demand grows,» said Duncan Bruce, Spotify’s director of audiobook partnerships and licensing, in a statement on Friday.

Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022, and has since added features such as the AI catchup tool Recaps and PageMatch, which lets you swap more easily between a printed book and the audio version.

Spotify Premium currently costs $13 a month and includes more than 100 million songs, as well as audiobooks. Spotify Premium is currently CNET’s Editors’ Choice for best music streaming service.

The current US audiobooks chart lists Emily Brontë’s romantic classic Wuthering Heights as the top listen, followed by James Clear’s self-help book Atomic Habits and Freida McFadden’s psychological thriller The Housemaid. Audiobook popularity is also broken down by genre, with charts for romance, mystery and thriller books, self-help, science fiction and fantasy, biography and memoir, business and careers, teen and young adult, religion and spirituality, history, and parenting and relationships.

Powered by its blockbuster movie adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Wuthering Heights also leads the overall chart for the UK.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 28, #523

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 523, for Saturday, Feb. 28.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. Chicagoans and southerners, you might have an advantage, at least with the blue and purple categories. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fore!

Green group hint: Take me out to the ballgame.

Blue group hint: Alma mater.

Purple group hint: Bear down.