Basic HTML Version
Touchline • Issue 14 •
or 10 to 20 seconds after
leaping out of his capsule,
Felix Baumgartner spun
out of control. His body was
at the mercy of the extreme sub-zero,
airless atmosphere, plummeting at a rate
that would reach over 1,300 km/hour.
“At a certainR.P.M. ,”reflectedBaumgartner,
“there’s only one way for blood to leave
your body, and that’s through your
eyeballs. That means you’re dead. That
was what we feared the most.”
There was a very real chance that
Baumgartner would die on his jump. He
could have suffered a embolism, and it
was only his specially created jump suit
and his experience that allowed him to
control his body on the drop, enabling
him to smooth his rapid descent.
Of the eight million people who watched
the jump live and many more since, how
many were wondering “why?” Why throw
your body out of a capsule 38km above
the earth? Most people sit down to put
on their shoes, but here was a man who
ostensibly claims that the jump was
important to science, because now they
know the suit he wore wouldn’t burn up
on a jump that high.
Many psychologists ask the same
question of any individual who engages
in high-risk sports. They want to know
what it is that makes people put their
bodies on the line. Is there a particular
genetic make-up of these extreme-skiers,
or the rock climbers who don’t even rely
on ropes?
The most common, though slightly
reductive, explanation is that when we
experience extreme risks the ensuing
risk rush helps the brain secrete certain
hormones that we enjoy. And we enjoy
them so much, we can get addicted.
In an interview with Psychology Today,
neuroscientist Dr. Michael Davis said,
“Fear is an incredibly strong emotion.
If something scares us, the body
immediately releases endorphins,
dopamine
and
norepinephrine.
Endorphins mitigate pain, dopamine
and norepinephrine are performance
enhancers. There haven’t been direct
studies on so-called action sports, but
the general scientific thinking is that
the more fearful a certain sport makes
you, the greater the release of these
chemicals.The greater the release of these
chemicals, the greater the addiction-like
symptoms.”
The problem with this theory is that,
until recently, psychology has suggested
that as organisms we are risk-adverse. In
order to keep living in a precarious world,
A Long Way
from the Top...
THe Psychology of High-Risk Sports
F
Timothy Mottram
investigates why
people choose to place
themselves in danger
in the name of sport.