Someone says to me, “Let’s go on that roller coaster” and I am on the verge of having a panic attack from the time I get in line, to the time I’m off the ride. I put on skis and I go so slow down the mountain that it’s comical and frustrating to my friends. I went para-sailing and screamed the entire time. Needless to say, I didn’t see all that much. Heights, going fast, being out of control… all things that I hate.
I cannot understand why anyone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane or why people would jump off a bridge attached to a cable. And unless you waved a whole bunch of money in front of my face, you’d have to push me out of the plane or off the bridge. I’d be like a cat who doesn’t want to go in their cage; you’d have to pry my hands off the ledge or from the door.
That being said, I can at least face some of my fears so I’ll claim being just a little bit brave. Still, bravery hasn’t gotten me over any of the fear. I’m terrified the whole time I participate in the things my friends talk me into and I don’t like it one bit.
The point this… some people love these things. They like to feel afraid. Some people don’t. Why? What makes different people respond to the same situation differently? Well I went on a quest to figure it out.
When we are scared, there are two options. Run or defend yourself. This is known as the fight-or-flight response and is instinctual. During this response, the hypothalamus becomes active. This area of the brain helps keep balance between calm and stress in the body. This activation triggers the adrenal glands which secrete the neurotransmitter and hormone epinephrine. Epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline, activates the sympathetic nervous system. Your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for regulatory functions in the body such as your heart rate, muscle contraction, blood vessel and air passages and pupil dilation.
In this heightened state, your ability to feel pain decreases and strength and awareness increase to aid in your survival. This is made possible by the increased blood and oxygen flow to your muscles and the increase in the conversion rate of glycogen to glucose, giving the body more fuel.
This strength you gain can appear superhuman. People have lifted cars off children and even fought polar bears and won. So why not use this strength all the time? Well, when the sympathetic nervous system is active, your parasympathetic nervous system is suppressed. Since the parasympathetic nervous system controls much of the immune system, high levels of stress for long periods of time can leave a person at risk for disease and infection. So when someone says, “Calm down you’ll give yourself a heart attack!”, you shouldn’t just write it off as an exaggeration. It is actually possible. The good news is that once the stress is eliminated, your immune system gets a quick boost to make up for it’s earlier supression.
Alright so what causes the addiction to this fight-or-flight response? It’s the feeling a person gets during and after “rush” of adrenaline in the body. It can make a person feel euphoric and endorphins are released. This feeling is what people chase when they jump out of airplanes or off bridges. It’s what attracts people to extreme sports and causes them to participate in high risk behaviors. Further, the risk level of behavior often has to increase as a person becomes tolerant of a behavior and the fight-or-flight response is no longer triggered. So an extreme adrenaline addiction can be dangerous not only in the effects that stress has on the body but also just the situations you have to put yourself in in order to get the feeling.
Why are some people addicted to it and not others? That’s up for debate. Some people believe it’s simply context for a person. Do they see the dangerous side or the fun side first? Others make the claim that it’s maturity. As we get older, have more responsibilities, danger seems less appealing. People who are naturally anxious and those who hate feeling out of control, are less likely to enjoy adrenaline. But defining this is like defining why some people who drink wind up as alcoholics and some people don’t. Genetics, environmental factors, personality… there probably isn’t just one reason.