#ICYMI - The Psychology of Extreme Sports

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… We’re taking you to the extreme! Hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly investigate the psychology of the extreme sports athlete with adventure journalist Jim Clash, neuroscientist Dr. Heather Berlin, and extreme sport psychologist Dr. Eric Brymer.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing With Science. Yes, there are those of us who like a quiet life. Those of us who live vicariously. And then, there are others of us who seem to have an unhealthy lack of fear. And that's exactly where we are headed. The outer limits and extreme sports.

• 0:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and who better to tell us what it's like to fly at Mach 2.6, be shot on purpose, and go swimming without a wet suit at the North Pole? That man is here with us, and that man is none other than Jim Clash. I like the way it sounds, so it's Jim Clash.

• 0:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, no, that's Marvel hero. That's not all, yes. And helping us to understand what drives someone like Jim. We'll also hear later on from neuroscientist Heather Berlin and from extreme sports psychologist, Dr Eric Brymer.

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes. But joining us right now, right here in studio, as I said, adventurer Jim Clash. Whoa, Jim, what's happening, buddy? How are you?

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Thanks, Chuck. Thanks, Gary. You guys have so much energy, I feel like I have to match you.

• 1:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Whatever. It's a kind of, I mean, Jim Clash sounds a little bit James Bond.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, is that your real name? Because for a man who is truly an adventurer, to have the name Jim Clash really sounds like it's kind of a stage name.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  You know, I've been asked that question many times, and the answer is yes. That's my real name. My, you know, my parents' surname was Clash, and, uh...

• 1:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that's fabulous.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  I'm lucky.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  They knew it. They knew what you were destined for.

• 1:51Gary O'Reilly?

  We checked it out. It's quite, apparently, it's quite a rare English name from medieval times of East London. So, uh, yeah, good for you.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 1:58Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, you're a long-time journalist. Uh, you've been working with Forbes for some time, rather than to carbon date you. We'll just go with some time.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  A long time.

• 2:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Um, but you're into the adventure. I mean, we listed a couple of things there. You've flown in a MiG twenty five to the edge of space at two point six times the speed of sound.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 2:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  Right there, okay. That right there.

• 2:24Gary O'Reilly?

  That'll do.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  That's a show. And thank you, thank you, good night. Thank you, that's our show.

• 2:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Swimming without a wet suit at the North Pole, okay, but you then went and skied to the South Pole.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've skied to the South Pole. That was a lot tougher than swimming at the North Pole.

• 2:38Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, I mean, without stating the obvious, it's a very different place altogether.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  It is, it is.

• 2:43Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's, let's go back to the MiG two point five, flying at two point five times the speed of sound.

• 2:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Chuck Nice?

  All right, being in a MiG jet, first of all, how does that come about? Secondly, what the hell was that like? I mean, is it, is it better than sex? Tell the truth.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Uh, no.

• 2:59Chuck Nice?

  Thank God. Oh, thank you, God. Uh, cause it looks like it is.

• 3:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyone else surprised that we went there? Really?

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  So, anyway, go ahead, uh, Jim, how did that come about? Seriously, I mean, that's a, that's a crazy thing to be able to do.

• 3:14Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, who do you know?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Well, at the, at the time, I was be, working on a big story about space tourism. And this was in the late nineties and you could actually fly for a fee in a MiG twenty five Foxbat up to eighty four thousand feet above the earth.

• 3:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that was the old Clint Eastwood movie, wasn't it? Was it that Firefox, that kind of thing?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and you're, you're, you're literally, um, I can tell you, um, you know, Forbes paid for it. It was, uh, part of an adventure story for them. Uh, we, we got a reduced rate, uh, versus what the, the commercial rate is, but the actual flight was a, a life-changing experience for me because when you get up to eighty four thousand feet, you can see the curvature of the earth, you can see the atmosphere hanging over the earth and you can literally see the blackness of space.

• 4:02Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  And this, this MiG twenty five flight is the reason I want to go into space.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  Ah, which brings us to the next thing now that you might as well segue into it. You actually own a ticket for Virgin Galactics, uh, space tourism.

• 4:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Chuck and I were trying to sort of tease you into handing it over.

• 4:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 4:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Naming your price, but you're holding on tight.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  I would, so, so you see the, you see the blackness of space, you see the. The tentative nature of our planet because you're looking at the atmosphere and it's very, very um evident that this is, you know, a small covering that coats our Earth and keeps us from this vastness that we are traveling in called space. And then you say, hey, I think I'll go there.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  One thing I have to say about what you just said about the atmosphere is when you get up there, it is, it is like the um skin on an apple. It's incredibly thin and you realize that that's the only thing protecting us and you realize we don't want to screw it up.

• 5:05Gary O'Reilly?

  So you haven't always done that sort of scale of things. You've sort of done things like figure skate with Sasha, our friend Sasha Cohen.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  Friend of the show Sasha Cohen.

• 5:15Gary O'Reilly?

  And then stood in a bull ring and came out the worst for wear because of a bull.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  That's true. Uh, I've, I've done some stupid things. Uh, the bull is probably the dumbest thing. The PBR asked me if I wanted to be a bullfighter or basically a rodeo clown. When the rider is thrown off a bull, he's vulnerable. So you want these guys to get the bull. Exactly.

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  Dangerous, super dangerous.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  It is dangerous and I, they asked me if I wanted to do it for a story and bet, embed as a bullfighter and I said, okay. And uh, I ended up with a low, um, well, broken three ribs.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh my.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Now, did that happen because you were in the barrel and the bull hit the barrel and, and it went that far or did the bull hit you?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  No, no. What happened was the bull threw the rider and there were three of us, three bullfighters who had to distract him away from the rider. The rider ran out of the way, ring and when the bull got to me, we locked eyes and I tried to run around him the way we had taught so that I could get him to go in a circle around me, but I didn't get behind the second horn and he just took the horn, threw it into my back, broke my ribs, threw me up in the air about four feet and slammed me against the wall. And then he came in, well, he came in for.

• 6:22Gary O'Reilly?

  The gore.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and the other two got him away from me. So I was lucky.

• 6:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Man, somebody up there loves you.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that was the stupidest thing I think I've ever done. In terms of the figure skating with Sasha, that was supposed to be a fun story. You know, Forbes Adventure goes figure skating with Olympic silver medalist. And I'm friends with Sasha now, um, but at the time, um, the, the deal was I would take her out in a Lamborghini and she would drive fast because she wanted to learn how to drive fast, which is something else I do.

• 6:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  And, uh, so she got the Lambo up to about one thirty on the four oh five in California. So that was supposed to be the dangerous part of the, of the, of the story. The other part was she would teach me to figure skate.

• 6:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  So we went to the Alicia.

• 7:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Or had you skate?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  No, I'd never been on skates in my life.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, if this story ends up with you breaking three ribs, I'm gonna die. No, I'm joking.

• 7:08Gary O'Reilly?

  We're gonna laugh.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Actually, it's, it's worse.

• 7:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, good.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Um, she had me out on the ice and she was a very good teacher. Uh, and I asked, I want to learn how to do a simple spin.

• 7:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  And, uh, so she told me to, to reach back as if I'm going to punch somebody and swing and you'll magically go around. So the first time I tried, I, you know, I was clumsy and everything. She goes, no, you really have to commit yourself. So I swung my arm around and the next thing you know, I was in an ambulance. And that's, I don't remember anything.

• 7:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  My skates got caught up and I fell on my head on the ice.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:42Gary O'Reilly?

  But you're here, so I can laugh.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can laugh now. At the time.

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  The time, ice is very, very unforgiving to the head.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  It's basically like pavement. It's as hard as pavement. And I'll tell you something, coming out of that, I have this tremendous respect for figure skaters because what they do, they make it look simple, but it's dangerous and it's difficult.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  I know, I saw Hi Tanya and I gotta tell you, my life is never gonna be the same.

• 8:04Gary O'Reilly?

  That was more to do with the tutu and the sequins. But we did a show featuring Sasha and.

• 8:11Chuck Nice?

  Wait, we had the footage? Wait, I just, somebody just told me in my ear.

• 8:14Gary O'Reilly?

  We had the footage.

• 8:15Chuck Nice?

  We have the footage of Jim? Oh my God, we do. Alright, so for those of you who are listening.

• 8:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  A little too hard.

• 8:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh!

• 8:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god!

• 8:29Gary O'Reilly?

  You kissed the ice.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wait a minute. Who was that from Forbes magazine that put his head down just like, "I've lost my greatest adventurer rider ever"?

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Well, I remember poor Sasha, you know, again, I don't remember anything, but later on, you know, her mom told me that Sasha was really upset and, you know, but the, you know, we made lemonade with lemons. We've become very good friends. I was actually, um, at the shoot where you guys did her recently, um, on Playing with Science.

• 8:53Gary O'Reilly?

  We did the, we did the show featuring Sasha and I've never been the biggest figure skating fan. What I did was I walked out of the studio and went, unbelievable respect and understanding for not just the science and the physics, but for everything.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  The athleticism and the determination, the grit.

• 9:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Everything that goes into becoming.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  It's a serious sport.

• 9:15Gary O'Reilly?

  I'd never taken it really that seriously as a sport. However, I came out of there with a totally different point of view.

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Totally changed my approach to figure skating. And, and so when, you know, when, when you say what you say, I absolutely get it.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  So forgive me. I hate to, uh, to dwell on your pain, Jim.

• 9:34Gary O'Reilly?

  However.

• 9:35Chuck Nice?

  But that video, oh my god. So for those of you who, cause we were, we didn't really explain what was happening. Jim was doing what he said he was doing, which was reaching back and trying to get the, uh, the spin and get the momentum to, to do the spin. The thing is, when he wrapped his arm around his body, it left him in a position where he fell and of course, your natural inclination when you fall is to put your arms out to break your fall. His arms were in such a position that he could not reach out for the ice to break his fall. He goes down and goes down full force on his face.

• 10:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, it's, it's, and, and listen, if you want to see it, you can go online or you can go to startalkallaccess.com and, and, and, and look at it. But my god, man, have you ever been on skates since? Because that would have been my one and only time on skates.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  No, as a matter of fact, um, a couple of weeks later, a package arrived at Forbes and within the package was a skate. And it was a skate that they took off of my foot and it was signed, oh Jim, you crazy adventure. What does not kill you makes you stronger. Love Sasha Cohen. I still have that skate in my office and uh reminds me of never going back out and skating.

• 10:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 10:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so you've you've driven Bugatti Veyrons at two hundred plus, two hundred fifty plus miles an hour?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:57Gary O'Reilly?

  What next? What's, all right, space we get is the given. What's, what else? What's the top three for an adventurer? What's the top three bucket list I gotta do that dude? For you and for everybody.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Well, this is the problem.

• 11:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Something left.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  I mean, this is a problem, you know, I mean, I've I've flown in an F-15, I've flown in the MiG, I've climbed the Matterhorn, I've uh been shot point blank with a thirty-eight.

• 11:22Gary O'Reilly?

  And that wasn't that, that wasn't the worst thing, being shot with a thirty-eight.

• 11:25Chuck Nice?

  Do we have that video, guys? Because I gotta tell you.

• 11:28Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm thinking ice skating and being shot.

• 11:30Chuck Nice?

  Let me just say this, Jim. Uh, as a black man, I was watching you live my worst nightmare.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Oh geez, Chuck.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  But at least, at least I had a high fashion ballistics garment on which protected me.

• 11:44Gary O'Reilly?

  As long as it's high fashion, yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Well, they they, you saw the leather coat in the video, it's it's it's sold for seven thousand dollars at Harrods. And a lot of big name people wear these things. You don't even know that they're ballistics clothing because they're made so high fashion.

• 11:58Chuck Nice?

  Now, here's the thing, I wanna know about that. I I don't know if we have this video, but even the audio from the video itself will be compelling. So let me just explain to people what we're talking about. Uh, Jim is with the manufacturer and you can see the uh workers in the background of the video constructing these garments. And Jim is standing there. Is that the owner of the company you were with, that gentleman?

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Yes, Miguel Caballero, and he's the guy who shot me.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes, so he's standing there with the owner, Miguel Caballero. And um, point blank people, I am not talking about like these videos that you see where a guy has a rifle or a gun from across the room. He's literally. He puts the gun like right in your solar plexus and pulls the trigger and I screamed. I screamed at the video. I swear. I was just like, oh my god. But then I was like, oh wait Chuck, you just saw him last week. You know he's alive. But it's, it is, first, I wanna know, did you see somebody test this out, number one? And number two, what the frick is wrong with you? Why would you let somebody shoot you at point blank range? And number three.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  I can't remember all these questions.

• 13:08Chuck Nice?

  How much did it cost you to get insured? Okay, that's three, that's a good question. Insurance, did you see it work out before you did it? And what the hell would make you let somebody shoot you at point blank range?

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Okay, well, you know, there's always an element of risk in these adventures. I try to minimize it. Uh, and I know that when I'm going to do a story, most of these companies, they don't want a journalist getting killed or hurt. So they, they take extra precautions. I had seen people get shot on videos. He normally shoots his workers once in a while to get them.

• 13:40Chuck Nice?

  Motivated? It's motivation, by the way.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  What, what, what they're, what they're making.

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  What you want.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  What they're making, they better be right about making it, right?

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Um, the thing I did though, normally when he shoots somebody is he puts an extra, uh, layer of Kevlar there, so they don't feel anything. But I wanted to take the shot as you would with a jacket, no Kevlar. And he said he'd only done that one other time and he had broken the guy's ribs when he did it. So he said he was gonna shoot me between my ribs and my hip, in a, you know, the fatty area there.

• 14:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  And, um, made sense to me. Uh, I have to tell you, it hurt. It hurt a lot. It was like someone took a bullwhip. And you got the very end of it, the burning sensation when it hit you. And then it was like a Mike Tyson punch.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and by the way, at the, uh, when you, when you were shot, uh, immediately after, you went like this, uh, which I have the utmost respect for you because my reaction would have been like, ah, ah, okay, that would have been my reaction. Your reaction was?

• 14:41Speaker 02

  It burns.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly, and that's exactly how he says it. He says it just like this, he goes like this, it burns. Cause he's got, he's got some British blood in him.

• 14:50Gary O'Reilly?

  And it's very understated.

• 14:52Chuck Nice?

  Unbelievable.

• 14:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, that bird.

• 14:53Chuck Nice?

  However, you then lifted up your, uh, your shirt. And dude, it looked like somebody beat you with a baseball bat. There's like a huge, um, like divot in your, in your torso.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  It got bigger over time and I'd say I had that, uh, maybe it got about this big.

• 15:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  And I had that for a couple of weeks.

• 15:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Did you get to keep the jacket?

• 15:14Speaker 02

  I did.

• 15:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Good.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Uh, seven grand, uh, it has a little hole in it. The nicest thing was though, he let me keep the bullet, which was pancaked inside the, in the jacket.

• 15:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Nice.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Um, the physics of that, I'm sure is very interesting.

• 15:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  And, um, and, uh, the rosary that I wore around my neck when I, when I took that.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 15:32Gary O'Reilly?

  So, well, apart from the fact that Forbes say, we'll pay you to do these crazy, what we would consider this side of the studio, crazy things. Where does your mind go? Is it like, I can't wait? Or is it fear? Or do you go, right, I need to prepare. I need to have a, a real firm grip on the science. I need to have a real firm grip on how, why, what, where, particularly if you're gonna go up in a mig, if you're gonna do these things at speed, you'll be thinking tire pressures, tire compounds, reaction times, what are the forces? I mean, if you're doing 250 miles an hour, the G-force on you, you must be a G-force junkie, by the way, you just, how much of it do you get into and prepare for?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  I have to say, many people have asked me that question and, and it's almost like an actor in a play. I feel like I am, um, this actor, that's not really me getting in the car, that's not really me getting in the mig, climbing the Matterhorn. They say a lot of actors are very shy outside of, um, being on the stage or whatever. And, and I think I'm a pretty normal shy person. It's just that I, you know, I, I put myself in that position. I'm an actor, I have to do a story. You're right, I prepare like hell for these things because, you know, you gotta be on, you gotta have that adrenaline going, uh, you gotta channel the fear, make it, uh, positive. Uh, but if you prepare and you know that you've done as much as you can, you, you're

• 16:58Speaker 02

  able to, to get through the fear. If, if you don't prepare and you're not sure what you're.

• 17:02Gary O'Reilly?

  How do you sit there and say? I'm gonna get shot or that how how much does that bull weigh three four four hundred pounds?

• 17:11Speaker 02

  No, no, it weighs about two two thousand pounds.

• 17:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, so I was making the point, so thank you.

• 17:16Chuck Nice?

  How do you prepare to swim in the North Pole? Because I gotta tell you the truth. I I saw you do that and I'm just like, no way I would do that. The shrinkage alone would scare me off.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Seinfeld episode. I always talk about that. I still think I have problems and that was twenty years ago, eighteen years ago.

• 17:30Gary O'Reilly?

  So no, the thing, what was your mechanism? What what mechanism did you personally employ? Because it won't always work for the for the same, you know, for everybody.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  So some of it's peer pressure. You go in, you know that you've got to do a job. There's a lot of people that are prepared. For example, the car, I did the two fifty three in the Bugatti Veyron. I had spent four years working up to that. We had had cancelled things because of weather, this and that. So I was really committed. The thing that scared me was when we did the preliminary runs, there was a professional driver in the right hand seat. I was in the left hand seat as the driver. When we went to do the top speed run, he wouldn't get in the car. And I said, why not? And he goes, better one of us than both of us because.

• 18:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's that instilled confidence. Well, thanks a lot, Dad.

• 18:12Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, it's a hey.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  But as you said, you're pushing all the parts to the absolute limit. The tyres expand. You know, everything in that car is pushed to its limit. If something's gonna break, it's gonna break.

• 18:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Right at that point.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  The other thing you gotta worry about is any animals coming across the track. Now, a bird, if a bird flies over, it's probably gonna go through the windshield. If you hit uh any kind of an animal that throws you off kilter, there's no room for error. You're you're.

• 18:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Rubble on the side, you've got to stay on the clean.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  You're you're in a passenger car. A passenger car at that speed is no matter, I had a suit on helmet, it's not gonna protect you. You're you're toast. In a race car, and I've driven those before, you can survive a crash. You see it all the time in the Indy cars.

• 18:52Chuck Nice?

  They're made for it. The cage, the cage itself is designed to withstand that kind of.

• 18:55Gary O'Reilly?

  At those sort of speeds, what sort of distance are you covering per second?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  At the, in the Bugatti, I was I was doing a football field and a quarter per second. Two hundred miles an hour is a football field.

• 19:07Chuck Nice?

  All right, so listen, we got to.

• 19:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Take a big, just imagine that in one second, that distance.

• 19:12Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing. So wait, we gotta, we gotta take a break. We're gonna be joined by Heather Berlin, but I wanna know this from you because I, I believe this. You, you're either a speed guy or an experienced guy. The experienced guy is, is the climber. Whether it's like, you know, rock climbing or, or Everest, you know, uh, or and, uh, uh, you know, standing on the precipice, looking out going, wow, I've done this. And the speed person is, is like the thrill, like, oh, yeah. Which one, which one are you?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  I'm both because, because the thrill is, is, is the same in the end. When you're standing on top of, say, the Matterhorn or Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, whatever, there's this tremendous feeling of, I did that, I accomplished it. Um, when you drive the top speed, right afterwards, you're like, I did it, I did it safely, I'm here. Um, you do get more of a quick adrenaline rush when you're doing the two fifty three in the Bugatti. It's a lot more satisfying long term when you, when you have to climb.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  A mountain and it takes.

• 20:10Gary O'Reilly?

  How long does it take you? And I don't, this is not a pun about mountain climbing. How long does it take you to come down after events like that?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  You know, it depends. Um, but there's always a come down and that's always a problem. Um.

• 20:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  You know, it, it, you know, each time you do an adrenaline, uh, experience, you've gotta do, get a little more adrenaline to get the same effect.

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  And that's a problem with what I do.

• 20:32Gary O'Reilly?

  You chase it, you chase that.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly why I don't, um.

• 20:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  I, I used to have a little Ducati. I, I no longer do because my wife made me sell it because.

• 20:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Choice of bike, by the way.

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  And like, that's why I asked where you were, cause I'm a speed guy. Like for me.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  How fast did you go in the Ducati?

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh God, I think the fastest I ever did was like a buck seventy?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  A buck seventy on a motorcycle?

• 20:53Chuck Nice?

  A buck sixty something?

• 20:54Speaker 02

  That's a lot scarier than two fifty in, in a Bugatti.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh, but let me tell you something. It's, uh, all I can tell you is this, it's not scary at all because it's the only time in my life where nothing, like the chatter, shut up, like the chatter. Uh, uh, anybody who knows me can tell that I'm a little bit like squirrel, like there's. There's a little of that in me. Anybody who knows me can see that. That's the only time ever in my entire life where without trying, the all the chatter, silent, just silent. And so, you know, it wasn't scary at all. I just, I, but anyway, enough about me. Uh, that's why I asked because the deal is if I climbed the mountain, when I got to the top, I would be like, oh crap, we gotta, we gotta go down.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  No, no, no, but that is the thing. When you get to the top, uh, for example, the Matterhorn, very scary climb, took us six hours. We rushed to get to the top. Coming down took me 10 hours. It's much more difficult coming down. You burned up all your energy. Um, I mean, it's, it's where 80%, 80% of the accidents.

• 21:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Tells you to, to, that you've, you've consumed an awful lot of energy, expanded mental, physical. You've got to be very sensible on the descent.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  And 80% of all fatalities and accidents happen on the descent.

• 22:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:13Gary O'Reilly?

  On a match, you know, we'll take that break. Um, yeah. Wow. What a, what an adventure story with Jim Clash. Right. Dr. Heather Berlin up next. Don't go away. Squirrel.

• 22:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 22:33Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. And today we're all about extreme sports.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  Extreme.

• 22:40Gary O'Reilly?

  We didn't just do that, did we? Sorry, we did. Uh, right. Still with us is adventurer, adventure writer, Jim Clash, a man who has a list of so many envious things.

• 22:50Chuck Nice?

  He's a walking, fulfilled bucket list.

• 22:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, he is.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  That's what Jim is.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys. I mean, I never think of myself that way, but sure, why not?

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  All the stuff that people dream of doing before they die, you actually do it while you're walking around living. So that's awesome.

• 23:05Gary O'Reilly?

  And?

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  I don't know what that's, I don't know what I just said, because it'd be kind of hard to do it while you're dead in the ground, wouldn't it?

• 23:10Speaker 02

  I just like it that I'm still around.

• 23:13Gary O'Reilly?

  We do too. How's that sad? Right, introduce our next guest.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  And a friend of ours. Oh yeah, friend of the show and StarTalk All-Star and our resident neuroscientist, Dr. Heather Berlin is with us. Hello, Doc.

• 23:27Heather Berlin?

  Hello.

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Hello. Good to have you with us.

• 23:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so, yeah, right, straight off, what's going on in his head?

• 23:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we're gonna pick apart Jim's brain right here.

• 23:37Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't know if there's anything in there. He's flown at eighty-four thousand feet at two point six Mach. He's jumped into a barrel and got his ribs broken by a thousand pound bull. Done all sorts of things, driven at two hundred and fifty-three miles.

• 23:49Chuck Nice?

  Skied at the South Pole, you know, seen the blackness of space from the edge of the Earth's atmosphere, jumped, jumped out of a plane. This guy's done everything. What is going on neurologically in the mind of somebody who is...

• 24:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Did those things and wants to go back and do other things.

• 24:09Chuck Nice?

  And keeps doing them.

• 24:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, well, there's a few things. I mean, first is to say that not everybody who likes to take risks, there's not one sort of prescription in terms of what's happening in the brain. It could vary for different people. So there are different types of risk-taking. Some do it because they're actually chronically, compared to someone who, let's say, doesn't take risks, understimulated. And so they need more just to get the same feeling of excitement that we might get from, I don't know, you know, driving in your car at eighty miles an hour or something, for someone that might give them a little rush, whereas for him that might be nothing, and he needs more to get the same level of activation to feel the

• 24:56Heather Berlin?

  excitement. So that's actually, you have to kind of find out the personality of the person first and what drives them to then understand what the neural basis of that is. So I guess the question I'd have is... Um, to your guess, is he, are you doing these things, um, because you're getting a high out of them? And when you do other things, you not feel that same level of excitement that whereas other people might feel that?

• 25:19Chuck Nice?

  So Jim, that's to you, uh, which is a question we did not ask you. Is there a high involved? And, uh, do you feel understimulated when you're not doing these things?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  The thing is, um, it's my job. I'm an adventure writer, so I go out and I do it. And as I said earlier, I'm an actor. I see myself as an actor, getting in the car at 250 miles an hour, whatever. Um, I don't think, before I started doing this stuff, uh, that I was understimulated. But the problem is, the more you do it, the more the adrenaline rush comes on, the more adrenaline you need to do it. And, um, the more regular, everyday things become blasé. Same with all the people I've interviewed, from John Glenn to Buzz Aldrin to Neil Armstrong. You interview these people and then, you know, you go home and, and, uh, to your wife and, and suddenly it's not John Glenn or it's not, uh, Neil Armstrong.

• 26:12Gary O'Reilly?

  The thing is, once you go there, you know it's there.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know it's there and, and it takes more and more to, to get the same high. I think it's like a drug. Uh, I'm sure Heather, Heather can talk more about that.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  Well, it's funny, I was just about to ask this. So Heather, and here's, and, and you can break down the neuroscience behind, um, whether or not this mimics the characteristics of addiction. But, um, I also want to know, can the brain's reaction and chemical reactions actually lead to a person coming back to this like a drug? So, so one, tell us how it is like a drug, if it is. And two, what, how does it make you want more like a drug?

• 26:55Heather Berlin?

  Okay. So I'm gonna, as I said, it's very nuanced. There's no one answer, but I'm gonna break it down to simplify it into two categories of types of risk takers. One is the type where we, it's, it's genetic predisposition. There are certain people that are born with a certain type of... Um, gene that codes for a serotonin receptor, where if you have this, you're more likely to be a risk taker or to be impulsive, right? Or to go for immediate pleasure despite what the negative consequences are. So, most of us are risk averse. We outweigh the risks of something um, which will hold us back and make us more conservative. Other people who may be genetically predisposed

• 27:39Heather Berlin?

  are more likely to go for the immediate reward despite the risks. That's one type of person. Then you can have somewhere it's a sort of learned behavior. And now the prefrontal cortex, when it's very active, that makes us be a little bit more conservative, thinking about the future consequences of our actions. If you have damage to the prefrontal cortex, if it's underactive, um, the various different states where then you become more risk-taking.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:06Heather Berlin?

  Okay, you, you, you're less inhibited. So, what happens, though, when you're in a, a high stakes situation, there's a certain kind of neurochemical response. There's a subcortical part of your brain, evolutionarily older, the reward center of your brain, where you get this hit of dopamine. It's the pleasure center of the brain.

• 28:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yes.

• 28:25Heather Berlin?

  Now, if you implant electrodes there, and let's say a rat can self-stimulate by pressing a lever that actually stimulates that part of the brain directly.

• 28:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:34Heather Berlin?

  They'll choose to press that lever and self-stimulate and get that feeling of reward over sex, if they're sex deprived, food, if they're food deprived, water, if they're water deprived, to the point of exhaustion. So, it's really a very powerful, um, urge to have that feeling over everything. And this is the circuitry involved in addiction. So, what we find is that people can develop what's called behavioral addictions, like pathological gamblers, people who get a high from stealing, um, internet addiction, where you start getting, you can sort of self-stimulate that part of the brain and then you wanna get that hit again.

• 29:08Chuck Nice?

  Don't, don't forget, don't, don't forget sexaholics, please, please.

• 29:12Heather Berlin?

  Absolutely, yeah. They get the, the sex, sex addiction. And so what happens is then, just like with drugs, you habituate. So at first, you know, that first time, I don't know, you climb a, free climb a mountain or something, you're gonna get this extreme high, but then maybe by the tenth time you do it, it feels a little bit, um, more blasé. So then you need to up the adsy, you need to do something other, you know, maybe now you climb the mountain, um, you know, with, with no net underneath, or whatever it may be. So each time, as your brain habituates, you need more and more stimulation to get that feeling of, of that, that activation, that dopamine hit. Uh, and so I think that's what's perhaps happening in this case, where, you know, he just started doing it a part of his job, but then over time, it became

• 29:57Heather Berlin?

  behavioral addiction, and that, the regular things in life are so blasé in comparison, and you need to seek more and more to get that high.

• 30:04Chuck Nice?

  So, but unlike an addiction, which, uh, often causes reckless behavior, because, um, uh, there are two things involved. One, the reasoning area of your brain is affected by the drug, and so, you know, and two, you are just so focused on that, like you'll do anything to get that thing. Jim takes a great deal of precautionary measures, he does a lot of research, he's, uh, very measured in his approach to it. Um, uh, w- w- uh, can you explain how those two things happen a- at the same time?

• 30:38Heather Berlin?

  So, as I said there, so that's a really good point. So there are these two categories of people, I would say. I mean, obviously, a little bit more nuanced than that, but roughly speaking. The ones who lack impulse control, other ones that have, like, let's say, damaged the prefrontal cortex, or genetic predisposition, or under activation of prefrontal cortex, where they're more, they're less thoughtful in the risks that they're taking.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 31:03Heather Berlin?

  So, they're less measured. They, they don't have as much control. It's like, they, they see that, you know, piece of chocolate cake, and they have to go for it right away. They can't withhold responding.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Get in my belly! Okay, sorry.

• 31:15Heather Berlin?

  Right. Whereas in this other case, which, which he seems to be more like, is that, um, you have perfectly good control of the prefrontal cortex. You can be very measured, you can take all the right, um, precautions. You're not doing it impulsively. Right, but yet the you still need to find that fix. Right, even if it's in a very thoughtful way.

• 31:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 31:39Heather Berlin?

  Ultimately, you're still going for that risk. I mean, you can even think about it with performers. Right, you know, you as a comedian, you get on stage, you get a bit of that hit of dopamine. Right when you're on stage and so some people will choose to perform, you know, over everything over. When they're even if they're not making money at it, you know, if they're they're having to live in a crappy studio apartment for years. Because that high of being on the stage is so important is so is so stimulating.

• 32:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Has somebody been talking to you about my life?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Hey, hey, wait a minute. This happens with journalists too. Okay, it's not. It's not just comedians.

• 32:13Gary O'Reilly?

  The thing is, the thing is here, if you've got somebody who can control the way that they approach this. But they are ultimately competitive. How does that skew the whole situation? Oh, because competition can that be a drug in of itself? That I mean, that that then adds that adds another fuel to the dopamine rush.

• 32:37Heather Berlin?

  Absolutely. And I think that that I mean, competition is a huge factor that gives you that hit of adrenaline, you know, try trying to win. And that's evolutionarily old drive, right? You know, competing. But the thing is, it can cause you to do stupid things. Sometimes people take risks that are. Let's say if you're doing something just to get the high, you might do it with some risk. But now if you're competing against somebody else, you might try to up the ante. And this is where people end up, you know, dying in extreme sports, right? Because they keep pushing and pushing and because it's so competitive that they might get to places where it does become really dangerous. And that is sort of what's pushing them over the edge, that drive to to to compete and everyone's upping the ante.

• 33:20Heather Berlin?

  But then you end up people falling off mountains and dying when they're, you know, rock climbing and those kinds of things.

• 33:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, well, you haven't fallen off a mountain yet.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 33:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Hope that's remains that case.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:29Gary O'Reilly?

  But you have something to.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I like that Heather about the competition because I know sometimes I'm out there in a race car school. Uh, or a drag racing school and first it'd be. Comes just about being able to do it. But then you wanna, you know, you want the best time, you want the fastest speed, you want this, the quickest lap around the track. And that can lead to recklessness. Um, I've been lucky so far, I haven't, haven't had any accidents, but again, the competitive drive is there.

• 33:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, that's for you as a writer.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  You have a great prefrontal cortex, Jim.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  I hope.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  I hope, I hope that prefrontal cortex wasn't injured when I fell sk- figure skating with Sasha.

• 34:04Chuck Nice?

  Believe it or not, right Heather, that head injury could have affected him where he could become a reckless person.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I hope not.

• 34:11Chuck Nice?

  He's kinda lucky, right?

• 34:12Gary O'Reilly?

  See, as a writer, your drive may not be to what, break a world record, you know, I'm gonna run faster than Usain Bolt, I'm gonna throw a javelin further than someone else. I need a scoop.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  I need the big story.

• 34:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. I'm an adventure writer. What adventure can I have that takes me above and beyond, sets a, sets a story that no one else is gonna touch for decades?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Well, and, and one thing is you never quite know where the story's gonna be. I was down in South Africa not too long ago and I, I took a ride in a, an English Electric Lightning and the pilot put me through a, a bunch of, uh.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  Can you tell us what that is? I mean, for those who don't know us home.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  It's a supersonic, uh, plane, a supersonic plane.

• 34:50Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a delta wing aircraft.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  It's called a what now?

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's called English Electric Lightning.

• 34:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Lightning.

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  English Electric Lightning.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and the pilot took me through a series of horrific aer- aerobatic moves which made me get really sick. And afterwards, we landed the plane and I was angry at him and I said, why did you do it? And he gave me some reason. He said, are you gonna stick around for the airshow tomorrow? And I said, no, I've gotta go back and do another adventure in Cape Town. That night, the next night, I read in the paper that there was a crash at the airshow.

• 35:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  It was him and he died and the plane was totally destroyed and that was the last, I was the last person to fly in that plane with him. And it was hydraulics failure. So you just never know. Again, when you're, when you're, when you're, you know, your number's up, it's up.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  And the moral of that story is, don't be a dick and make somebody sick while you should be just showing them how the plane works, alright? Okay, so there you have it. And I guess on that note.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, that's a downer, that's a downer, let's end on an upper.

• 35:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Quite literally a downer, yeah. Thank you to Dr Heather Berlin.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  Heather, that is awesome. Thank you.

• 35:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you Heather.

• 35:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you're welcome. Jim Clash is going to be sticking around, maybe with a cheerier story than the last one. Absolutely. Any luck. Right, coming up next, we have Dr Eric Brymer, an extreme sports psychologist. We'll be back shortly.

• 36:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  And I'm still Chuck Nice.

• 36:19Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Still Playing with Science. Today, we're talking about extreme sports with adventure writer Jim Clash.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  And joining us now via Skype, extreme sports psychologist Dr Eric Brymer. Hey, Doctor, welcome.

• 36:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, Doctor.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Thank you very much.

• 36:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, you're up in Leeds University, Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom, and you are author of Phenomenology and the Extreme Sport Experience. Have I mangled that even with my bad English?

• 36:50Speaker 04

  No, that sounds pretty good. It's a good effort.

• 36:53Gary O'Reilly?

  I've been patted on the head.

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic.

• 36:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, thank you, Professor.

• 37:00Chuck Nice?

  So, you know, Doc, when we talk about phenomenology, I suppose that means because you're looking at this from a phenomenological or a phenomenological perspective. As opposed to, you have a different interpretation of extreme sports. Everybody thinks extreme sports is just, oh, I'm on a skateboard, I'm extreme, or hey, I did a base jump, I'm extreme. So can you tell us what is your interpretation of or definition of extreme sports?

• 37:37Speaker 04

  Well, I think we're still working on a definition. Because we're, you know, we're moving forward from the traditional or maybe old fashioned is a better way of looking at now perspective where extreme sports are really about risk or sort of trying to trick death or something along those lines. And we're moving more into trying to understand the motivations and experiences behind undertaking something like base jumping or proximity flying or surfing giant waves or whatever it might be.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  So we're moving a little bit in towards creativity and we're looking at human nature relationships. We're trying to understand what's the difference, that makes a difference between somebody who is a high-performance athlete in, say, a traditional sport context and somebody who's a high-performance athlete in an extreme sport context. So on the surface, there's a number of obvious things that are different. One is if you mess up, you're most likely going to die in an extreme sport, or if you don't, it's really because you've got the skills and capacities to do something about it. So along these lines, we talk about it, a mismanaged mistake or accident would most likely result in death. But beyond that, and we're talking about the real extreme ones here, we're not talking

• 38:53Speaker 04

  about the skateboarding, we're talking about the other, you know, the further end, which of course is still evolving because, you know, as base jumping has moved into proximity flying and as surfers have started to utilise machines to get themselves onto the bigger waves, extreme sports are evolving rapidly. But the other things that are really obvious is that with traditional sports, we are, you know, obviously the rules and regulations constrict, constrain what can, what people can do, they determine what, what success is all about. And also in traditional sports, boundaries are very heavily constrained.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  But within extreme sports, boundaries are not constrained. There is, you know, it's up to you how you interact with the, with the, with the environment around you. And there aren't any rules and regulations or external bodies that say this is what success looks like, and therefore if you do it like this, you're doing well. So those are the things that make them slightly different. And because of those things, we're, you know, we're looking at an activity that is continually evolving, we're looking at something that involves creativity, cooperation, and all those wonderful things that we think are really good. And sport is supposed to enhance and so forth, but modern sport probably does that less

• 40:23Speaker 04

  now than adventure sports.

• 40:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay. Okay, Doctor, do you commonly see a type of person that is predisposed to go to the extreme sport end of the spectrum?

• 40:34Speaker 04

  That I think is a really wonderful question, and that's a question that a lot of psychologists have been working on for a long time. It does link to the original kind of idea that there must be a risk-taking, thrill-seeking kind of personality structure that, if you like, enforces or forces or guides or creates the capacity for somebody to undertake an activity at this level. In fact, what we're finding is that there isn't one personality structure. People have tried all sorts of different kind of personality measurements, tried to categorize people in particular ways, and what we're finding is the difference, the variability is so great that we cannot say there's one particular personality structure that suggests

• 41:19Speaker 04

  you will go into an extreme sport.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  So in studio, we have with us Jim Clash, and Jim is an adventurer and a journalist. Jim, let me ask you, based upon what the doctor just said, would you, from your own experience interviewing so many of these adventurers and being one yourself, is there a common thread that you've been able to identify, and we won't use this as empirical data for research, but just from your anecdotal experience, have you seen a common thread throughout them, and would you say that it resides within you as well?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  I would say most of the people I've interviewed who are extreme adventurers all have something in common, it's called curiosity in action.

• 42:06Chuck Nice?

  Curiosity in action?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yes, and people are very curious. I know I'm very curious about what it's like to go 250 miles an hour, to climb the Matterhorn, to get shot with a 38. To me, that's a curiosity I have, and if I'm interested in that and I want to know what it feels like, I take action. So the one thing I can say about most people who are extreme adventurers, they're very curious. The other thing is, they are not fearless people. They really practice, they research what they're going to do, and they're very smart, most of them, about what they're doing, and there's a difference between perceived risk and calculated risk. And most of these people take calculated risks.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. So, uh, uh, Doctor.

• 42:48Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 42:49Chuck Nice?

  Based upon what Jim just said.

• 42:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  In your empirical findings. Um, what kind of disposition do you see in these athletes with respect to, um, personality traits, I'm talking about the athletes themselves, personnel, personality traits. Um, and what you said was, I find very, very intriguing. These are not reckless people then. Okay, okay. So can you, can you speak to that?

• 43:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, I think that, that's sort of the idea of the reckless risk taker was the traditional understanding and, and we're definitely finding that's not the case. Um, and, and, and what we, what we actually find is that people who participate in whatever activity it is. And the more extreme it gets, um, the more important this is. They have a really deep understanding of their own capabilities and capacities. Um, really profound understanding of the environment that they're moving in, or if they don't, they find out about it, that, that sort of curious streak, which I, I, I definitely agree with. Um, and a really deep understanding of the activity, the task that they're doing. So those three things are absolutely important. Um, and, um, they're, they're vital to a, to an extreme athlete's capacity to perform effectively.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  No extreme athlete wants to die. I mean, the, the, the, the positive side of their activity. Is so powerful that doing it in a way that means they can keep doing it, they can participate. Again and again and again and again in different ways is really, really important. That profound relationship with the natural world, the way of being sort of part of the natural world. If you're a, if you're a, a, you know, an adventure in, in nature, whether that's air, whether that's water, whether that's land. That curiosity, I think I agree with, um, we, we're looking at it more about an embodied creativity is what we're talking about it. Uh, but it's the same idea. The creativity used to be thought of as something you, you think up of an idea and then you find a way of, um, of making it happen. But what we're.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Looking at much more now is that creativity is an embodied activity and it, um, and it, and it's sort of, it, it changes and develops and, and evolves. As action happens as opposed to working it all out and then going and doing the activity. So I, I would definitely agree with that notion as well.

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  You just described the jazz player, man.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 45:04Chuck Nice?

  That's a jazz player, brother.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 45:07Gary O'Reilly?

  So the thing, the thing is, Doctor, while I'm listening to both Jim and yourself. Talk through, I'm hearing about people who have learnt to control fear, learnt to control circumstances so as they have the knowledge and ability to deal with the environment around them. And then I think, are extreme sports actually quite good for us? Because you sound as if you're creating people who are very, very mindful of a lot of things around them and being able to control things that would normally crush others. And therefore, it has a positivity attached to it.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And that's definitely been our argument. And some of the stuff I've written about is how how good they are for health and wellbeing. I'm not saying that everybody should do them. Adventure has different levels and maybe adventure in, in, you know, in a lower level kind of adventure might be appropriate for everybody. But I would definitely agree with the fact that extreme sports, for those who undertake it, have are really positive for, from a psychological, emotional and physical perspective.

• 46:08Chuck Nice?

  So, um, we're, we're, we're drawing to a close here, but I, I want to get to a couple of things. One, uh, in the segment before, which you were not a part of, uh, most unfortunately, because you're fascinating. Um, we were talking about going fast, uh, and Jim was talking about driving a Veyron at 200 and something miles an hour. I myself had a, um, uh, superbike for a little bit of time and I used to drive it very fast, but for different reasons. I wasn't really seeking a thrill as much as I was quieting my mind.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 46:41Chuck Nice?

  Because at the speeds that I traveled, if I looked the wrong way or did the wrong thing, I knew I would die.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  And that caused me to, for the only time in my entire life, to have a singular focus.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 46:56Chuck Nice?

  Can you talk about the transcendent nature of being extreme?

• 47:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would definitely agree with that. And that's what we found in our research as well is that rather than being about the thrills and excitement and so forth. That does happen, but that kind of maybe happens afterwards. The the actual experience itself is very focused, you know, if you're. It almost facilitates that focus without you necessarily having to make it happen. The traditional mindfulness literature is about um a proactive process where you put yourself into a mindful um mindful state.

• 47:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  But what extreme sports do and adventure more generally is it facilitates that whether you are aware of it or not. And actually, exactly what you're saying, you you are so focused on the environment that you're in and ensuring that you're doing things effectively. That things, the socio-cultural kind of concerns, things just sort of fall away. But it's more than a I no longer have to worry about things or I'm not thinking about all the whether I've got enough money or the worries and concerns. It's much, much deeper than that. And what we've called, it's like, we've called it a freedom, it's a freedom from um that sort of mental chatter, which essentially is mindfulness.

• 48:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's the exact word I used, chatter.

• 48:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, before we we have to take a break, Doctor.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 48:18Gary O'Reilly?

  There is, there is a, I'll get to the end of the show, um green sports.

• 48:23Chuck Nice?

  Green sports?

• 48:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so if we if we take extreme sports like mountain climbing or hanging by one arm off a cliff. Uh, doing some really, what I would call dramatic stuff out there in the environment.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 48:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Am I right in thinking that you're proposing that the more people do that, the more they'll find an environmental positivity to protect that outdoor space?

• 48:48Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 48:48Gary O'Reilly?

  That that extreme sport then has another fold back of positivity, is that, can you just enhance upon what I've just thought about there?

• 48:56Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, no, that's a that's a really nice thought, I like that thought, but that is what we're finding, we're finding that um the more people participate in all sorts of, you use the term green sport, you could call it green exercise or nature sport or whatever you'd like to do. So not necessarily at the high extreme level, but the more people involved in these activities, the more they slip into um this sort of mindful focused um state of that they that they find, which which ultimately also enhances well-being. The more likely they are to realise a deeper, more profound connection with the environment they participate in, whatever that might be.

• 49:36Speaker 04

  And as a result, the more likely they are to um want to do, to give back. So it's a reciprocal kind of relationship.

• 49:44Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic. You're absolutely right. Both of you just made me think of, every surfer cares about the ocean more than anybody you will ever meet. So yeah, that's fantastic. Wow, this has been great.

• 49:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Doctor, thank you.

• 49:55Chuck Nice?

  Thank you so much, Doc. I mean, fast me.

• 49:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Eric Brymer from Leeds Beckett University in the UK. Sports, science, ecology.

• 50:02Chuck Nice?

  Ecology. I like it.

• 50:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Who'd thought sport would bring you into science and ecology?

• 50:11Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 50:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, it has. And thank you to everybody who's been on our show today.

• 50:15Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 50:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Bye for now. Look forward to your company next time. Thank you.