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You are whizzing past a myriad of fans on your dirt bike, jumping the huge dirt piles like they are nothing. The banter of the crowd does not distract you. You do not hover, but you fly as you do each trick, and then plummet to the ground. The crowd roars with plaudits in unison. You are extremely audacious, and the feeling you are getting is great, therefore you are super stimulated to keep on pushing and doing more and more dangerous tricks. There are many different things that make people stimulated to do extreme sports, both mentally and physically. According to research, it takes a certain kind of person to do extreme sports. Most of us hit a ceiling that limits our extreme risk and as a result, our ability to do in dangerous situations. Extreme sports have evolved more as more time has gone by. The dangerous becomes more dangerous, the hard, harder. People pick up extreme sports when they get tired of the usual, un-dangerous things that they do a lot. The danger has become a new thing to conquer. People who do extreme sports find the risk of being injured very frivolous. They oust any bad thoughts they have in their mind, researchers say. “There is medical research that says that the high risk factor in extreme sports tends to cause the body to release substances including dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin.” These substances make good feelings and may have more to do with the “rush” in extreme sports than adrenaline which is a reaction to fear. There is addiction that goes with extreme sports. But it’s an addiction to endorphins, not to the sport. It has been shown that “addicts” can show symptoms of withdrawal if they don’t get the rush. At the moment we are threatened, we have strength, and power. This increase in mental and physical capacity is known as an “adrenaline rush”. It has been tested and made a fact that some people can become addicted to the adrenaline rush when doing extreme sports. People who enjoy extreme sports often bring back the stereotypical “adrenaline junkie” name. People that are involved in extreme sports would claim that they enjoy developing their physical and mental skills. A typical “adrenaline junkie” would score highly on the HSS scale. HSS means high sensation seeking trait. People with this certain trait would like listening to intense music. Also, people who score highly on this scale do because they find many sports very blasé, and not interesting to them, unless there is a risk of getting injured and feeling an adrenaline rush. People with the trait are altered for the need to experience sensations and have a willingness to take risks to get them. Certain people enjoy a high level of danger or hardness often involving speed, height, and highly specialized gear or amazing stunts. Many people who are involved with extreme sports would quote, “We do these things not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us.”- Although accidents in these sports could be fatal. The risk of being severely bludgeoned can be very high while doing extreme sports. Many participants also don't think of their activities as extreme at all. To most of the people, not even the “sport” label fits because they aren't competing to win anything. They are just doing it for fun. The “extreme” label has been blamed for stereotyping participants in these activities as stupid and suicidal. However, the medical view is that the rush or high that comes with the activity isn’t because of adrenaline being released as a response to fear, but because of high levels of dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin because of the high level of physical exertion. There is a characteristic in some people. Some people are turned on mentally by things like extreme sports. They get a lot of adrenaline by it, and they tend to be pulled towards activities that give them that feeling. When people find activities that give them an adrenaline rush, there is really nothing better. An adrenaline rush occurs when the adrenal gland is stimulated through an activity that causes stress on the body, and produces an overbearing feeling. Certainly extreme sports fall into the category of stress. The adrenal gland releases different kinds of hormones like epinephrine, or adrenaline. This increases the heart rate and the force of heart contractions, helps blood flow to the muscles and brain, causes relaxation of muscles, and helps with the conversion of glycogen in the liver. The people who participate in extreme sports see them as just another challenge in the world. They continue to do these things even though some people may think that they are crazy. According to surveys taken by both teenagers and adults, most adults would not do anything extreme, but teenagers would. When asked questions like if they would go bungee jumping, sky diving, horseback riding, dirt biking, etc, most of the adults said that they might have done it when they were younger, but not anymore. When teens were asked this same questions, pretty much all of their answers were yes. Another questions asked was if both the teenagers and the adults have ever done anything extreme, teenagers said that they have done things like gone rock climbing, went quadding or dirt biking, and much more. When the adults were asked this, they either said that they did things considered extreme when they were younger, or they said they have not done anything extreme. Most of the adults that took this survey were aged anywhere from 30-60. Only a few or the teenagers who took this survey said that they have never done anything extreme, and they would not do anything that is too risky. People do extreme sports for many reasons, which are now backed up with information. The facts that many people thought were true actually were not, and new facts were established. There are many crazy things in this world, and extreme sports are the antidote to our safety-first, uptight world. Books: Extreme Sports- Joe Tomlinson and Ed Leigh Extreme Sports: in search of ultimate thrill- John Tomlinson Edleigh Ebsco: Ben Kaplan- Http://web.ebscohost.com/src/detail?uid=7ehid=112&sid=64765b3-fb06-4e4c-be36 Websites: http://www.thecheers.org/article_50_Why-go-Extreme.html- by Google
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