“I grew up in a family that hiked, climbed and went into the
mountains whenever they could. Some of my earliest memories are
of long backpacking trips, wind-blown summits and surviving win-
ter skip trips. The first sport I really got into on my own was caving.
When I was 14, I started kayaking. At 16, I bought my first climbing
rope, and did my first new rock route. At 25, I first flew a paraglider.
At 41, my daughter came into the world. She’s already doing all the
stuff I did as a kid, and she’s an athlete too.”^28
But Will doesn’t see adrenaline as his friend.
Adrenaline, sometimes known as epinephrine, plays
a major role in the fight, freeze, or flee response. Adrenaline has
a broad influence over many organs in the body. For example,
adrenaline will increase blood pressure, heart rate, pupil dilation,
and blood sugar level. It’s a great tool to help in situations where
you need a burst of energy. It’s no wonder many people think that
high sensation-seekers are adrenaline junkies. However, too much
adrenaline can be disruptive when focus is key.
“Adrenaline’s all about dosage,” he says, “so if you’re get-
ting a huge hit of adrenaline, it’s actually a really lousy drug. If
you’ve ever almost had a car accident or almost fallen off some-
thing high, then you know what adrenaline feels like. You feel
nauseous, it’s this spike of stuff that’s designed to get you out of
a bad situation. That’s kind of the role of adrenaline. At a very low
dose it’s interesting. It switches your brain on. It fires you up
physically, cuts out distractions. It’s a pretty useful drug at low
doses, but at high doses it’s lousy, so you have to figure out where
on that continuum your brain works well and then get into envir-
onments that do work well. I’ve tried BASE jumping. It’s too much
pure adrenaline. I don’t like it.
“But I think most people think people in my shoes, we’re
looking for that huge hit of adrenaline. We’re not. A huge hit of
adrenaline is a lousy drug. What I’m looking for is to do really
difficult things and do them well. That’s what’s challenging to
me. That’s what fires me up in life, whether it’s putting together
a big project and figuring out how to make it work or climbing well.
It’s solving puzzles and doing really interesting, cool things that are
exciting and fun. That’s what life’s about.
“If I just wanted adrenaline, it would be a lot simpler.
I would just go run back and forth across the highway. If that’s
what’s making my mind tick, there are way, simpler ways to do
it.”79 / Sports and Adventure in High Sensation-SeekingDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:19:03, subject to the Cambridge