Are You Brave Enough?

Mountaineering. Rock climbing. Paragliding. Do you have the guts for daredevil sports? Discover the psychological science behind risk-taking to boost your confidence.

- Sarah Ivory

I like sports. A lot. Some people would argue that my devotion to them borders on obsessive. But when I found myself gripping the first ladder of a via ferrata course, near tears and shaking, I realised something – I don’t like high-risk sports. Downhill mountain biking, off-piste skiing, horse riding, sky diving, multi-pitch climbing, free diving, white water rafting, motorsports – I’ll admit that I’ve spent my life and career as a fitness writer avoiding these activities. At a push, you might catch me running down a fell but, even then, I’d be doing it with caution. I, it seems, am not an adrenaline junkie.

It’s not that I don’t want to like these activities (I’d love to freewheel my mountain bike down a gritty gradient with the same gusto as my husband), I’m just not used to doing them. And that, according to Professor Andy Lane, sports psychologist at The Centre for Health & Human Performance (CHHP.com), is the problem. 

‘As you get older, you become more self-preserving and realise that the gain, rush and sense of achievement you get from a risky sport is lower than your fear of being injured. It doesn’t seem worth it,’ he explains. ‘But if you’re exposed to these sports as a kid, you see everyone else doing them and think “I can do that, too”.’

YOU CAN DO IT!