Author: Jeff Wise

The Psychological Hazards of Speed Skating

Apolo Anton Ohno’s win in the 1000-meter short-track speed skating race on Saturday was all the more dramatic for the fact that he very nearly fell and lost it completely. “It feels amazing, especially in a sport as volatile as short track speed skating,” he said afterward.

Indeed, speed-skating is a sport notoriously vulnerable to catastrophe. The sudden and dramatic loss of ability, known as choking, haunts every sport. Golfers dread “the yips,” the abrupt inability to sink even the easiest putt. Archers are haunted by “target panic.” But no one is as vulnerable as speed skaters. With a handful of events left to go, there’s still plenty of opportunities for skaters to suffer wrenching denouements. Continue reading The Psychological Hazards of Speed Skating

Practicing What I Preach: Grappling With Fear at the Podium

Since the book came out, people have asked me: so, having written this book about fear, you must be really brave. My answer to that is: no, unfortunately understanding fear in a rational, logical way does absolutely nothing to help you maintain control over the powerful, ancient fear centers that lie deep in our brain.

This truth was brought home to me vividly yesterday as I stood up to give a talk at the Googleplex, Google’s corporate office in Mountain View, California.  They videotaped it, and I understand that they’re going to post it on Youtube.

After reading what happened next, you may not want to watch it. Continue reading Practicing What I Preach: Grappling With Fear at the Podium

Delicious Agony: The Neuroscience of Watching Johnny Weir

Last week’s luge tragedy highlighted the treachery of snow and ice for athletes at Winter Olympics: no performance on a frozen surface is ever more than a few milliseconds or a fraction of an inch away from catastrophe. But as they say in software, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The ever-present potential for disaster is the essence of the games’ entertainment value.

No one understands this better than figure-skating star Johnny Weir. Since he stormed into the sport’s top ranks by winning the 2004 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the flamboyant performer has dazzled fans with a recklessness that reliably delivers either transcendence or catastrophe. “The most important thing,” Weir has said, “is to not be afraid to fall.” That do-or-die attitude has paid off with the fans and media. Few other athletes can boast the kind of celebrity that Weir has achieved, even before the Sundance Channel debuted its eight-part documentary miniseries about him in January.

And it’s no wonder: neuroscience suggests that circuits within our limbic system — the ancient region deep within our brain that governs emotions — are primed to respond to this kind of volatility. Continue reading Delicious Agony: The Neuroscience of Watching Johnny Weir

Things to Be Afraid Of, New York City Edition

It’s funny, the sorts of things that people are afraid of: clowns, bugs, the number 13. But what’s just as funny is all the things that people aren’t afraid of that can actually kill them.

The New York Times ran a fascinating article yesterday about New York City’s recently released mortality statistics, which runs down in some detail what citydwellers die of.

Some are claimed by the sea: In 2007, four people were killed in watercraft accidents, including two men who died when their fishing boat struck a cable stretched between a tugboat and a barge near Coney Island. Fourteen more drowned that year. Some fall victim to the weather: 10 died of exposure to excessive natural heat in 2008; 11 others died of exposure to the cold…

The number of ways to go is almost limitless. Continue reading Things to Be Afraid Of, New York City Edition

Did Fear Contribute to Olympic Luger’s Death?

News today via ESPN’s website today that Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died on the track at the Vancouver Olympics, had concerns about the course and voiced them to his father the day before his fatal accident:

The athlete killed on the luge track Friday told his father a day before he died in a training run that he was “scared of one of the turns,” David Kumaritashvili told The Wall Street Journal.

The fact that Kumaritashvili was dreading the very run that killed him adds a poignant touch to an already tragic story, but it also suggests an insight into his death. Continue reading Did Fear Contribute to Olympic Luger’s Death?

The Riddle of Creativity in the Face of Danger

One of the most troubling aspects of intense fear is that it powerfully suppresses the parts of the brain that deal with complex problem-solving and self-control. That can make it hard to get ourselves out of trouble. On rare occasion, however, we fear stories of men and women who are somehow able to extricate themselves from life-or-death predicaments through remarkable feats of inventiveness. One of the most remarkable cases I came across while reporting the book was the story of aerobatic Neil Williams, and how he found a creative solution when one of the wings started to come off his plane. I liked it so much that I used it as the core of the book’s introduction, which you can read in its entirety here.

Restoring The Power To Walk — With Exoskeletons

On Labor Day 2008, Ed Schuyler dove off a dock on Pennsylvania’s Van Sciver Lake, something he’s done hundreds of times over the years. He’d thrown a stick to his niece’s dog and sprinted after it to the dock. Arms outstretched, he dove into the water—but on his plunge downward, his head struck the bottom of the lake.

Although the 43-year-old rose to the surface just as he always did, he noticed something was wrong with his body. “There was no pain, but I couldn’t move my legs,” he says. “I kept myself up with only my arms, and I started panicking. I thought I was going to drown.”

Though he didn’t realize it yet, Schuyler had broken his neck. He’ll be paralyzed for life. But thanks to new exoskeleton technology, he’s learning to walk again, as I learned while reporting a story out this weekend in Parade magazine. Read the rest here.

UPDATE: On the occasion of the ReWalk’s appearance on Glee, I’ve posted some of my own video.

The Only Thing Crazier Than a Wingsuit

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO099D_Do2M] Dan Johnson runs a very entertaining website over at ByDanJohnson.com, where he covers all things related to Light Sport Aircraft (the relatively new FAA category of small planes that are easier to get licensed for than regular planes).  He recently posted this rather incredible footage of a Russian man flying what basically amounts to the misbegotten offspring of a hang glider and a gyroplane. I would love to know more about this contraption and the daredevil who flew it — if he’s still alive I would consider it definitive proof of a Higher Power, and one who has  a decided appreciation for aeronautical nut jobs.

Parenthetically, I really want one of these. I wonder if the folks at Wallaby Ranch would be willing to tow me into the air?