Laura Kelley was always drawn to adventure, and when she moved to Colorado 18 years ago, she was thrilled to embrace the state’s offerings. However, her active lifestyle came to a halt in 2020 when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
Determined to regain her mobility, Kelley knew that once she was able, she would go to extreme lengths to experience the thrill of adventure. For her, the idea of jumping out of a plane thousands of feet above the Earth was never in question. She recalls, “It’s something that has been on my list since I was five or six years old.”
But Emily Hemendinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus warns against becoming too addicted to adrenaline-pumping activities. She emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the relationship individuals have with the outdoors and reminds us that increased tolerance to the adrenaline rush can turn it into a striving mentality of what’s next. This can lead to more dangerous mindsets.
Laura Kelley believes that life itself is an adventure worth pursuing to its fullest extent. She explains, “Sometimes when life feels out of control, doing an adventurous high-risk thing can be a way not
