At one time or another we’ve all heard stories about a mother who lifts a car off of her child or someone standing in between children and a powerful windstorm feeling no pain at the time but sustaining awful injuries after just to save them. (Check out more amazing stories here) Feats such as these appear to be that of superhuman ability, but sorry to ruin your day folks, it’s adrenaline that causes these responses.

Hysterical strength as these adrenaline rushes are known are are “a display of extreme strength by humans, beyond what is believed to be normal, usually occurring when people are in life and death situations” (Wikipedia). When hypothalamus senses danger it sends signals to your adrenal glands with release adrenaline and noradrenaline. Adrenaline and noradrenaline together cause a rise in heart rate, increase in respiration, dilated pupils, slows down digestion and allows muscles to contract. A reserve of power is triggered and put to use in high stress situations which is hard to imagine says Jeff Wise writer for Scientific American, “When I’m at the gym, straining to complete the last rep of a dumbbell exercise, it’s pretty hard to imagine that my muscles have the capacity to work half again harder than they already are. What I feel is screaming agony.”

Adrenaline is something you may be familiar with, you usually get an adrenaline rush when you do something frightening or nervous, it’s a chemical in our body released in stressful situations, during what we know as “fight or flight.” Noradrenaline which you, like me, may not have heard

Adrenaline Molecule

Noradrenaline Molecule

of is a chemical that increases our heart rate and blood pressure, mixed with adrenaline in extreme situations causes extreme reactions or those of superhuman ability.

What is very interesting is that there is no solid data record on this subject as everything we know of these “superhuman” events are anecdotes and witness statements. There isn’t an ethical way we can test these extreme situations without putting people’s lives in danger. Yes, we can test it on a smaller scale like with putting people in frightening situations and seeing how they react such as in a haunted house and if they can run faster or punch harder, but we can’t put a baby under a car and have a mom try to lift it off because it’s simply unethical.

I do see through scientific evidence that there is a correlation between ability and adrenaline as we can see it in ourselves often, for me I’ve noticed it when I’m about to go on stage to dance, my adrenaline is flowing like crazy and when I get on stage I am able to move faster, kick higher and don’t feel tired until I am off stage and the adrenaline has finally drained. I wish that ethically we could push people to their limits to see if this holds to be true on a large scale, so we can confirm if all of these amazing stories are true, but there is no way I can see this happening as lives will be endangered.

Do you have any thoughts on this subject? Have you personally experienced a super crazy adrenaline rush or know someone who has? Or even just have a story? Leave a comment down below!