by Nels Griffin

Created on: July 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 28, 2009

And Surf Shall Set You Free

Surfing is the best sport. This belief is as simple as it is true. For those who have already set out on the pilgrimage of surfing, to discover inner peace and contentment, having had calloused eyes opened to its delights, for these ones surfing is truth. Like spiritual wanderers on an endless life quest, surfers know that the din of angry waves, the cool spray of lonely dawn slapping at their face, the serene beauty of surfing, this is the way, the truth, and the life. A myriad reasons back surfers faith in the purity of their sport, although the framework of these beliefs rest on a few simple tenets. There are biological mechanisms that motivate surfer's devotion. It is known that the health benefits of surfing are nearly without peer. It is noteworthy how surfing appeases many athletes need for a death teasing rush. Finally, these three tenets are baptized in the sublime artistic expression of the sport, allowing these individual qualities to emerge a unified whole, the best sport. To what can the ethereal glee that is a hallmark of surfing be attributed?

The human feelings of joy, happiness, and a general feeling of well being that accompany surfing, can be unceremoniously sequestered, stripped of their emotional context, and forced to be scrutinized at a biological level. What one discovers in so doing is that, joy is a hormone, happiness is a chemical, and inner peace is a peptide, or at least the workings of many of these substances on the mind. To avoid laboring under the weight of over a half century of detailed research on the chemistry of the brain, it can simply be stated that a chemical produced in our brains called endorphins cause feelings of well-being and pleasure (Nevid 47). This biochemical fact is directly related to surfing. It has been demonstrated that these endorphins are the human body's natural pain killer. A major contributor to the release of these chemicals by the pituitary gland within the brain is strenuous endurance exercises. Surfing is resoundingly guilty of this. Any surfer will confess to the agony of a long paddle after a good wave. The swim, or scratch back through the surf, to get outside where the waves are breaking, is often strenuous, prolonged, and endured like penance for the carnal joy of the ride. It is this very process though that triggers a rush of endorphins in the brain, creating a natural surfer high. The very idea of a high is apropos as endorphins bear a similar molecular structure

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