Riding With An Unfit Mental State
Mental state is a largely overlooked, but intense influencer of operation. The accurate operation of a motorcycle relies heavily on a sharp and nimble mind. A well rested, sober and emotionally stable brain is the ideal state of psyche to properly preform the complex act of riding a motorcycle. Our senses must be sharp, our motorcycle control on point, and our awareness of threats in the area dialed in. The sturdy foundation of mental acuity is necessary to implement all aspects of the APE Barrier with conviction. Unfit mental states weaken the barrier, as we fail to function at normal levels. We will cover the mental states that have the most adverse affects on the ability to operate a motorcycle effectively. Keep in mind that there could be additional mental states, as well as physical states, that could be an issue for you as an individual. It is the responsibility of the rider to monitor their mental state and exercise discipline when they feel they might be unfit to ride.
Under the Influence
In this day in age, drinking and driving is well known to be a large contributor to lethal accidents. From the moment we are anticipating our motor vehicle licenses, we are bombarded with the facts and consequences, and rightfully so. Negligent humans have caused endless pain and suffering for their families and others with impaired operation. Motorcycles require much more precision making drinking and riding a monumentally risk.
Liquor has several effects on the ability to ride. The most significant, is the shift in psyche regarding risk. Alcohol inhibits the part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) that is used for executive decision making, attention allocation, and assessing the implications of one’s actions. This part of the brain is critical for analyzing and managing risk. With the consequences for crashes being so high, the ability to consistently manage risk effectively is an imperative skill to the motorcyclist. Not only does alcohol impact risk assessment skills, it also greatly increases risk tolerance, up to the point of aggressive behaviour in some cases. When the rider is negligent, careless, or reckless with their risk management, substantial losses are much more likely to occur. To make matters worse, alcohol affects the user in many ways that erode the operator’s balance, coordination, vision and reflexes. All of these abilities are incredibly important and stunting these skills can easily result in an accident. Balance and coordination define the operation of a motorcycle, whereas avoiding danger consistently is impossible without sharp vision and reflexes. With the implications of alcohol being so severe for the rider, different studies have shown that 40-50% of all motorcycle fatalities involve alcohol.
Marijuana is a widespread drug that is becoming decriminalized in some areas of the world. Despite its newfound legality, weed and motorcycles do not mix well. The effects of weed on risk management are not as direct as alcohol, but have some indirect causes. Marijuana tends to hamper quick critical thinking, reflexes, attention, coordination, short-term memory, awareness and confidence. It should be quite obvious that the ability to quickly assess situations and take assertive action is invaluable to the motorcyclist. The act of taking assertive action takes reflexes and coordination, and high levels of it. In order to first perceive the need to take action, one must be paying attention. Weed can make some users very scatter brained, which increases distractibility as well as the effective management of attention. Whether your attention is bouncing around incessantly or in the wrong place at the wrong time, threats can easily go unnoticed until it’s too late. The poor attention also affects awareness in the sense that the individual will be tuned out. While riding a motorcycle, it is ideal to be fully immersed in what you are doing. Being out of touch with the various forms of awareness (personal, motorcycle, pavement, environment) due to attention deficits is a recipe for disaster.
Humans who are high on marijuana tend to have hampered reflexes and reduced coordination, both of which are critically important to make decisive emergency manoeuvres. Having adequate levels of running memory and awareness are essential components of syncing APE Flow State to the surroundings. When short-term memory and awareness have been reduced, it is hard for the motorcyclist to properly manage space and time effectively. If the rider has a fuzzy connection with space and time, they will lose the ability to manage their flow state with risk management tendencies. Finally, weed commonly raises anxiety levels in many individuals. Anxiety is a component of fear, but this application of fear is not healthy for the motorcyclist. Anxiety makes the rider timid and hesitant with their motorcycle operation when the aim is to operate assertively. Motorcycle riders must elicit confidence in both their decision making and action taking abilities to avoid danger consistently. The switch from confidence to anxiety is a very negative shift in psyche for the motorcyclist. Unlike many other mind-altering substances, weed is different chemically, in the sense that it is fat soluble. Drugs/alcohol will be metabolized by the body rather quickly, while the effects of weed can be felt for hours or even days with heavy use.
Under-Slept
As more and more countries become industrialized, the more sleep deprivation pervades the human species. From the overworked single parent, to the strung out college student, lack of sleep runs rampant in our societies. While it is fairly common knowledge that we should get 7-9 hours of rest each night, the science of under-sleeping is beginning to bubble to the surface. There is a laundry list of adverse affects caused by lack of sleep, but we will focus on those that impact riding a motorcycle directly. At small sleep deficits (1-3 hours), the typical effects are: wavering attention, slower reflexes, slower problem solving, emotional irritability, reduced awareness and reduced coordination. With large sleep deficits (4+ hours or consecutive small deficits) the problems get worse quickly: attention lapses, sluggish reflexes, inability to problem solve, emotional instability, nonexistent awareness, inaccurate coordination, micro sleeps and falling asleep. All of these points should stick out as significant dangers to the motorcyclist. To identify and manage risk we must be attentive and ready to act decisively at a moment’s notice. The more sleep deprived someone is, the less likely they are to notice risk or to evade it when they do notice. In the worst case scenarios (attention lapses, micro sleeps, falling asleep), the rider will be completely detached from what they are doing to the point of being unconscious. Even in the examples of attention lapses and micro sleeps, such a disconnection from what you are doing is akin to being unconscious, because the brain is disconnected from what it is doing. At this point you are aboard a metal missile with nothing in control of it.
With sleep deprivation being so commonplace in our cultures, most individuals will not realize that they are under-sleeping and/or deny that it has any ill effects. The brain (and body) go through a cleansing process throughout the night that is not just downtime to recharge energy. The nervous system is actively removing waste product from metabolic processes, as well as fortifying neural pathways used that day. There is no way around it; not getting a good night’s rest reduces functionality across nearly all cognitive capacities due to a brain cluttered with waste products. From sight, to assertive decision making, to reflexes, to balance, across the board losses are realized. In addition, for those who desire to maximize their knowledge and skill development, REM sleep is necessary to assimilate new information into the mind and strengthen the connections between neurons that were used the previous day while learning or practising a skill. Robbing the brain of REM sleep will reduce one’s ability to learn the next day (from a backlog of information), as well as reduce the depth of learning from the previous day (from reduced assimilation of information). This is true for both mental (top-down wiring), and physical learning (bottom-up wiring).
If a vehicle’s maintenance schedule is ignored or followed poorly, that machine is going to run worse over time to the point of being sluggish. It won’t start well, the engine will be choppy, there will be a reduction in horsepower, the brakes could drop in effectiveness, and the vehicle will eventually start to exhibit odd characteristics or noises due to neglect. Bring that same vehicle in for service, change the oils, tend to the brakes, grease the noisy parts and you will have a completely different vehicle. The same can be said about your mind and sleep. It is the daily service interval that your brain needs to run at optimal levels for functionality and learning.
The statistics on sleep deprived accidents are quite staggering. In the United States, every 30 seconds an accident occurs due to sleep deprivation. The ability to focus (and learn) reduces as the day goes on and a drop off is experienced after 16 hours of wakefulness. It is at the 16 hour mark that the brain is ready for its nightly maintenance. 17 hours without sleep is the equivalent of driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.05. For those who are unaware, that is the threshold that one could be charged with driving under the influence in some countries. 24 hours without sleep is the equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.1 and is consistent with someone who is very drunk. Everyone can agree that driving under the influence is a reckless behaviour, but statistics are now showing that accidents caused by sleep deprivation exceed alcohol and drug accidents combined. The results are in; sleep is a huge influencer on your ability to ride a motorcycle (and to learn to ride!). For those who want to prioritize safety and learning, ensure that you get 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
Elevated Emotional States
The last areas that can affect one’s mental capacity to ride are emotional states. Humans are highly emotional creatures. Emotions are hard-wired into our physiology and can have a wide range of effects on our thought processes, body and behaviour. They are used in conjunction with conscious and subconscious nervous system activity to navigate life. If an emotion is overactive, that emotion will dominate our psyche and heavily influence our behaviour while riding a motorcycle. Having a stable emotional frame of mind allows for our attention, senses and cognition to be used in the fashion optimal for riding. Some emotions have more profound effects than others, but all emotions can inhibit your ability to ride if they are overwhelming. Riding while angry is likely the worse case scenario. Anger will increase risk tolerance and can encourage aggressive riding tendencies. Riding while sad will rob the motorcyclist of attention and create indifference, as their mind is distracted with the woes of life. Being late will come with underlying feelings of fear or anxiety, causing the rider to rush to their destination. Riding while stressed will create a rider who is on edge and distracted by future uncertainty. A worthwhile mention is riding with very upbeat music. New riders should be more concerned with listening to their motorcycle and surroundings, but if and when you begin listening to music, opt for music with low to moderate tempos. Music such as metal, heavy rock, energetic dance, hip-hop, or pop all have fast tempo styles that increase the likelihood of riding in an energetic fashion. Different people will have different tolerances and susceptibilities towards emotional states. Self awareness is of critical importance.
Riding a motorcycle is a complex operation, and we need all of our mental faculties running at high performance levels. Riding with an unfit mental state is one of the furthest reaching Deadly Risks. The relationship between mental state and riding capacity is linear. The poorer the mental state, the poorer the ability to analyze hazards, the poorer the ability to manage risk, and the poorer the ability to ride the motorcycle. From drugs/alcohol, to lack of sleep, to emotional states, there is no winning, only losing. The ability to focus on what’s important, decisively manage risk and assertively operate the motorcycle are essential components for rider safety. It is your responsibility as a motorcyclist to be aware of your current mental state. Monitoring one’s mental state and being mindful of the potential hazard is an important personal awareness skill. Utilize good judgment. Do not mix mind altering substances with motorcycles. If you are taking a new medication, test it in a safe environment ensuring that it does not affect your mental or physical abilities needed for riding. Be aware of sleep quality and length. An truth among those running a sleep deficiency is that the ability to gauge their own mental cognition has been impacted. It is common to overestimate your abilities and underestimate the effects of a lack of sleep. Even small deficits can impact your ability to ride. As amount of sleep decreases (or the further one passes the 16 hour mark), cognitive capacity drops off sharply, eventually leading to incoherent riders with issues staying attentive/awake. Proper motorcycle risk management demands a clear and focused mind. Keep your head in the game, and ride with mental clarity.
