A Brief Psychological Study...

How often in life do you feel pure euphoria?

Pure euphoria, right there.

That was a question posed by my little brother after I'd queried the sense of sitting in a bar to watch a football match during the family caravan holiday. To be fair, I don't think he was specifically talking about the match he'd just watched (it was a couple of months ago when Everton fans were viewing every fixture as the last big push) but to do with experiencing a goal within a crowd of like-minded people. How often do I feel pure euphoria? An adrenaline rush? A surge of positivity akin to a drug's high? How often does that happen in my everyday life? Well can you answer that one? Go on, how often?

Freddie was defo not a 
run of the mill normo.

Without wanting to make assumptions, I think his point was that it's rare. And for normos like me and him - not gigging to packed stadiums, or winning Olympic medals - a football crowd is the one place you'll find it. 

At the time, I made a sex joke. Natch. When have I felt pure euphoria? That's not something I'm going to share with my brother! Lolz lolz. But it's not even a joke. An orgasm provides as beautiful a high as a last minute goal that stops relegation. Sorry, but that's just fact and there's no point pretending otherwise. Despite that, the question still niggled. Surely there was a deeper answer to be found. Euphoric highs can't only be the preserve of the sexually adept and football fans, although that's a Venn diagram I'd like to see. So, I gave it a bit of thought, and did a bit of research. Disclaimer: the phrase 'a bit' is key here.

First of all, I opened it up to the family Whatsapp group. When had they experienced pure euphoria? 

Apologies to those indifferent
to Everton's charms, but 
there's been a lot of this
sort of thing on the
family WhatsApp recently.

I got an immediate message back from my brother - a different one. He listed a selection of dates without context, that all took place at Goodison Park. (For any blue noses out there, they were 10.5.98, 20.4.05, 4.2.09, and 17.3.22.*) My brother-in-law went down a different sporting route with a link to the moment the England men's cricket team won the World Cup in 2019. And then my Mum jumped in with her own euphoric moments - the births of her children. (There aren't any You Tube links for those. Apologies.) This led to a convo between my Mum and my sisters about whether it can be classed as pure euphoria when blood and pain are part of the mix. Either way, if she felt euphoric, she felt euphoric. No one else can decide. But that begs the question, whether euphoria's only felt after a huge physical effort? Does a mammoth bodily event have to take place to feel such depths? That prompted my brother to note that after all his Everton moments, he felt physically spent, regardless of the fact he was an observer rather than a participant. 

Next, my Dad jumped in. He added his own moments -  Everton v Spurs 20.4.63, the whole cup run of 1966, the whole 70-71 season, and Gosling's and Carsley's derby. (Apologies, it really is an Everton-centric blog this week.)

And Reader, I DID.

Eventually I thought about my own life. Passing my driving test was the first time I'd felt the thrill of personal achievement. Not that I hadn't achieved anything before - I was 24 when I reached legal driver status - but it was the first time I'd achieved something that was immediately useful and life-enhancing. I drove away from the test centre a changed woman, a feeling that lasted all day. Was that euphoria or just a satisfying feeling of a job well done? Not sure now. It's ages ago.

TINGLES, ADRENALINE,
ALL THE FEELS

But then there was Eurovision 2014. It was the first time I'd walked into an arena hosting the thing. The tingles were immediate. When Charpentier's Te Deum played just before we went live, I almost cried. It felt like electricity was crackling through me and surging at key moments. Then, after four hours of being in the midst of it all, Conchita Wurst finally did what I'd been willing her to do all week. She won, and it was out of this world. Euphoria? I'd say so. Certainly, the best feeling I've ever known. There's not many moments where I've wanted to scream with happiness until I was hoarse, but that was one. And like a footy match, it was with several thousand other people who felt similarly.

The family chat petered out after a bit. What with childbirth, election night results, getting the keys to a first home, and whether placentas and stitches stop euphoria in its tracks, we ran out of steam. But I suppose my little brother's question had been answered.

How often in your life do you feel pure euphoria? Well if you follow a football team and are invested in its success, several times, I suppose. Especially if they give you as many lows as highs. (That's another Everton reference folks.) And if you don't, and football is something that other people do, you find your euphoric moments in other places. Live music, communal experiences, pushing out a kid from your actual body... my research tells me it's a multi-faceted phenomenon.

Football or not, we
feel the feels in our
own way.

What was interesting about my little investigation, was that we all had something to say. Everyone felt like they'd experienced euphoria at some point or other. No one mentioned drugs or auto asphyxiation, or anything manufactured. It was the real deal - real life throwing up intense excitement and happiness every now and then. We've all got the capacity to feel as deeply as it's possible to feel. So for my very small sample of subjects, in my very non-clinical study, with my very statistically dubious results, isn't that lovely!

Have a lovely week, folks.

*I initially posed this question well before the end of the season. On 19th May this year - the night that Everton came back from 2-0 to win 3-2 and avoided relegation, I got a message from my brother (the one who provided all the dates) that said, 'Nicky, if you're doing a blog on euphoria, the definition is right here in L4.' So there you are.