Claire Tyler, CEO of Relate, commented on the report’s findings: ‘It’s when life gets really hard – you’re starting a family, pressure at work can be immense and increasingly money worries can be crippling. We cannot afford to sit back and watch this happen.’

Lisa is a professional woman in her early 40s with two children, is she happy? ‘Yes. I believe it is important to have time for yourself. Of course my priority is the family, but I make time for exercise because it makes me feel good, and renews my energy.’
Tristia Clarke of TalkTalk, who were partners in the survey, said: ‘People in their late 30s and early 40s are a time-poor generation. Long hours at work means they have less time to spend face-to-face with friends and family.’

Robert, a 49-year-old engineer, agrees: ‘I think you need to retain a balance, after a bad day at work I like to do something different. Then I can come back refreshed.’ Robert’s colleague Peter, 48, who works in IT, thinks friends are an important part of happiness. ‘I enjoy active sports with friends, the banter, the competition, are all part of the fun.’

Relate’s report says that 27 per cent of people feel lonely a lot of the time. Robert believes this is an easy trap to fall into. ‘I know for me it is an effort sometimes to join friends but I think it’s worth it.’  Ben, who together with a group of friends, has recently cycled the length of the country to raise money for charity, said: ‘I feel a bit of a fraud because although we have raised a good sum for charity, I have personally got a lot out of it. It was great fun and really boosted my self esteem.’

So what’s the secret of midlife happiness? ‘Balance,’ says Lisa. ‘Health, fun and challenge,’ believes Robert. ‘For me it’s having something that recharges my batteries. That can be friends or exercise. Whatever turns you on, really,’ says Ben.

If you want to try a range of adrenalin activities with friends, which may or may not tackle a pending midlife crisis click here.

The post How to turn a midlife crisis into an adrenalin boost appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

Until the 2010 FIFA World Cup final on July 11, one half of the country will be pinned to the television while the other half prays for the end of the South African torture. So, how can each of these World Cup camps survive the next few weeks without fraying nerves and expanding waistlines? Adrenamag has come up with its own alternative World Cup survival guide.

1. World Cup Widow. He’s not interested in you anymore. He only loves men with small round balls. So if you can’t beat them join in. Book a day inside a large ball. Try zorbing and get in it together. Just make sure there’s not a big game on.

2. Coping with disappointment. However much you tell yourself it won’t, you know it’s going to happen. When the time comes and England’s World Cup journey plunges off a South African cliff, you will need an adrenalin pick- me-up bigger than Table Mountain. So get out there with your white water rafting, paragliding or zapcating. Click here

3. Stuck to the sofa. You’re so into it, you can’t move from the sofa. Don’t worry – there are activities where you can still sit down. Try karting or quad biking.

4. Hate football. You think Messi is what happens when you forget to use your napkin. Don’t even try to compete. Drift up into the air in a hot air balloon and leave it all behind. You won’t even hear the roars.

5. Trauma of penalties. You can’t look at the penalty shoot-outs. So try a real shoot out – where you have to look and you’re in control. Clay pigeon shooting or archery will train your nerves for the big shootouts.

6. World Cup widower. A rarer creature perhaps. But they do exist. Take her extreme horse riding. And put blinkers on her so she can’t see the football.

7. World Cup withdrawal. What happens when all those days in the pub watching football with friends are long gone? You need to come down gently. Book shared activities like paintball, karting or high ropes where you can laugh and play together. Like the old days.

8. Seeing red. Football has a way of upping the blood pressure. Remember David Beckham’s sending off in France 1998? Water is said to be calming for the nerves. Try kite surfing or kayaking.

9. Bored. Everyone can have enough of football – even if you love it. Remind yourself there are other things in life. Try off-road karting or driving a tank.

10. England win the World Cup beating Germany on penalties. You’re so high you parachute down without the plane even taking you up.

The post Extreme sport World Cup survival guide appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

Steve Ralph is the man who taught Robin Hood to shoot an arrow. Quite a claim to fame. The production company making the new Robin Hood film needed a professional to turn the star Russell Crowe into a credible bowman, so they turned to Steve Ralph.

It’s not the first time, he’s taught stars how to loose an arrow. (Steve says this is the correct term – ‘guns are fired, arrows are loosened and shot’.) Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Dame Judi Dench, Ray Winstone and Clive Owen have all been his archery pupils.

Ironically, it was Robin Hood who inspired Steve, 55, to pick up a bow. ‘There’s a family tradition of making bows but it was my father reading me Robin Hood books that fired my imagination,’ he says. Steve describes his job as a bowyer – the ancient art of making bows. And he’s been making bows for film and stage for over 25 years.

Steve spent two weeks in Australia – the only continent not to have the bow and arrow – teaching Russell Crowe to be an authentic Robin Hood and he was impressed with the star’s commitment. ‘He’s a very competitive guy who’s sport mad. If he had to fire 1,000 arrows a day to get it right, he would. And that kind of attitude is rare,’ says Steve. In fact, Steve says Russell Crow is so taken with archery that he asked him to make bows for his children. ‘He’s now a very good shot,’ says Steve.

All of which is a far cry from Kevin Costner’s early 1990’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which Steve left in a hurry after making a number of bows for the production. ‘I walked out because it was terrible. Little John says, “Robin of Loxley, you’ve got balls of solid rock.” I said to my wife “we’re out of here”.’

For Steve, the image of the precious Hollywood star is a myth. ‘I have found all the actors I have worked with to be very professional and keen to learn. Dame Judi Dench is a natural archer because, like a lot of women, she listens,’ he says.

And his favourite Robin Hood? ‘I grew up with Richard Todd and Richard Greene but I can honestly say Russell Crowe, because he’s my Robin Hood,’ says Steve.

For people who want to try the ancient art of the longbow, Steve believes modern target archery is a good place to start (click here).

If you wish to learn more about the longbow, try the English Field Archery Association or the National Field Archery Society. 

And when you get as good as Russell Crowe and want your own bow, Steve will make you your own longbow https://www.steveralphs.com/.

The post Turning Russell Crowe into an archery hot shot appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

Surely, it can’t be any coincidence that the countries with the highest suicide rates are all located in the frozen dark north.  After all, there’s only so much chess you can play without reaching for the shot gun. So, what’s the best way to use those precious hours of evening sunshine – or maybe not daytime rain – that we can now enjoy? Here’s a few ideas:

Paintball: Hibernating animals often double their body fat before winter hibernation. Now it’s spring, we can start burning the calories. An evening paintball session with work colleagues is a great stress reliever. How else are you going to shoot the boss – and stay out of jail? As a seasonal treat, Adrenamag has negotiated special reductions for readers with Go Ballistic, the UK’s biggest paintball network.

Adrenamag Special Paintball Offers:

Get 100 FREE paintballs as part of a full day ‘pay as you play’ paintball package at the following Go Ballistic venues:

* Chester-Le-Street

* Colchester-Ipswich, Indoor Paintball

* Inverness

* Newcastle

* Pontefract

* RAF Dishforth

* Shotts, Lanarkshire

* Swindon – Cotswold

* Wolverhampton

* Yarm

Also one FREE place for bookings of 30 or more players at any Go Ballistic site (free places are for the same package booked by the group). Simply quote this reference for either offer: adrenamag/pbgb when you book. Click here to visit Go Ballistic Paintball

Outdoor Karting: Go-karters love to peek out of their burrows and race on the outdoor tracks. It’s the nearest thing you can get to ‘real’ racing so we are told. Evening sessions are available across the UK.

Clay pigeon shooting: Game shooting has a season, but clay pigeon shooting keeps on firing. Blast off the winter cobwebs with an early evening’s clay pigeon shooting.

Zorbing: As we roll back the dark, enjoy an evening’s tumbling down a hill in a zorb. Or have a riot by wet zorbing across a lake.

Archery: The long bow did for the French at Agincourt, could it be a winning way to spend a light, early spring evening?

Quad biking: Quad bikers like the mud therefore winter is often seen as the best time to straddle the quad bikes but April showers can turn the hardest terrain into a glorious mud bath. So an evening’s quad biking could be a slip, sliding success.

If you want to spring outside and take advantage of the light nights to squeeze in an activity, your biggest choice is right here so click here for more

The post British Summer Time activities. appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

1. Six hours’ extreme horse riding. Riding a horse is harder than you think, in fact, it’s more like riding a bike. And think how toned those thigh muscles will be.

2. 36 hours’ 4×4 off-roading. You might be driving fast, but this is the slow burn way to weight loss.

3. Five hours’ wall climbing and abseiling. The experts say that the heavier you are the more calories you burn. But if you’ve really indulged over Christmas – make sure no one is standing beneath you when you’re abseiling down. It’s safer that way.

4.  Seven hours’ laser combat. Take the war to the flab, and shoot a few friends while you’re at it.

5. Six hours 30 minutes’ skiing. Get in shape for the slopes, improve your skiing and watch the pounds come tumbling down.

6. Eight hours’ skateboarding. Good for the balance and co-ordination. But don’t wear your cap backwards unless you’re under the age of 16, please.

7. Six hours’ snowboarding. Apparently shivering makes you burn more calories, if you can stand it.

8. 32 hours’ quad biking. At least this is a faster calorie burn than watching TV, which would take about 40 hours to write off your Christmas lunch.

9. Seven hours’ high ropes walking. Of course, you don’t want to spend the whole day up there, spread it out over a few weekends.

10. Six hours 30 minutes’ zorbing. Kissing apparently eats up 150 calories every one-and-a-half hours, so if you want to zorb with your partner, you could increase the burn further.

Here’s the sober bit. Obviously, the above are estimates and the number of calories burned does vary depending on an individual’s body weight. So, want to look at the most exciting activity options available in the UK? THEN CLICK HERE

The post 10 EXTREME SPORT WAYS TO BURN OFF THAT CHRISTMAS LUNCH appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

12 gift ideas to get your true love’s heart beating this Christmas. And, the only smelly stuff is mud, sweat and burning rubber. Of course, if your other half really wants a pair of socks and a jumper with a reindeer on, they can always buy it in the sales – it’ll be cheaper and they can’t blame you.

1.  Tank you, darling. Forget the tank tops your granny used to buy you, how about getting on top of a tank and driving it? It’s the ideal gift for the true love who doesn’t like things getting in his or her way. And they’ll love it so much they may just turn their fire on you.

2. Drive your true love wild. If your partner has shown an unhealthy interest in the BBC’s Top Gear this year, treat them to a spin in one of these fabulously priced cars. An Aston Martin DB9 or a Ferrari Spider with a new V8-engine may not normally be on your partner’s Christmas list. But a day’s spin at a racing circuit could set them all a-flutter.

3. An ab-zorbing idea. Recreate that ‘head over heels in love’ feeling. Book a day’s zorbing for two. You get to roll around together in a large plastic bubble. For even more laughs try wet zorbing. You won’t be able to keep your hands off each other as you tumble across the water. But do make it clear this gift is for your partner – not you.

4. Big-shot clays. Clay pigeon shooting is a winter-warming pursuit – and an activity that is increasingly enjoyed by couples. So there’s another excuse to buy yourself a present.

5. Bulls-eye with archery. If your partner is one of the 44,000 adults in the UK that would like to try their hand (or arm) at archery, you could just have fired Cupid’s arrow.

6. Paint it red. Paintballing is an old favourite. And let’s be honest, probably more for the guys than the girls this Christmas. But if your partner is expecting the same old socks and roll-neck jumper, it might just fire them into action.

7. Kart them off. Karting is a pulse-racing activity for couples, family and friends. So this could be your gift to the whole family.

8. Rope me in. High ropes are an increasingly popular activity with professional people as they, nervously, try conquering their fear of heights in the tree canopy. Does that sound like your partner?

9. Monster present. Monster truck driving is one to talk about all year. And while you’re at it, you could get them a tattoo.

10. On cloud nine. Drift through the clouds with a tandem skydiving experience. It’s one of those 50 things to do before you die.  Of course, it does marginally increase your chances of not reaching the end of the list. But hey, you only live once.

11. Ride into the muddy sunset. Winter is a great time to start quad biking, so if your partner is new to it, this may be the time to dunk them in the mud.

12. Up, up and away. If your partner is a poetic, reflective sort, they may prefer a good old-fashioned balloon flight and together you can gaze out on the world. Of course, you will have to wait for a fine day to do it but it’s rarely disappointing.

13. Let them choose. No, we are not cheating: there are only 12 activities on the list but there’s one more option.  Let your partner pick the activity by getting them activity vouchers. It could be lucky 13.

If you want to buy vouchers or an activity for your true love, you can click here.

The post The 12 (extreme sporting) days of Christmas appeared first on ADRENAMAG.

Archery is as quintessentially British as tea-drinking. However, although both can be gentle leisure pursuits on a lawn, only one can be used to fight wars, hunt wild boar or terrorise the Sheriff of Nottingham. There’s no doubt, whether it’s in Sherwood Forest, the mountains of Wales or the fields of Agincourt, we Brits have a long attachment to the bow. So perhaps we shouldn’t be all that surprised that Sport England have identified a latent demand for the sport with 44,000 UK adults saying they’d like a shot at it.  Well, if you’re an eager bow-person, here’s a 10-point beginners’ guide.

1. Target archery is the most popular form of the sport, and good news if you want to escape the winter weather: you can fire your arrows inside and out. Indoor distances are 18 m and 25 m. Outdoor distances range from 30 m to 90m.
2. Targets have a number of coloured rings, each with a points value. Like rifle shooting, nearest the middle gets the highest score. However, the scoring system can change after each round.
3. The basic design of bows hasn’t changed since King Harold failed to duck at the Battle of Hastings. However, a number of modern bows have a mechanism that helps the archer pull back the string.
4. The video is a basic introduction to the equipment.  The compound bow, which is widely shot, uses cams or wheels, to take the pressure of the string, so the archer can focus more on aiming the arrow at the target.
5. Archers using a compound bow use a release device, which helps the archer achieve a slow, smooth release of the arrow.
6. Field archery is a challenge against the terrain as well as the target. A course is set up with 24 targets which are marked with the distance to the shooting line. The distances to another 24 targets remain unmarked. Three arrows are shot on each target for a total of 144. Many of the shots are made uphill or downhill and require consideration for obstacles.
7. Most archers will wear a bracer. This medieval-looking garb is worn to stop the string of the bow rubbing against the arm.
8. ‘Archer’s paradox’ is a phrase attributed to Dr Robert Elmer, which refers to the fact that an arrow from a right-handed bow appears to go left, yet hits the target (if you’re a good shot).
9. Right-handed archers point their left side to the target, and place the arrow with their right hand.
10. Target divisions include the recurve (Olympic) bow, compound bow and bare bow. Events at the Olympic Games are in the outdoor target discipline, using the recurve (Olympic) bow only.

If you’re interested in trying archery, click here.

Useful website: https://www.gnas.org

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