A guide to mastering the comfort zone challenge

Everyone has their limits, so what happens when you push those boundaries?

We’re not talking trying mature cheddar instead of mild, we’re talking tripping yourself up on purpose, lying down in the middle of The Bullring kind of thing.

This Christmas, a group of students have been falling over themselves (literally) to completely and utterly humiliate themselves in the public eye. It’s called the Comfort Zone Challenge.

The new craze is forcing people to test their limits, and many of you are probably asking “what idiots would go out of their way to embarrass themselves?”

Well here are Birmingham’s pro Comfort Zone Challenge competitors with their best tips.

The Log

The log consists of the single act of lying flat on your back on the floor, involving a “lyer” (the person doing the lying) and “ly-ie” (the spot where you lie down).

This common challenge can be done anywhere, but it works particularly well in between escalators.

Hugo Avshu, who studies Sport and Exercise Sciences, tried it out in The Bullring. Hundreds of passers-by stared and laughed, while a few just looked pretty disturbed.

Eventually a security guard approached us and said: “Is everything alright? I’m afraid you can’t lie down there.”

The ballsy fresher slowly got up, looked around quite happily and replied: “Okay, my apologies.

“Do you know any good places to lie around here?”

The Trip

Walking through a large crowd or to the front of a queue, the tripper trips himself up, magnificently falling flat on his face in front of hundreds of people.

But the public are cruel. When Hugo tried it, the public either ignored the poor boy or quite literally pointed and laughed at him.

No one helped him up – he simply got up, brushed off his shoulders and limped off into another crowd.

The Trip Log

Now, this is a mixture of the trip and the log (as you probably guessed), starting with the ever-so-common dreaded trip onto the escalators which, let’s face it, many of us fear.

But not this student. After his fall he decides to stay lying down in the log position while painfully slowly riding up the escalators, looking uncomfortably like a beached whale.

Students are revelling in the craze which is forcing them to break out of their shell and make a total fool of themselves.

Jeff Simmonds, 19 and The Log pro, told The Tab: “As the name suggests, it’s all about getting out of your comfort zone, or your bubble.

“The more uncomfortable you feel, the better, and in the long term you end up not caring about what people think about you.

“In a way you feel free.”

Jeff in action

Our expert Hugo said: “It’s about injecting fun into what can be boring days and in doing so, caring less about what others think.”

The daring yet humorous Comfort Zone Challenge will, no doubt, continue to catch on.

Let’s just hope less of you end up being escorted out of the shopping centre after attempting The Log.

We take our hat off to those hooligans out there, and to those of you thinking about giving it a go, good luck.