7 tips to deal with the heartbreak when your favourite team loses
Everyone who’s ever been into sports knows the trials and travails of following a sports team – the heartbreaks that follow defeats and the sheer euphoria that victory brings you. In the recent past, you’ll be feeling particularly low if you’re a Manchester United, Barcelona FC or an Indian cricket team supporter.
Losses however are inevitable and we have to learn to deal with them in a healthy manner. Here are 7 things that will help you cope with your favourite team’s loss:
1. Exercise
While hitting the gym might just be the last thing you want to do after watching your team lose, study after study has shown that exercise has immense health benefits including some immediate ones. Exercising will help release hormones which make you feel better. Some of them are:
Endorphins – feel-good hormones which block feelings of pain
Dopamine – hormones released when you feel pleasure, so working out will certainly help mitigate some of the pain of losing.
Serotonin – another chemical hormone which increases when you workout and will lead to more restful sleep.
2. Relive the past
This has been the Liverpool fans go-to therapy to stay happy for almost the last quarter of a century as they saw their hated northwest rivals Manchester United win again and again. Talk to any Liverpool supporter and the first thing they do is harp about their glorious past but that’s not a really bad way to deal with present failures. So next time your team loses, just watch some highlight reels of the glory years. Thankfully, Star Sports seems to have taken it upon itself to fulfil this wish for Indian cricket fans, and you can see India win the World Cup, again and again on one of their channels.
3. Realise it’s just a game
Many people – who’re not sports fans – often wonder what is wrong with die hard fans. After all, what’s football more than 20 guys chasing a spherical object or cricket more than a guy trying to hit a something out of the park? It’d be good to remember that there are far more important things in life than your team’s wins and losses. You have your studies, your job, your family or whatever else you care about other than some random group of individuals who earn insane amounts of money and probably don’t even care for you.
4. Write down your thoughts
While exercising is a great distraction for dealing with pent-up rage another way is to jot down your thoughts. Writing will help you channelize your thoughts and putting pen to paper is a harmless way to release your anger. Also, it could be a good way to start a blog or find a career in sports journalism.
5. Load up on feel-good foods
And when we say feel-good we don’t mean traditional junk foods like fries, burgers, samosas or pizza. While those foods might give you comfort for a short amount of time, they’re likely to cause obesity in the long run. Instead try out some foods like dark chocolate, nuts, spinach, green tea and fatty fish. All of them will help lower your stress levels without wrecking your health. Read more about foods to beat stress
6. Have sex
Sex is the all natural stress buster by releasing feel-good hormones like oxytocin and we’re pretty sure it’d distract you from your team’s travails as well. Along with that having sex has immense health benefits like boosting your immune system, helping you sleep better, making you more intelligent (which would make you realise it’s just a game) and even reducing the risk of heart disease. Read more about the health benefits of sex.
7. Think about the opposing fans
We know they are the last group of people you want to think about right now about but think about the sheer joy your opposing fans are feeling right now. Aren’t they allowed some semblance of joy? In fact, Indian fans lamenting the loss to Sri Lanka in the recent T20 final should just try to empathise with the agony that the Sri Lankan fans have gone through for the past few years. They lost the 2007 World Cup final, the 2009 World T20 final, the 2011 World Cup final and 2012 T20 final. Didn’t they finally deserve to sit on the throne?
Lastly, the kind of behaviour displayed by cricket fans when they pelted Yuvraj’s home with stones is downright despicable. How can fans forget that Yuvraj Singh was the same man who has led India to two World Cup victories and once hit six sixes in an over? Similarly, Manchester United fans would do well to remember the years of unprecedented success they’ve enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson’s tutelage.
The true sports fan isn’t one who celebrates one’s team’s victory and criticises them when they lose. A great team supporter is one who sticks by his team through thick and thin, through the bad and the good. Because that’s what true fans do.
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