Flickr:M.Gruber

By: Eric Bitet, LMHC, MA, MPH

Are you a Phillies or Yankees fan? Have you been watching every out during this year’s World Series games? Do you often find yourself tense and stressed from following the games? Are you yelling at the TV as if they can actually hear you?  Do you find it painful or even irritating when your team is losing and does losing affect the quality of sleep or your mood the following day? If your answers to some of these questions are yes then you are definitely a sports fanatic or “fan” and take your sports very serious (to the point where the fun can be taken out of it).

But is this worth it or even healthy?  If you ask the millions of sports fans across the world why they take sports so seriously and what they get out of it, they might look at you strange or tell you that they do not care. They may say that it is ‘just sports’ and that they feel a sense of connection with these teams. It may just be the social or psychological side of it which can maintain bonds with family and friends.

There is research that indicates that there is another side of being a sports fanatic that might not be so healthy!  Many sports fans can become angry and experience increased levels of stress when their teams are not winning.  These increased stress levels can have negative implications on your health including an increased risk of heart attack.  According to a 2006 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Gerhard Steinbeck, a cardiologist, and his colleagues from Maximilian University in Munich, Germany there can be significant hazards to being a sports fan.  The study monitored the emergency rooms of local Munich area hospitals for heart attacks, chest pain, and major heart-rhythm disturbances during World Cup soccer games.  Their research found a significant increase of cardiac cases on days when the German national team played.  The data concluded that soccer fans had an increased risk of heart attacks during the World Cup championship games as cardiac problems were way up on days when Germany was playing verses days when there was no game.  Dr. Steinbeck stated that the German national team playing in the World Cup soccer games “put the whole nation in stress” exemplified by this spike in cardiac related visits to the emergency rooms.

Is it possible that sports can have this much of an effect on our bodies?  The next time you are watching a sporting event and are getting excited and stressed or are around someone else who is stressed over the “big game” think about what this level of stress is doing to your health.  How is it affecting our cardiovascular system?  What kind of effect is this stress having on our hearts? It would be really interesting to see this type of research replicated across different geographic locations and sports to compare the results to the above study.

So how do you think sports affect you or your friends and family?