Who’s your team? Packers? Steelers?
No matter where your allegiance lies, you may want to prepare for Sunday’s big game. Your life may depend on it. And no, that’s not hyperbole.
According to an article in The New York Times, watching the Super Bowl can be hazardous to your health, especially if your team loses. Research published in the medical journal Clinical Cardiology shows that for people over age 65, experiencing a vicarious Super Bowl loss increases the risk of death from all causes on Super Bowl day. (The good news is that if your team wins, the risk of death actually decreases on Super Bowl day.)
There is also an increased incidence of general stress, panic, and anxiety attacks.
“Many patients, it needs to be said, will be self-medicating,” said Ursula Bertrand, a psychologist in private practice in New York Times article]
To reduce Super Bowl-related stress and reduce the potential effects of Football Attention Neurosis (or F.A.N.), the article recommends these mostly tongue-in-cheek tactics to deal with the F.A.N. in your life:
Of course, if everyone in the household has a case of F.A.N., all bets are off.
But seriously, be aware of the potential for symptoms of heart attack. As the researchers of the death-and-Super Bowl study say, no one knows exactly why the extra deaths occur. It could be due in part to the usually high-fat, high-sodium, high-alcohol diet on game day. Or, it could be that the stress of watching your team lose (and perhaps losing money through gambling) is enough to push people with fragile health over the edge. The results were the same for men and women, which shows either that both sexes are equally invested in the Super Bowl, or that an uninvolved spouse reacts emotionally to the general high psychic pain that comes with a major loss.
It would be futile to ask you to keep the lid on your emotions this coming Sunday. But if you experience symptoms of heart attack, play it safe and call 911.