At a glance, it can feel as though there’s nothing inherently healthy about being interested in football. That’s often true, however, there are a lot of activities that are closely related to following football that can make it less healthy, including the way that you respond to the sport itself.
If you’re able to make yourself aware of these potential issues, you can then begin to improve the way you enjoy something so central to your life. Without getting rid of the football connection at all, you might be able to completely revitalize aspects of your mental health that might be damaged by it.
For some people, as much as they enjoy football, it might also be giving them an incredible amount of stress. Watching games and not knowing whether your team is going to win or lose, becoming angry upon a loss, or getting frustrated and involved with online discourse—all this can ultimately be damaging for your health. Therefore, it’s important that you know when to step back, take a breath, and maybe even take a break. Mindfulness can be incredibly helpful with this, but it’s something that takes time, meaning that you need to be patient and incorporate other activities like exercise, spending time in nature, and with friends, to get the most out of it.
Other times, if you feel as though stress is too deeply ingrained with your lifestyle, seeking out professional help and services can be a good way of getting started.
For many people, sports betting is an integral part of the football experience. If you’re looking to make healthy changes, however, you might look at how you can limit this to special occasions. If you get a better idea of when you look at football odds and bet on them, you can help to keep it isolated and novel rather than applying it to every game. Not only can this be a way of keeping this aspect more enjoyable, but it can also help you to save money, allowing you to focus on the sport itself for the most part, and creating a more balanced approach.
In some countries, such as the UK, the popular football following might go hand in hand with drinking culture. This can feel like part of the experience and part of the way you enjoy football with your friends, but at the same time, it’s something that can also exacerbate the stress that was mentioned earlier.
If you’re feeling as though you can’t enjoy football without drinking, it might be time to try and separate the two. Learning how to cut back on drinking can be difficult, especially when you feel as though it’s joined at the hip with your hobby, but once you get started, it’s a lifestyle shift that might not change the way you enjoy football as much as you think—you can even still spend time at pubs watching games.