This seems pretty obvious, but the article below provides a discussion of it.
Almost all of us have attended sporting events, football games for example, where the action of the game became so intense, so exciting for us, possibly in the closing moments of the game, that we became highly emotionally involved in the outcome.
We suddenly felt our hearts racing with excitement, pumping vigorously, as our team marched down the field, possibly to win in the closing seconds.
And what a relief we felt when the team did make the winning score, and our hearts and pulse rates rapidly calmed, and returned to normal.
But, according to the article below, if we have a heart condition, and we had put ourselves in the situation described above, we may have actually been putting ourselves into risking a potentially dangerous heart event.
From the article:
"Some studies have shown sporting events ... can lead to arrhythmias for certain die-hard fans and, in some cases, heart attacks."
"When there is an emotional attachment (as to a game), there can be emotional stress, and emotional stress is one of the triggers of cardiovascular events.”
"A study looked at heart-related deaths following two Super Bowl games involving Los Angeles teams. Researchers found death rates from heart attacks and ischemic heart disease in the city increased in 1980 after the Rams lost an intense championship match to the Pittsburgh Steelers."
“The prototypical sports fan is overweight, he's sedentary, doesn't exercise much, maybe has high blood pressure ... he’s older, a male and has a lot of cardiovascular risk factors to begin with.”Add to this that some winter sporting events take place in very cold, outdoor settings, such as football games in the northern U.S., and that's another potential cardiac stressor.
So what to do about
all this? The article lists a few common-sense strategies, such as people checking with their doctors for one's heart status and "... better addressing any heart disease risk factors they have."
But it would seem that the ultimate thing one can do is just to be aware of the potential for problems here, and not "overdo it" when cheering at games, and basically just be a bit more "mellow," or "chilled out," even when the action on the field is dramatic.
Hopefully none of this applies to any of us, or if it does, those of you so affected are probably already on top of this.
And maybe, hopefully, this problem isn't really a major cause of heart trouble events anyway, when compared with so many other life stressors that are.
But maybe it's also a worthwhile topic to discuss, especially at this time of year, when there is so much college and professional football, as well as other exciting sports, going on.
/www.heart.org/en/news/2018/09/07/are-die-hard-football-other-sports-fans-putting-their-hearts-at-risk