Whether you are a football fan or not, most of us will be engaged to some degree in England’s World Cup match this weekend. We wish them luck.
There is something rather special about collective and shared experiences on a mass level. We may not realise it, but watching something in a big crowd or as part of a group has huge benefits for our wellbeing and health; and that doesn’t just come from a positive outcome. With a negative outcome, we have a shared experience of understanding and the opportunity to process and recover with others – plus a sense of solidarity. With a positive outcome, we have the benefits of cumulative joy, a sense of belonging and bonding whereby our relationships become stronger through shared experience.
Science backs this up, and not just when it comes to our mental or emotional health, but also our physical experience. In one study, world class rowing teams exercised either solo or as a group, and results showed that the threshold the group rowers experienced pain at was twice as high as the solo rowers. Another study, focused on specific shared physical movements in a rugby team, found that when the team warmed up using moves that were synchronised, their sprint run rate was faster.
