I'm not a football fan, but I do enjoy watching the occasional match - espeically when England is playing.
And watching with friends makes it even more fun. Sharing the sense of expetation, the highs and lows seems to amplify them.
But this year although my local friends invited me to watch both the England / Columbia and England /Sweden games with them, I decided to watch them on my own. On a kind of gut instinct thing that I couldn't explain. Yes, I wanted to watch them with friends, and yet....
Half way through yesterday's match I realised why.
Sat in my living room half-watching it on the TV in the background while I did some cross-stitch I realised I had instinctively made some really wise condition management choices.
My PoTS (a type of autonomic dysfunction - see POTS UK for more info) is highly symptomatic due to this heat and I'm much more sensitive to all my usual triggers, including eating and sitting upright. But another trigger is stress - or excitement. Anything that gets adrenaline pumping. And while I love the hype of watching sport with friends, watching England in tense matches with some keen football fans would inevitably be adrenaline fuelled. I'd subconsciously realised that it would NOT be nice in reality. I would have spent both games a tacchycardic, dizzy, weak, nauseus mess from about 5 minutes in.
Even my cross-stitch was a condition management thing - preventing me from getting so involved in the the game that adrenaline would make me flop, but at the same time allowing me to watch it and enjoy it. So when we won I didn't yell and shout. I smiled to myself and gave a nod. We did it. Well done team.
It feels very odd writing this. It seems strange that by distancing myself I enjoyed it more. And yet, that is how it is.
So for our next match I will definitely be employing the cross stitch again!
And watching with friends makes it even more fun. Sharing the sense of expetation, the highs and lows seems to amplify them.
But this year although my local friends invited me to watch both the England / Columbia and England /Sweden games with them, I decided to watch them on my own. On a kind of gut instinct thing that I couldn't explain. Yes, I wanted to watch them with friends, and yet....
Half way through yesterday's match I realised why.
Sat in my living room half-watching it on the TV in the background while I did some cross-stitch I realised I had instinctively made some really wise condition management choices.
My PoTS (a type of autonomic dysfunction - see POTS UK for more info) is highly symptomatic due to this heat and I'm much more sensitive to all my usual triggers, including eating and sitting upright. But another trigger is stress - or excitement. Anything that gets adrenaline pumping. And while I love the hype of watching sport with friends, watching England in tense matches with some keen football fans would inevitably be adrenaline fuelled. I'd subconsciously realised that it would NOT be nice in reality. I would have spent both games a tacchycardic, dizzy, weak, nauseus mess from about 5 minutes in.
Even my cross-stitch was a condition management thing - preventing me from getting so involved in the the game that adrenaline would make me flop, but at the same time allowing me to watch it and enjoy it. So when we won I didn't yell and shout. I smiled to myself and gave a nod. We did it. Well done team.
It feels very odd writing this. It seems strange that by distancing myself I enjoyed it more. And yet, that is how it is.
So for our next match I will definitely be employing the cross stitch again!
Time for Wimbledon now
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