When Your Team Loses, Disappointment Can Lead To Genuine Grief

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 14 February 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Fans of the Cincinnati Bengals may be licking their wounds after Sunday's Super Bowl loss, but every sports fan can relate to the pain that follows a big game not going their way. And while it's normal to be upset, those feelings of disappointment can occasionally turn into grief and even depression.

Dr. Eric Zillmer, a professor of Neuropsychology at Drexel University, explains how the pandemic and brief pause on professional sports helped him understand just how strongly we rely on those games.

And Greg Miller, a licensed therapist, discusses ways to deal with grief from your team's loss in a healthy way. A lesson he's learned first hand.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Greg Miller grew up in San Francisco, which means he has always been a fan of the 49ers.
0:06.4	Throughout my childhood, the Niners were a grateful ball team.
0:09.9	They'd gone to Super Bowls.
0:10.9	They'd won Super Bowls.
0:12.2	But as an adult, Miller has experienced a lot of painful 49ers seasons.
0:17.9	So he was ecstatic.
0:19.5	When in 2013, the Niners were headed to New Orleans to play the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl
0:25.0	47.
0:26.3	He was living in New Jersey at the time, but he wanted to watch the game with a friendly
0:30.1	crowd.
0:31.1	I'd gone up to New York to a San Francisco 49ers establishment where it was just all
0:35.3	Niners fans.
0:36.3	And we are super pumped.
0:38.3	We're excited.
0:39.5	And then the first half they get blown out.
0:43.0	They're losing by at least 20 points.
0:46.0	And it's just bad.
0:47.0	And that was the year that they had the blackout at half time.
0:49.6	So there's this.
0:50.6	He is referring to what happened after Beyoncé's electrifying half-time performance.
0:55.5	When the power for half of the stadium went out for 34 minutes.
1:00.0	And Miller thought, maybe this is an act from God that they needed this time to clear
	...

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