14 ms·
When You Watch Sports, Your Brain Thinks You’re Playing
- baby 8y agoSo is it a good way to lose weight :)?
- dragonwriter 8y agoNo, because “brain” and “muscles” are different things. In fact, it's the opposite, it's a way to satisfy a desire which would reinforce health and weight loss, without actually reaping any of the benefits.
- buckminster 8y agoDidn't some recent research show that merely visualising exercise had measurable physical benefits?
- spydum 8y agoIf I recall it was about weight lifting and mentally visualizing the lifts in tandem with actual exercise. Pretty sure just thinking by itself did nothing. So, it was three way comparison (lifting alone, visualizing plus lifting, and just visualizing). Edit: this is not that study but, along the same lines .. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14998709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14998709/ pretty tiny sample though
- lihaciudaniel 8y agoYes great productive things to do when resting, visualizing the movement. There also was a great book about this which is oriented more to athletic skills. https://youtu.be/nslkvLsupJU https://youtu.be/nslkvLsupJU
- fjsolwmv 8y agoIn general, visualization improves performance of ant activity.
- watwut 8y agoThe benefit is supposed to be that your technique will be better. Your muscles won't become stronger unless you exercise them.
- corin_ 8y agoThere is actually some reason to believe that imagining can increase the strength, for example this study: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814100324/http://jn.physiology.org/content/67/5/1114 https://web.archive.org/web/20170814100324/http://jn.physiol...
- olavgg 8y agoI watch fotball while exercising on my spinning bike. Highly recommend!
- mpweiher 8y agoProbably the opposite, because your brain thinks it did exercise, so: hungry! Except you didn't actually burn the calories...
- Proven 8y agoThat's why I watch porn
- agumonkey 8y agoas a teen it was so strong for soccer that I could keep my legs from hitting the table legs when eating dinner
- 83457 8y agoI wrestled growing up and did some grappling. When watching MMA matches for years i could not sit still once they hit the ground. Was like I was working through the movements I wanted them to make. Would drive my wife crazy sitting beside me. It was all subconscious... usually just tensing my muscles and leaning a certain direction plus my hands would get clamy. My wife would have to point out to me what I was doing and i'd try to control myself lol
- agumonkey 8y agoyeah, you're in it mentally, at least you want to be
- fjsolwmv 8y agoWhat does this mean? Do people usually kick table legs while earing?
- agumonkey 8y agoI was so drawn by the game that I couldn't keep my legs from doing what I'd do if I was on the pitch. Eco friendly VR if you will
- gustavmarwin 8y agoCan we get the brain excited about positive-sum games? Dogs can run after a ball, maybe as humans we can do better? Maybe we ought to do much better?
- supergirl 8y agono, it doesn't...
- fooker 8y agoI used to play football (soccer, not hand-egg) a long time ago. When watching football, I still see my reflexes, especially on my left foot, getting into overdrive when some player is about to kick a ball without much warning.
- eikenberry 8y agoDidn't click through did you... the title is misleading, it is only rabid sports fans that display this not everyone.
- jcims 8y agoIt’s not just sports, this happens with YouTube for me. Somehow watching people do cool things with CNC sates my desire to spend $15K on a Tormach.
- lobotryas 8y agoLet's be fair. Even if those videos weren't there the chances of most people investing 15k on the hope of sticking to learning a complex skill are slim.
- abakker 8y agoFrom the other side: watched the videos, bought a ton of stuff to have my own machine shop. Now the videos are even more relevant - it’s the little things that mean so much. (Like the fun tricks to know something is parallel or square or the different ways to measure something). It was really expensive, and I already had a background in automotive work and woodwork to some degree, and a decent IT skill set, but damn, machining is really gratifying.
- jcims 8y agoY'all are supposed to be talking me OUT of spending money. :P
- fjsolwmv 8y agoPeople in general love buying home gyms and computers and clothes and vehicles and stuff they never use to their potential.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- SamReidHughes 8y agoI happens with programming for me too. I can't watch The Social Network without pausing it and thinking I need to go code something.
- TheJoYo 8y agowhen I'm playing Mario Cart my brain thinks throwing shells is a reasonable method of dealing with traffic.
- supergirl 8y agothe word brain appears once in the article content, once in the title and once in an ad...
- Godel_unicode 8y agoIt appears twice in the article, along with the words neurochemicals and neuroscience. Thank goodness clippy isn't in charge of rating scholastic merits. Edit: also biochemistry, biochemical...
- hrktb 8y agovery interesting study. A caveat to the title: > And the rules don’t apply as well to casual fans, Wann cautions. “This effect is most prominent among those who are most intense. In order to really reap the well-being benefits of fan identification, it needs to be a central part of your overall social identity.” The biochemical aspects of fandom only serve to reinforce those good feelings. It’s not just watching sports, you need to be fully invested in the experience in the first place. I think the same would be true to anything we truely engage, like a chess or shogi live streams, or really anything we intimately associate with.
- craftyguy 8y agoLike politics (at least in the US). The similarities between fanatic sports fans and fanatic political party 'members'/voters are quite great. Voters generally want their 'team' to win, even if they know nothing substantial about the candidate on the 'team' they are voting for.
- stemcc 8y agoSadly true. One can't help but fear the dark extremities of this identification.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- quasarj 8y agoVery interesting! I was going to propose that maybe this is why watching sports (including esports) is not something I am the least bit interested in. I was going to say, maybe my brain doesn't work like it's supposed to... but maybe I just never got into it.
- taeric 8y agoDo those have to be competing statements? Maybe you never got into sports because your brain doesn't work that way?
- 8y ago
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 8y agoDoes it? I get bored to death and start asking myself why I'm not playing rather than watching others playing
- corobo 8y agoIt's specifically about fans though - you have to be absolutely fanatical about the sport. If you're bored to death you're not into the sport, so you don't get the same effect
- isostatic 8y agoI get bored to death whether I've been forced to watch football or play football. Not sure what's worse. Fortunately haven't been forced to do sport since I was 14.
- emilfihlman 8y agoNot really surprised since we can learn by watching.
- ronnier 8y agoI'm happy I do not watch sports and have no desire to do so.
- davidpaulyoung 8y agoThe same happens when listening to a singing performance. Citation not offered.
- daledavies 8y agoIf this is something you're interested in, I'm sure you'll find that citation in this book... https://global.oup.com/academic/product/generative-processes-in-music-9780198508465?cc=gb&lang=en&# https://global.oup.com/academic/product/generative-processes...
- mjfern 8y agoMaybe this is why toddlers love to watch shows like Ryan's Toy Review on YouTube, which is just a kid playing with a variety toys with his parents.
- randie63 8y agoIts sad that the parent's aren't playing with the toddler in the first place and let him watch videos instead. Someday if I decide when its time to get kids, I want to be in a position where I can have as much time as I want for the kids.
- Vaskivo 8y agoI believe that is correct. First link from searching "why kids like unboxing videos": https://www.mother.ly/parenting/science-explains-why-your-kids-love-watching-unboxing-videos https://www.mother.ly/parenting/science-explains-why-your-ki...
- lgregg 8y agoIt happened with me last night watching the movie Skyscraper, I could feel my body twitching during the fight scenes.
- 27182818284 8y agoI haven't skateboarded in more than a decade, but I've noticed that if I walk by a good looking handrail or concrete ledge, my brain still automatically starts picturing 50/50 grinds, different tail-slide combinations, and more. I didn't play football in high school, but I have to imagine it is something similar that continues on.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoThere was a time when I was downright obsessed with co-op armed robbery video game Payday 2, and even months after I stopped playing, I could hardly enter a bank lobby or art gallery without starting to "case the joint".
- Wingman4l7 8y agoWhat did your brain do whenever you saw an armored car? :P
- Bradenski 8y agoI skated for most of my youth and have the same thing going on. I was very happy when someone from my area won SOTY also. I don't really see the same magnitude of fandom during SLS ever occuring. Sometimes people really hate Nyjah or really fan boy for Joslin. Maybe we'll see regional skateboarding teams in the future, but for now we can enjoy skateboarding purely being about the talent. The Olympics will definitely test the waters for this.
- smbullet 8y agoIs this a bot?
- slow_donkey 8y ago? It's mostly coherent. Maybe this is what technical talk sounds like to non-technical people.
- gukov 8y agoSimilar can be sad about people getting emotional when watching something like the Bachelorette (or anything sad/happy, really) no?
- Bluestrike2 8y agoOr reading.[0][1][2] When we read a book, we put ourselves into the positions of the characters and our brains react as if it were so. 0. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/brain.2013.0166 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/brain.2013.0166 1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-reading-literary-fiction-improves-empathy/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-rea... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuros...
- Eric_WVGG 8y agoThat certainly explains the success of “competence porn” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744879/Are-you-hooked-on-competence-porn.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744879/Are-yo...
- paganel 8y agoI think it’s more than just a combination of happy vs unhappy, I can personally confirm that the testosterone buildup from watching a sports match of a team you really care about (even on tv) is very much real. But, just as the study says, you need to not be just a casual watcher, you need to be “invested”, to have a real “feel” for the game. Just as an example, I’ve had nightmares after this spring’s Real vs Juventus Champions League match which saw the Italians get eliminated in the 92nd minute after a questionable penalty call (I’m a Juve fan) and to this day my heart still feels a little contraction, so to speak, a little “what could have been?”, when thinking about how the Swedes equalized us, Romanians, in the QF of the 1994 World Cup after an error from our goalkeeper (if he hadn’t committed that error we would have faced the Brazilians in the semis, meaning a literal dream come true for us). There have been 24 years since then but the feeling is still inside of me, and I think it will stay with me until the day I’ll walk off this planet. Sports and caring about sports can be both one of the most beautiful and one of the most painful experiences in one’s life.
- AndrewUnmuted 8y agoThis lines up well with McLuhan's revelation that the search for identity is usually correlated with violence [0]. By recognizing organized sports as a "highly-organized form of violence" (his words) you can start to see the corollary. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULI3x8WIxus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULI3x8WIxus
- extralego 8y agoOof. That is a heavy 6:40 clip of discourse. Thanks for sharing.
- baxtr 8y agoIn that sense FIFA is the world’s most successful peace organization funneling national violence into sports
- AndrewUnmuted 8y agoThis isn't that crazy of a concept, to me. FIFA does achieve rather stunning results, given its breadth. Though I do hear about conspiracies involving fixed games and about FIFA corruption from time to time, I imagine that they've done a lot more good for the world recently than the UN has. Edit: Sports are in general associated with some meaningful global events. The Olympics recently demonstrated this fact w/r/t North Korea.
- ResearchAtPlay 8y agoI imagine that they've done a lot more good for the world recently than the UN has No, they have not! I am not sure by what metric one can compare FIFA and the United Nations, but I don't think you you are familiar with the breadth of the UN's work. Selected achievements from their results page [1]: -Every year we mobilize about $7 billion in humanitarian aid to help people affected by emergencies. -Every year we assist over 34 million refugees and others fleeing war, famine and persecution. -We vaccinate 40% of the world’s children, saving 2 million lives a year. -In 2011 the UN will provide food to around 90 million people in 73 countries. -In the past few years, the UN has expanded legal international rights to indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, migrants and their families. FIFA is merely better at marketing... [1]http://www.un.org/en/strengtheningtheun/results.shtml http://www.un.org/en/strengtheningtheun/results.shtml
- sk_hazratali 8y agoYes its true. Shadi Shuda Zindagi Khushgawar Banane Ke Liye Nabvi Nuskha https://www.sherekhudahazratali.com/2018/07/shadi-shuda-zindagi-khushgawar-banane-ke-liye-nabvi-nuskha.html https://www.sherekhudahazratali.com/2018/07/shadi-shuda-zind...
- nitwit005 8y ago"When You Watch Sports, Your Brain Thinks You’re Playing" doesn't match the article title, or appear in the text.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoBoth studies were of groups as a subset of larger groups. That is, these fans were not individuals home alone. I'm curious to know how that might effect their body's reactions.
- tempz 8y agoAnd you watch porn, your brain thinks you are ....
- kilovoltaire 8y agoOnly half relevant, but I'm reminded of "body english" > bodily motions made in a usually unconscious effort to influence the progress of a propelled object (such as a ball)
- buboard 8y agowhen your brain watches anything, it thinks it is doing it. There is no reason to have 2 brains, just because of TV and cinema exist. next up, you lose weight by watching people run. although i think believe someone has shown that already.
- djmips 8y ago"it has been found that people who had watched promotional exercise videos tended to consume more calories than they would normally, despite having not done any exercise themselves" https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2016/nov/02/why-dont-people-always-lose-weight-when-they-run https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/20...
- kleiba 8y agoUnfortunately, my hips don't.
- cbanek 8y agoI wonder if this is why watching video games / e-Sports is also getting popular, even though people complain there's not much physical skill involved. (Yes, I do watch professional gaming myself)
- eduren 8y agoAs both a traditional sports fan and esports fan I agree that it can invoke the same responses. I see the "lack of physical skill" argument a lot and my typical argument against it is endurance and mental performance. Esports players at their peak train for 8+ hours a day and can compete for 4+ in some longer events. Doing anything with your body for that long takes physical and mental conditioning. I also see a lot of traditional sports detractors saying "What's the point of just watching someone play the video game, seems boring" and it really blows my mind how much of a disconnect there is.
- chupasaurus 8y ago>can compete for 4+ in some longer events. Dota's TI2 had a weird schedule where winner of lower bracket had to play 2 Bo3 and Grand Final at the same day. And that team won the tournament!
- moretai 8y agoI don't think there should even be a debate about what's nobler, purer, or whatever for physical vs mental, athlete vs nerd. There is something that seems to be pervasive in all forms of competition, and that is domination. We've all felt it if you have played any sort of competitive game. Basketball to call of duty. That feeling of helplessness, or that rush of just straight up beasting. And if you can harness that domination, there seems to be an avenue for money. Soccer, COD , Halo. Competition has a tendency to funnel money.
- APCarr 8y agoOne thing I have noticed is when watching helmet-cam footage of my own rides off-road here in Borneo I get tensed up, hyper-vigilant about the terrain, angle of the bike, gear and revs etc. I KNOW exactly what is going to happen, I KNOW I'm watching a recording, yet even when making an effort not to, I still notice my body is reacting and effectively re-living the experience. Spooky.
- adreamingsoul 8y agonot for me
- xfer 8y agoOne of the reasons why "backseat-gaming" is used a lot in online gaming when someone streams.
- retox 8y agoI read a paper more than a decade ago about monitoring simian brains. They noticed (I think it was by accident) that when a chimp watched another eat an ice-cream, the same areas of the brain 'lit up' as if the chimp itself was eating. It makes sense when you think about how invested people can get in their favourite characters in TV and film.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoThis would explain why watching your favorite sports team lose has been shown to lower testosterone.
- pretendscholar 8y agoI shudder to think what watching the Redskins year after year has done to my body then.
- joncrane 8y agoIt raises your testosterone when they win, though!
- mfsch 8y agoThe whole notion of “your brain thinks …” is a common interpretation of fMRI studies, but I think it is not very accurate or useful. It contains the idea that what your brain does is somehow separate from what “you” are thinking and doing. In practice, what we see in fMRI pictures is just the what the current thinking and activity looks like in the brain. So even if you saw the same patterns of activity for people watching and playing sports, that wouldn’t mean that the brain “thinks you are playing”, it just means that your thinking might be similar during both activities. As others have mentioned the article does not reference the title, so this is a comment on the title only.
- taneq 8y ago> It contains the idea that what your brain does is somehow separate from what “you” are thinking and doing It's like those studies that can detect decision making a split second before the person is consciously aware that they've made the decision. It's usually presented as "'you' don't really make the decision", as if that person exists apart from their brain.
- mc32 8y ago>can detect decision making a split second before the person is consciously aware that they've made the decision. I think the revelation is that the decision people make is the negative one, that the affirmative one is the default and the negative one is the one which requires conscious effort.
- ggg9990 8y agofMRI studies are like studies showing which transistors are active during certain computations. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t.
- Negative1 8y agoRight, seems like a better way to describe this is to say "Watching sports activates the same neural pathways as playing sports".
- 8y ago
- snek 8y agothis reminds me of that old article about exercising your thumb vs imagining exercising your thumb... can't find the link to it though
- djmips 8y agoI used to twitch when I watched hockey, when the pass came and I shot. I was fully aware that I was 'playing' at that time.
- poe876 8y agoI've observed this many times while watching the game.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DoingIsLearning 8y agoIf you are interested in reading more there is a lot of research in this area, which would fall under the search term "mental imagery".
- pavbelshippable 8y agoWhat about when we are playing games online? See what I believe is, we can apply this concept to everything in life. When you watch someone singing, if you know the song lyrics then you try to sing along in your head. So yes, it is about the way our subconscious mind works. It is something like this quote, "If you think you are beaten, you are If you think you dare not, you don't If you want to win but think, you won't it is almost a cinch you won't." Your mind acts according to you, and it is all about your involvement.
- APCarr 8y agoThe basic concept has been known to copywriters for a long time. It can be used to create a sense of ownership by encouraging the reader to 'experience' the product being sold, just like you're more likely to buy a product after playing with it in a store. The effect is weak but it certainly does exist.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agoYour brain reacts as if you're playing.
- bedane 8y agoOK What about porn?
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoAh! That's why I have no affinity for sports. Never played much. Basketball is just 10 guys running up and down the court, almost always making a basket. Yet for my friend Dean, he's leaning and jerking in his seat, experiencing every moment. Plays a lot.
- mkane848 8y agoEh, I play a lot and still don't particularly care for watching most of the time. At least not enough to be invested enough for a season. I'd rather play than watch, though oddly enough I do enjoy watching Counter-Strike (which I also play, though not nearly to the same level I got with sports)
- Kagerjay 8y agoThere really should be a comparison between both traditional sports, and eSports. My first esports (Dota TI internationals in seattle) outing really felt like I was actually playing. I could appreciate all the moves that were being made even if I couldn't actually do it in front of a computer. Because esports is mostly done also sitting on a computer, there's also less of a "barrier" than say in watching soccer. You aren't actively moving while watching soccer
- isostatic 8y agoI suspect that this is related to this: "Research into the link between domestic abuse and the football has shown that reports of domestic abuse increase when the England team win or lose a football match and that the instances increase with every World Cup tournament." https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/world-cup-2018-england-matches-domestic-violence-surge-football-police-a8405871.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/world-cup-2018-engl...
- m0rphy99 8y agoIn soccer you often see the coach standing on the side of the pitch trying to do an imaginary heading of the ball when one of his players has a clear opportunity to score, as if he's playing himself. Our brain is funny sometimes.
- return_True 8y agoAfter 10 years of coaching youth sports and observing parents, I think this has something to do with 'mirror neurons', the ability of our brain to watch, learn from and empathize with others. Just like you have an immersive effect with a sci-fi movie and empathize with the characters and feel their plights, so do sports fans. When it's your kid playing of course, it's intensified. Of course, many are just straight up living vicariously through their kids.