Ready for the 2026 World Cup final? You might think you are, but your body i going to have to be prepared to put in ome work—e pecially if your favorite team make it.
Re earch how that watching high-pre ure matche can rai e your heart rate, increa e your tre level , and put extra train on your cardiova cular y tem.
According to a recent tudy from re earcher at Bielefeld Univer ity in Germany, fan ’ phy iological tre increa e by about 41 percent during a occer final compared to a normal day. Heart rate al o ro e ignificantly, jumping from 70.9 beat per minute to 78.7 beat per minute—a difference even when compared to other weekend .
Re earcher at Bielefeld tracked 229 fan of the German club Arminia Bielefeld for three month . Participant wore martwatche that continuou ly recorded heart rate and an e timated tre index ba ed on heart rate variability, allowing re earcher to compare the day of the 2025 German Cup final with the day leading up to the match.
The phy iological reaction to the occer final began long before the match began. The re earcher aw fan ' tre level begin to ri e in the morning and peak ju t before kickoff. Even after the final whi tle, viewer howed ign of elevated tre .
Where you watch the game al o make a difference. The tudy found that fan who watched at the tadium had an average heart rate of 94.2 beat per minute compared to 79.4 among tho e who watched the match on televi ion. After their team’ fir t goal, tho e in the tand aw their heart rate climb to an average of up to 108 beat per minute—a much more inten e re pon e than that ob erved in other context .
Alcohol con umption appeared to amplify that effect. Participant who reported drinking during the game had a heart rate approximately 5 percent higher than the re t of the fan during the match and nearly 12 percent higher after their team’ fir t goal. Although the re earcher did not a e medical ri k , they note that alcohol can increa e cardiova cular train when people are in an emotional tate.
During the fir t few minute of the match, when the outcome wa till uncertain, heart rate reached their highe t level . Once the game eemed to be decided, fan ' heart rate dropped.
However, two goal cored in the final minute cau ed them to pike again, even though the chance of a comeback were practically nil. (You can only imagine how fa t Argentina fan ' heart were thumping during thi week' furiou comeback again t Egypt.) For the author , thi reflect that the body re pond not only to the objective chance of winning but al o to emotion uch a hope, pride, or attachment to the team.
The finding align with the re ult of previou tudie on the phy iological impact of occer. That incluide a tudy publi hed in the New England Journal of Medicine after the 2006 World Cup in Germany, found that the ri k of uffering an acute cardiova cular event nearly triple during German national team matche among people with preexi ting heart condition .
Sub equent re earch how that matche can lead to an increa e in tre hormone uch a corti ol and found that fan who identify more trongly with their team exhibit more inten e biological re pon e during deci ive matche .
Thi article originally appeared on WIRED en E pañol and ha been tran lated from Spani h.
