Sports & Modern Life

Sports & Modern Life

Looking back a couple of generations, sports and sports persons were an oddity. Someone wearing a tracksuit or sports jersey earned looks of respect from all around. In fact in India, sports men were a rare breed, sportswomen- museum pieces. Gymnasia, were those spectacles found only in big cities and very few worked out. Even those joggers or walkers, so common on the streets today were rare or virtually non-existent those days.

Yet the people were by and large healthy. The few Diabetics or Hypertensives were considered as patients and were taken great care of, not to mention people with cardiac conditions. So what happened during these three or four decades, that changed everything?

Life then was a lot easier. Mankind was just beginning to enjoy the fruits of the use of automobiles, computers and long distance communication. Many worked in farms and fields. Even the officers working in swank offices of the day had time for gardening and time to relax with friend and family. They breathed oxygen rich fresh air and drank clean unpolluted water. Illnesses were exceptions, not the norm. Work even in high pressure jobs took good care of the physical and emotional needs of the employees.

A reckless human race, riding on the rapid growth of science and technology, went bang on with with a program of progress that had no heed either for nature or even for the fragile human minds or health. Three decades of air and water pollution, nearly as many decades of tension filled, sedentary life styles, have made much of humanity ill. Work became restricted to networked computers and communication over mobile phones with multiple functions. You no longer had to walk to the nearest station or carry copies of orders to the boss’s desk. You were chained to your desk, expected to deliver impossible goals, gorging on unhealthy fast food. Humanity as a whole turned ill. It is not uncommon to see adolescents, even school going kids, with diabetes or hypertension. People are on the desperate lookout for health and fitness.

Sports today is no longer an activity of fun, it is an essential for every life. It has proven it worth, nay, its indispensability, over the last few decade. Be it on the health, career, social or emotional front, sports has evolved as the sure fire antidote. Health obviously comes first in the list, but it may be worthwhile to realize that the social, career and most importantly, emotional can give it a hard run for the money.

Exercise that accompanies all sporting activities, offset the negative effects imposed upon us by the sedentary work and lifestyles of the times. The simple activity of flexing and moving your muscles and bones can make a huge difference to your life, if done regularly. This streamlines your body functions, regulates your heartbeat and breath rates. It burns the unused calories that you have built up by unhealthy and irregular eating habits.

Another need of the ages is the need to develop career attributes. Sporting activities, especially team sporting, sets common objectives, defined roles and responsibilities. These are very much akin to the work culture in new age corporates. Today’s businesses and corporates function not according to the system of preset hierarchies of the earlier days but as teams. Being a member of a sporting team helps build up the aptitude for such group actions. It adds to your social and corporate skills in work and life culture.

Sporting especially for youngster is of vital importance, socially. It inhibits them from getting involved in unhealthy habits like smoking or consumption of alcohol and the dangerous habit of drug abuse. Equally important are the social skills you pick up from the sports field. Sports field are the breeding ground of healthy camaraderie, based on healthy activity and not on sharing of abusive substances. There are hardly any divides on the sporting field, on the ground of class, creed or religion and this helps build a rich social culture.

Perhaps a great reversal in importance is the emotional quotient that, is positively impacted by sporting activities. Sporting fits the bill as the great equalizer in the management of emotions. Being involved in sport ensures that you imbibe the skill of being able to take failure with success. It also acts as a great controller of temper and emotions as the physical exertion cols down your emotions to a healthy level. Essentially it means that it make you emotionally stable.

The aging man who takes a walk every day evening and the young lad on the football ground, both are achievers. Through their sweat, they are both keeping their mental and physical health intact, while adding to the wealth of social and livelihood skill.

Viva le sport!!!