By Melvin Durai
During football season, I find myself paying far less attention to politics. My wife would say that during football season I pay far less attention to everything, including whether I’m fully dressed. There’s a lot of truth in that. Football consumes most of my attention—and everything else takes a back seat. It’s a very narrow back seat, with politics being squeezed between music and funny animal videos. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because politics seems to be far less uplifting than sports.
A sports team or individual athlete can unite people, bringing together fans of different races, religions and political affiliations. If you have a favourite athlete, you probably don’t care which temple or church they attend. You just admire their talent and athletic feats. Sports is full of inspirational stories. Just the other day, I read about Minakshi Hooda, a 24-year-old from Haryana who won a gold medal at the 2025 World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England. Hooda’s father is an auto-rickshaw driver, and she’s the first member of her family to be involved in sports. Imagine the obstacles she faced, none bigger than convincing her parents that it was okay to let her hit other people. Dad: “Who are you going to be hitting?” Daughter: “Other girls.” Dad: “What if they call the police?” Daughter: “They won’t. No phones in the ring.” It’s worth noting that politics occasionally gives us inspirational stories too. How can you not be inspired by Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old Indian-American politician who came out of nowhere to win the Democratic nomination and become the overwhelming favourite in New York City’s mayoral race? Before he started campaigning for mayor, Mamdani was given as much chance of winning as a Maruti racing against a Lamborghini. (It turns out that the Lamborghini in Mamdani’s race, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was running out of petrol, while the Maruti was electric.) Why are inspirational stories important? Because they give us hope. They show us what’s possible if we work hard and keep striving toward a goal. If a blind woman can swim across the English Channel, as Melanie Barratt did last year, it gives me hope that one day, with many hours of training, I can swim all the way across my local public pool. Inspirational stories don’t just give us hope—they also help reduce our stress. That’s what a new study published in the Psychology of Popular Media, a publication of the American Psychological Association, suggests.
About 1,000 adults participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of four groups. One group watched an inspiring video, no longer than five minutes, every day for five days. A second group meditated for a few minutes each day. A third group watched a few minutes of comedy, while the final group chose their own mobile media content. The researchers found that people who watched the inspiring videos (including the story of a cancer survivor who climbed Mount Everest) felt more hopeful. “And that hope predicted lower stress over the next ten days,” study author Robin Nabi of University of California Santa Barbara told NPR.
Comparing the results from the first and second groups, the researchers found that watching inspiring videos was just as effective as meditation, at least for creating hope and reducing stress. “We were actually quite surprised at how similar the effects of the inspiring videos were to the group that meditated,” Nabi said. In contrast, the group that watched comedy didn’t gain much hope, similar to the group that watched whatever they wanted. What the study shows is that it’s important to spend your time wisely. If you can’t meditate, do the next best thing: watch football. Trust me, it can inspire you.
