agree i think it definitely has an impact.

I like to think that the impact is relatively small but it is important to try and manage it and tell myself "it's just a game" but would be lying if I said it doesn't impact my mood a little from time to time

There was a survey about 2 years ago SuperG. Similar reception. In an age when many young people have mental health issues and don't talk about them, the reception for a mental health survey is to ignore it 🙁

Here's the abstract for you (I added the ***** to emphasise the key bit)

"
Fantasy football (“soccer” in North America, Australasia, and certain other countries) is a rapidly growing online game with over seven million individuals playing the Official Premier League version alone. Whilst there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence associating the game with mental health concerns, to date there has been no empirical research conducted in this field. This study aimed to address this by having fantasy football players (N = 1995) complete questionnaires measuring low mood, anxiety, functional impairment, and problematic behavior in relation to playing the game.

*****
Descriptive statistics revealed that only a minority of players experienced mental health concerns toward fantasy football; however, it was also found that individuals who engaged most in fantasy football (i.e., high time spent playing, researching, and thinking about the game) had significantly worse mental health scores toward the game than those who engaged less. Interestingly, experience in fantasy football showed the opposite effect. It may be that players of fantasy football establish coping mechanisms over time or develop an emotional numbness to the game.
*****

Future research should explore this, as well as investigate other factors (such as in-game success, social media use, and perceived locus of control) that may impact the feelings of low mood, anxiety, functional impairment, and problematic behavior that can exist when playing fantasy football.
"

I have no idea what 'significantly worse mental health scores toward the game' means though

Feeling relatively indifferent about this season so far as it’s been very unordinary languishing at 3m in rank.

I know in the past if I’m doing well and have a bad week I’ll ignore all things fantasy football until the next week. Equally, if I have a good week, I’ll be glued to all things fantasy football.

A ‘bad’ decision does definitely linger on the mind over a weekend as the games are unfolding. Definitely just need to take a step back sometimes and focus on other things

I went Cucu and it made me cuckoo

😆

Here's my take on it as an FPL veteran.

Everybody's going to have good game weeks and bad game weeks over the course of the season. Enjoy the good weeks and suck up the bad weeks. If it starts bothering me I just do something else to occupy my mind and stay positive. After all, happiness is a mood, positivity is a mindset.

I think there’s a few ways to help with mental health.

1. if you’re not a content creator (and even then, it’s a stretch) nobody cares about your rank except yourself.

One good season will be more fulfilling compared to all the other seasons that are relatively average.

2. Make your own decisions. Therefore, all you’ve got to do is place responsibility in your hands

3. Fill your team with as many players that will make you frustrated if they score, or you’re really really worried about doing well. Set that with ownership to help how important having a player in your team is

3. Accept and embrace that FPL is a super difficult game, and especially with 9m+ players it is even harder. One bad decision can be BRUTAL. Anticipate this, and anticipate the fact you can make silly mistakes.

4. Try and identify what makes you enjoy the game.

E.g., are you all about rank at any cost or do you get your highs from differential picks, including captaincy.

5. Set targets and stop comparing yourself to others.

When u have a bad gw, just learn something, set your team and leave FPL for 4-5 days. Do not watch / listen to podcast, twitter, ffs etc.

Thats what I do a few days ago and now when recover, yeah it feels much better. Feel very happy and I keep talking about my green arrows to my wife. 🙂 Luckily, she understand and have her own team too.

Love your post and that it started a conversation on the article.
Will be doing survey and checking out link posted below.
I tend to play the game as an escape from real world stuff, but dont stress if my team does poorly or if i make a bad transfer.

If anyone is having mental health issues, please seek proper health and don't DM the Twitter charlatans who pretend to care about mental health whilst spamming gambling adverts every 10 minutes.

It's a really strange way to run the forum. I'd like to see separate sections for article-specific discussion and general discussion. It's so odd that any high-effort post has to be sticked or it's completely flooded with RMTs and 3 word posts. Not that those don't have a place on the site, but they shouldn't limit actual discussion once the next page is hit.

Anyway, your point. It's varied for me over time. In general my mood isn't affected, but the seasons pre and post pandemic I definitely cared too much and it stressed me out. The seasons outside of those, it's fairly mellow. I've never liked to follow the crowd and love to make decisions without thinking, so I kind of accept my rank has a built-in penalty.

Occasionally there'll be an isolated incident that'll bother me. Funnily enough I don't mind bench points at all, or players that I nearly bought but didn't scoring well. I see those as good thinking by me, but just not quite lined up. A red card or missed penalty is most likely to make me wring my hands.

Digne scoring an OG late into the game when I also had both him and Cash on for 2bps, when my entire pre-season plan was to go heavy on Villa and WC GW4? That thoroughly annoyed me. Probably the most pissed off I've been at FPL in a long time, since it wasn't really a bad decision by me (like never buying Son or Bowen last season). Was just unfortunate. Makes you feel powerless. Going Mitrovic instead of Jesus GW2 and him ending with a minus score compared to 19 points made it a legendarily frustrating GW.

It's a game, when the fun stops, stop!

My mental health is seriously affected by foo fighter. Does that count?

Need to try and keep the game at arm’s length.
Only look at it occasionally and ofc near deadline

Ok on a very basic level I have learned that, money leagues and mini leagues in general with friends and colleagues can and do have a massive effect on my mental health. So much so in fact that I now just don’t participate in any of them. I instead play purely for O/R and have found that works much much better for me. On coping with horrendous gw scores and the outrageous slings and arrows of red cards (yes I had Darwin) and captain fails I have learned to delete tabs, close down research done and simply walk away for as long as I can before I get back on it. I have deleted my team and made 15 transfers to demolish my team in previous years (Gerrard missed pen and blank in a dgw) springs to mind from previous years. It can be tough and not at all as easy as the coping strategies I’ve listed. I guess learning the triggers and spotting them is always a preferred option but again, just last week with my mental health failing miserably I found myself in a wildcard that inevitably found me struggling massively with ‘the best option’. I have posted on these boards in recent weeks about my mental health and have had very few responses to them…..although (and very grateful indeed) have had responses that recognise my outpourings as genuine and heartfelt.

On a Macro level ie on mental health in general and not concerning fantasy footy I will say this. All to often people just ignore the signs, people conveniently pass on simply doing the right things and then trot out the easily repeated ‘if only he/she had asked’ or ‘what a selfish thing to do’ or even worse ‘it’s a cowards way out’. It is NEVER that simple and in my opinion has it’s origins made in the cruel and unforgiving way the vast majority of people live their lives. The I’m alright attitude of deal with your own lot in life and ignore those in society who struggle through no fault of their own. If only one person reads this and does the right thing then my musings will of done some good. IF YOU KNOW OF SOMEONE WHO IS STRUGGLING OR IS HAVING A HARD TIME……make that call or spend 5 seconds of your day sending a message to ask how they are. It really is very very simple.
Peace and respect to you all 🙂

If you feel that a free online game is affecting your mental health negatively you need to take a step back or consider quitting in conjunction with looking at underlying causes/other issues, mental health is serious.

This is a free online game related to a sport most people love but there are people dying from wars/diseases or living in abject poverty unable to feed their families out there. Some perspective is needed from when you have a captaincy fail or a blank.

Unfortunately there is a creeping desire by virtue-signallers to crowbar natural healthy reactions into mental health issues or rather, mental disorders. It maybe trendy but it is wrong. It's a conflation and should be challenged by people who know what they're talking about.