You've had a terrible week, but there's a game on that weekend and you're confident your team will win. But after exuding hope for much of the game, they screw up and lose. When this happens, it's easy to feel like life is unfair and call it quits on happiness. But a broken heart needs mending, not locking up, and you can mend your broken heart with the following simple steps.

KEEP AWAY FROM THE NEWS

The trick is to make your mind forget the debacle ever took place. That's a difficult thing to achieve these days, with rivals fans rubbing it on your face all over social media, and highlight reels everywhere. So, turn off that TV, put that phone away, and read a book or cook yourself a meal. If you have friends who aren't into sports, talk to them about whatever people such as them spend their time doing. Find out something new!

REMINISCE

Unless you support Sunderland, your team probably has some good memories from the recent past that still make you smile. Go on YouTube, find those memories. It isn't a permanent cure for heartbreak but it works more like a painkiller, and like painkillers, this has some side effects. While the idea is to make yourself believe that because they did good things in the past they are sure to bounce back again, there will always be the danger of you getting more upset thinking why your team couldn't simply do what it already did in the past. That's when it gets worse.

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO HAVE (HAD) IT WORSE

The only good thing about finishing 5th for a United fan is knowing Liverpool finishing 8th. I'm talking about schadenfreude, which is pleasure derived from another's misery. Looking at it from a less cynical angle, your team itself probably has had worse days. Young people these days complain about how it's a tough job being a Bangladesh national cricket team fan because of the frequent roller coaster of emotions you have to go through. But it's a fair bit easier than it would have been in the early 2000s. At least losses hurt you, back then people were so used to losing they'd celebrate just about anything, like Khaled Mahmud bowling at over 120 kph. At least in your case, there is still hope left to be killed.

LOSE CONTROL

This is, of course, strictly inadvisable but it's still one of the most effective ways of dealing with depression. Do whatever the heck you want. Eat, sleep, stare at a wall, kick an electric pole and break your toe, cry, pick a fight with the first person you see, or try and think of how you're life's a bigger failure than your team and drown in a worse kind of sadness. If you can't consciously take your mind off the game, let your subconscious do it for you. There is harm in that, it could get worse, but it's not like you can do much about it.

Depression from sports is a real thing, no matter what people tell you. It's not “just a game”, it's THE game, and it's YOUR team. It's 11 people playing a sport so that they can get rich doing it but your person is heavily involved in it. The next time your team lets you down and you feel lost, take it seriously, and seek help, because God knows you 

need it.