This summer, the world’s game is coming to New England. Here’s why that matters more than the scoreboard, and how to find the movement that’s yours.
In a few days, something rare happens right in our backyard. The FIFA World Cup arrives in New England, with the first match kicking off at Gillette Stadium on June 13. For a few weeks, people who have never met will stand shoulder to shoulder, hold their breath at the same moment, and celebrate like old friends. A stadium full of strangers becomes a “we.”
That pull, the urge to gather around something bigger than us, isn’t a sideshow to the sport. It’s one of the healthiest things human beings do.
The science of togetherness
We tend to treat health as a solo project: the workout, the diet, the annual checkup. But the research tells a bigger story. Connection is medicine. The World Health Organization now treats loneliness as a global health priority, with roughly one in six people worldwide feeling it. And the flip side is just as striking. People with strong social ties live longer, healthier lives, while chronic isolation carries a risk to the body that researchers compare to smoking.
A World Cup summer is a small, joyful dose of the antidote. Backyard watch parties. Kids replay the highlights in the street until dark. A whole region leaning in the same direction at once. That’s not just fun. It’s good for us.
The science of moving
Then there’s the movement itself. When we move, the body rewards us almost immediately: a rise in chemistry that lifts our mood, a drop in chemistry that fuels stress. Over time, regular movement is one of the most reliable tools we have for protecting mental health, sharpening the mind, and adding good years to life.
Here’s the part that surprises people. It works even better together. Moving as part of a group, whether a team, a class, or a Saturday pickup game, protects against depression more powerfully than moving alone, because you get two things at once: the activity and the belonging. Soccer, maybe better than any sport on earth, delivers both. All you need is a ball and someone to pass it too.
That’s why sport matters to a community, not just to an athlete. It’s how kids learn hard things. It’s how a neighborhood becomes a neighborhood. It’s how the parent on the sideline, the grandparent in the stands, and the teenager on the field all end up part of the same story.
This is the work we love
At Highbar Physical Therapy and our affiliated brands across Rhode Island and Massachusetts, our purpose is simple: to empower people to feel better, move freely, and live fully.
Sometimes that means a professional athlete. Highbar is the official physical therapy provider for Rhode Island FC, our state’s pro club, where our own Molly Douglas works the sideline to keep players doing what they love at the highest level.
But here’s the truth we’d tell anyone who walks through our doors: the principles that keep a pro on the pitch are the same ones that keep a weekend runner running, a new parent lifting a toddler without wincing, a 70-year-old in the garden pain-free, the level changes. The mission doesn’t.
Find the movement you love
So as the world tunes in this summer, we have an invitation for you, and it has nothing to do with being an athlete. Find the movement that’s yours. Maybe it’s a real attempt at pickup soccer with your kids (we’ll be here if your hamstrings have opinions). Maybe it’s a walk, a swim, a dance class, and the stairs instead of the elevator. The best kind of movement isn’t the most impressive one. It’s the one you’ll actually come back to.
So, here’s our challenge for the summer: watch a match, move a half. A soccer game is two halves of 45 minutes, so for every World Cup match you watch, give one half back to your own body. Kick a ball around the yard. Take a walk. Dance in the kitchen. Chase your kids until someone falls over laughing. Forty-five minutes if you have it, fifteen if you don’t. The only rule is to do it with someone.
Because that’s the thing the research keeps proving, and the World Cup makes it impossible to ignore, movement is the rare kind of medicine that works better when you share it. Feeling better, moving freely, and living fully were never reserved for the players on the screen. It belongs to every one of us, starting with the next time we choose to move.
This summer, the world moves together, and we’d love for you to move with us.
If pain or a nagging injury is keeping you from the movement you love, that’s exactly what we’re here for.