Psychologist's advice: Keep SCORE -- and your sanity

For those of you who will be keeping score at home tonight, and especially you lucky ones who will be in the boxes or bleachers, McLean Hospital sports psychologist Dr. Jeff Brown has some advice for you to combat stress:

Stay in the moment
Control only the factors that you can control
Respect the Opponent; if they aren’t good, neither are you
Release emotion in healthy ways
Expect your team to compete again.

Back in 2004, when the Red Sox were clawing their way back against the Yankees and into the World Series, Brown developed a plan to help fans keep their equilibrium during that post-season roller-coaster ride. The Rockies aren’t exactly ancient rivals, but that doesn’t mean our stress is any less, he said in an interview.

“It’s easy to start thinking in a negative way,” he said, even without an 86-year-old curse. There’s that Colorado winning streak, for starters.

Fans can borrow some principles from cognitive behavioral theory to manage their anxiety, he said. Focus on the moment, pitch by pitch and swing by swing. While we really can’t do much about bad calls by the umpires or poor choices by managers -- or anything on the field -- we can do something about our own emotions.

“If you can’t deal with the game, get up and take a walk,” he said.

If the Rockies take the first one tonight, what’s a fan to do?

“All we can do is remember with the Red Sox, it ain’t over til it’s over,” he said.