For pet owners, love is indeed a four-legged word. Sure, they slobber, make a mess, leave a trail of paw prints all over your house, but that’s nothing compared to what they bring into our lives. Affection, unconditional love, playfulness and laughter, the list is endless when it comes to how pets enrich our lives.
Think you’re doing your pets a favor by taking care of them? It turns out, it’s more the other way around. Research shows owning a pet provides humans an amazing array of health benefits, helping us lead healthier, happier, and longer lives.
Pets reduce stress, anxiety and depression
If you’ve been struggling with stress, anxiety and depression, then you might need a pet prescription.
Research has shown that simply petting a dog can decrease the presence of the stress hormone cortisol, and increase levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin (the same hormone that bonds mothers to babies).
There is an increasing body of research that supports this, including one conducted among college students by the Washington State University’s Department of Human Development, which found that just 10 minutes of touching a dog or a cat reduced cortisol among the students significantly.
Their findings parallel the one done by UCLA’s People-Animal Connection, where volunteers took dogs to visit 400 hospital patients. They found that even for a short visit, pets helped lower anxiety levels, raise self-esteem, and open lines of communication, particularly between geriatric patients and their loved ones.
The body of studies is still growing, but one thing’s for sure: pet owners are less likely to suffer from depression than those without pets.
Pets teach us to live in the moment
While the growing body of research is impressive and highly credible, this author wanted to dig deeper into how exactly do pets help us become happier?
This is the answer, and a satisfying one at that: pets teach us to live in the moment (especially dogs). (READ: 6 Ways You Can Train Your Mind to Stay in the Moment)
Unlike us, dogs don’t worry about the past and hold grudges. They don’t dwell on how yesterday was, nor brood about what might happen tomorrow. They have the innate capacity to enjoy what’s happening now. By doing that, we learn how to be less anxious going about our lives in this world, and gain insights on how to be truly, really happy.
So, the next time you feel that anxiety creeping in, simply look at your pet’s hanging tongue, wide eyes, and wagging tail. You’re welcome.
Pets help improve heart health
There are incredible studies that show heart health benefits for pet owners who are less likely to suffer from heart attack.
In 1999, Karen Allen, a medical researcher with a PhD from University of Buffalo, USA, conducted an experiment among 48 stockbrokers with high blood pressure. Here’s what she found: those without pets tend to have high blood pressure, compared to the pet owners who have lower blood pressure. Guess what happened after they revealed their findings? According to Allen, may went out to get themselves a pet.
Again, this health benefit takes us back to how pets help reduce stress and loneliness in our lives. Pets provides sensory stress relief, according to an article by Helpguide. It concludes that as as pets fulfill the human basic need for touch, stroking a dog, cat, or other animal can lower blood pressure and help quickly bring calmness and relaxation.
Pets motivate you to make health lifestyle changes
Exercise is one of your dog’s basic life needs. How much exercise? It depends on the size of the dog, but in general, according to Spruce Pets, most dogs need one to two hours of exercise daily.
So even if you’re a couch potato, your dog will coax you into shedding your lazy ways into a more active lifestyle. Besides, your dog will love you for the bond and the connection you share during those endorphin-releasing walks.
If you have had one too many drinks the night before, and have a hard time waking up early in the morning for your walk, no worries. Your dog will serve as your alarm clock. They won’t let you get away with it.
Dogs also benefit from set routines. Not only are they eager to know and memorize your schedule, they’re also keen to learn their routine by heart—exercise and feeding schedule included. Yes, dogs might be masters of living in the present, but they love routine and are calmer and more behaved for it.
As a result, we learn to keep a consistent schedule for ourselves too, and whether we’re aware or not, this benefits our mental health. According to research, predictable repetitive routines provide structure and organization in our lives, and this has a huge impact in stress and anxiety reduction.
Pets improve immune health
Owning pets gets us to tick all the right boxes. We’re happy, manage stress, keep a routine, and exercise regularly (and perhaps, throw in healthy eating too?) This results to an improved health in a holistic way. Pet owners are less likely to get sick when their immune systems and overall health are well and strong.
Pets as therapy
With all the amazing and scientifically-proven health benefits pet brings, clinical settings have lately opened their doors to animal-assisted interventions. Most hospitals in the US have created pet intervention programs, where animals help people with a specific physical or mental health condition.
And this is not just limited to dogs (though dogs are the most popular). According to Medical News Today, “the exact type of animal therapy can vary greatly depending on what condition the person has, the type of animal, and what kind of therapy they provide.”
Pet therapy can be most beneficial to those who have anxiety, dementia, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, autism, and schizophrenia.
Though therapy pets differ from pets who stay at home and are permanent companions, this proves that pet ownership has solid and firm merits in the medical field. And we can’t keep but smile at those viral videos, and at the same time, look forward to what else our furry friends have in store for us.
Conclusion
Having and loving a pet is a gratifying and joyful experience, but it doesn’t mean it’s all roses. Pets entail money, time, and commitment. You have to be ready to put in and sustain the work.
But if you had to choose between pills and a pooch, the answer’s quite obvious? Their cute eyes, waggling tails and drooling mouths will win this predicament one thousand times over.
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