You can thank your pet for helping you stay younger, healthier, and feeling your very best. Your dog not only helps you get out of your comfort zone when you're meeting new people and pets, but he or she also has an excellent sense of how you're feeling and is quick to giving you the comfort you need. Together both of you make a great team! Here are more reasons below as to why a pet can improve your health.
Pets release stress. As any pet owner knows, there is something profoundly soothing about listening to a cat’s soft purrs or staring into a dog’s soulful eyes. According to a 2000 study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, subjects who interacted with a cat or dog for five to twenty minutes experienced a dip in their cortisol levels, a hormone associated with stress.
Pets are good for the heart. Dogs could be your heart’s best friend, research suggests. A study published by the Journal of Behavioral Medicine found that interacting with a dog was accompanied by a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate in 60 men and women.
Pets fight depression. It’s no wonder why many mental health professionals use therapy dogs to assist those with PTSD and other mental disorders—owning a cat or dog is highly therapeutic, on multiple levels. If you’re battling depression or anxiety, a pet’s unconditional, uncomplicated love can be profoundly comforting.
Pets make you more social. Animals are natural icebreakers. When you take your dog to the dog park or are sitting in the veterinary waiting room with your cat, fellow pet owners are more apt to strike up a friendly conversation with you.
Pets make you more physically active. Another perk of dog ownership: It makes you move more. Dog owners tend to be more physically active that non-dog owners, studies find.
It's nice knowing that pets can improve our health and give us that unconditional love when we're suffering from depression. What's more, they can also make us more active, social, and are also good for our heart! The benefits of having a pet are limitless; thank you Care2 for the health benefits list above.
You can read more about owners' health benefits to owning pets here.
