Adopting a pet may seem like a selfless act, but there are plenty of selfish reasons to embrace pet ownership. Research has shown that owning a pet provides an amazing array of health benefits, says Jeremy Barron, M.D., medical director of the Beacham Center for Geriatric Medicine at Johns Hopkins.
Not ready for a full-time furry friend in your home? Offer to walk a neighbor’s dog, cat-sit for a friend, or donate time at a local animal shelter—even short interactions provide enough pet exposure to reap some of these rewards.
Reduce stress.
Research has shown that simply petting a dog lowers the stress hormone cortisol , while the social interaction between people and their dogs actually increases levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin (the same hormone that bonds mothers to babies).
In fact, an astonishing 84 percent of post-traumatic stress disorder patients paired with a service dog reported a significant reduction in symptoms, and 40 percent were able to decrease their medications, reported a recent survey.
Lower blood pressure.
The cortisol-lowering and oxytocin-boosting benefits of petting also help keep your blood pressure at bay. “Petting and holding an animal allows you to appreciate the beauty of nature,” explains Barron. “It’s relaxing and transcendental.”
Increase physical activity.
How many people are willing to go outside at the crack of dawn and exercise in the rain or snow? Dog owners often have no choice—they have to walk their pet, thus providing them with an excuse-proof daily dose of exercise.
Boost heart health.
The American Heart Association released a research report endorsing dog ownership as a way of warding off cardiovascular disease .
Ease loneliness and depression.
A 2011 study found that pet owners had better self-esteem. Another study determined that pets provided greater social support than humans in mitigating depression. “Caring for a pet provides a sense of purpose to the owner,” says Barron. Plus, pets are a good social catalyst for meeting people who share your animal interests.
Help specific health concerns.
Beyond simple companionship, dogs have long been wonderful helpers to those without sight or with mobility issues. Dogs are even being used to help detect conditions from seizures to cancer.
Your co-worker at home helps you have a happier, healthier mind.
Millions of people around the world love their pets — they’re part of the family! We enjoy their companionship and going for walks, playing with them and even talking and singing to them.
Evidence suggests that attachment to pets is good for human health and even helps build a better community.
It’s no secret that pets can contribute to your happiness. Studies show that dogs reduce stress, anxiety and depression; ease loneliness; encourage exercise and improve your overall health. For example, people with dogs tend to have lower blood pressure and are less likely to develop heart disease. Just playing with a dog has been shown to raise levels of the feel-good brain chemicals oxytocin and dopamine, creating positive feelings and bonding for both the person and their pet.
Pets can be especially helpful as we grow older. In a survey on healthy aging, adults over 50 reported these top 3 benefits:
- Less stress
- Better sense of purpose
- More social connection
5 ways pets help your mental health
- Pets can reduce work-related stress. Two out of three employees say work stresses them out and 40% say their job gets in the way of their health. Studies show that pets in the workplace help reduce stress and improve employee satisfaction.
- Pets can help increase productivity, wherever you work. When a dog joins a virtual meeting, group members rank their teammates higher on trust, team cohesion and camaraderie.
- Pets help manage anxiety. Now more than ever, many people are feeling anxious or struggling with mental health. Pets provide companionship and support.
- Pets can help you be more active. They give you a reason to get outside, get some fresh air and get active, which is proven to improve your mood, sleep and mental health.
- Pets provide a sense of togetherness. The bond with a pet helps you to not feel alone. When owners see, touch, hear or talk to their companion animals, it brings a sense of goodwill, joy, nurturing and happiness.
U.S. Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle pets his dog Lily at work in Washington, D.C. Studies show that having pets can make you more emotionally and physically healthy. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
Wayne Pacelle has a demanding job as president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States. This is one of the reasons he brings Lily, his beagle mix, to work with him. He is convinced that animals “are a necessary ingredient in our emotional well-being,’’ he says. “I deal with many stressful issues, and I see terrible cruelty,’’ he adds. “But when Lily puts her head on my lap, it calms me.’’
Pacelle can’t scientifically document the positive effects he gains from his connection with Lily (and Zoe, his cat.) But his experience supports what researchers who study human/animal interaction have concluded: Pets, especially dogs, seem to be good for our health.
“Dogs make people feel good,’’ says Brian Hare, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at Duke University, who points out that dogs are found now in some courtrooms, exam study halls, hospitals, nursing homes, hospice-care settings, classrooms, airports and elsewhere, “and their only job is to help people in stressful situations feel better. Many people seem to respond to dogs in a positive way.’’
[The death of a dog can hurt as much as the death of a relative]
Scientists believe that the major source of people’s positive reactions to pets comes from oxytocin, a hormone whose many functions include stimulating social bonding, relaxation and trust, and easing stress.
U.S. Humane Society employee Crystal Moreland brings her dog Andre to work. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
Research has shown that when humans interact with dogs, oxytocin levels increase in both species. “When parents look at their baby and their baby stares into their eyes, even though the baby can’t talk, parents get an oxytocin boost just by eye contact,’’ Hare says. “Dogs have somehow hijacked this oxytocin bonding pathway, so that just by making eye contact, or [by] playing and hugging our dog, the oxytocin in both us and our dog goes up. This is why dogs are wonderful in any kind of stressful situation.’’
Miho Nagasawa, a postdoctoral fellow at Jichi Medical University in Shimotsuke, Japan, has found that mutual gazing between humans and their dogs increases the owners’ oxytocin levels. This helps decrease anxiety and arousal levels, and slow the heart rate. “The positive interaction between humans and dogs via mutual gazing may reduce stress activity for each other,’’ she says.
Historical support
About 43 million American households have dogs and about 36 million households have cats, according to the 2012 U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook, a publication of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
[These therapy dogs help college students cope]
History provides numerous stories — some of them probably apocryphal — of the therapeutic benefits of dogs, both physical and psychological. In ancient Egypt, for example, people believed that a dog’s lick could heal sores or lesions (there may be a basis in fact for this, because dogs’ saliva contains antibacterial and antiviral substances, as well as growth factors); in 19th-century mental institutions in England, pets were used to calm residents; in 1880, former Civil War nurse Florence Nightingale wrote that a small pet “is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially.’’
In modern times, science has stepped in to provide a clearer link. A 1980 study found that more heart-attack victims with pets survived beyond the one-year mark than those without, a finding that was reproduced 15 years later.
Other studies have shown that pet ownership seems to decrease coronary-disease risk factors involving blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides, among other things.
A 2009 study, for example, looked at 4,435 people, more than half of them with cats, and found a significantly lower risk of heart-attack deaths for the cat owners.
Another study, which looked at 240 married couples, found lower heart rates and blood pressure among those with pets than among those without. The pet owners also experienced milder stress responses and a faster recovery from stress when they were with their pets rather than with a spouse or friend.
Denise Harris takes an afternoon nap with her Irish Wolfhounds, Farrhear (left) and Carrik (right), in Columbia, MD. When Harris is feeling ill, she likes to take a nap with her canine companions on the family room floor. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
As for staying healthy in general, it’s no surprise that having a dog can help you stay more active. One study involving more than 2,000 adults found that dog owners who regularly walked their dogs were more physically active and less likely to be obese than those who didn’t own or walk a dog.
Another, which looked at more than 2,500 people ages 71 to 82, found that regular dog walkers tended to walk faster and for longer periods each week than those who did not have dogs to walk. They also showed greater mobility inside their homes.
Some research suggests that childhood exposure to dogs and cats can protect against developing allergies and asthma later in life, possibly because the contact with pet microbes occurs while the immune system is still developing.
Canine caregivers
Denise Harris of Columbia, Md., has had rheumatoid arthritis for 30 years; when she’s feeling ill, she often naps with her Irish wolfhounds, Carrick and Fearghus. She says Fearghus mothers her when she’s getting sick, sensing what’s coming before she does and herding her to the bed or sofa. “Sure enough, a couple of hours later, I’m running a fever,” she says. “He then literally watches over me till the fever breaks.”
She calls Carrick her crutch. “When I fell in the blizzard last winter, he ran to my side, stood over me until I could sit up, let me use him to pull myself up, then supported me, letting me lean against him all the way into the house and to the sofa.”
Of course the hounds are good for her health, she says. For one thing, she takes long walks with them. “And I can always count on Fearghus for a hug when I’m feeling down,” she says.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are interested in the potential health value of having pets: NIH first raised the human/pet connection nearly 30 years ago, recommending that scientists take pets into account when conducting health research, and the agency has funded a number of studies into the impact of pet ownership.
Pacelle also has a cat named Zoe. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
Lori Kogan, an associate professor of clinical sciences at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the editor of the Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin, says that pets can be especially helpful for people facing emotional difficulties. “Dogs have a positive impact on depression and anxiety,’’ Kogan says. “When someone loses a spouse or partner, for example, having a dog provides a reason to get up and be social,’’ she says. For many older people, “it’s the only relationship they have.’’
[Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive]
In one study, researchers concluded that women living alone were “significantly more lonely” than those who were living with pets, and noted that having a pet might “compensate for the absence of human companionship.”
This may explain the value many people find in therapy dogs, which are trained to help people deal with worry, unhappiness and anxiety, and have been found to even reduce the perception of pain.
While dogs are most frequently used for therapy purposes, says Mary Margaret Callahan of Pet Partners, the group’s registry of available therapy animals also includes cats, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, llamas, potbellied pigs, birds and domesticated rats.
Therapy dogs are widely used to help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and have been used to help calm autistic children. In June, therapy dogs were brought in to relax swimmers competing in the U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha suffering from pre-race jitters.
Therapy golden retrievers from Lutheran Church Charities were sent to Orlando in June to comfort survivors as well as those who lost loved ones in the Pulse nightclub shooting that left dozens dead. A New York funeral home provides mourners with a dog that even “prays’’ with them. [See sidebar.]
Lulu accompanies her owner Matthew J. Fiorillo at the Ballard-Durand Funeral Home. (Courtesy of Matthew J. Fiorillo)
A recently released study found that therapy pets can help first-year university students suffering from homesickness and possibly help in lowering college dropout rates.
Of course, there are times when the emotional interaction with pets can be difficult. When they misbehave or are sick (or worse), we feel it.
“Dogs are just like kids: They can be the sources of enormous joy and enormous worry,” says Hare, who has two children and two dogs. “But overall, despite the worry and pain, most dog owners I know, including me, would say that there is overwhelming benefit.”
Read more: There’s a dog at this funeral home, ready to pray with you
