How to Know When You Dog Is Not Feeling Well

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When thinking of ways to reduce stress in life, commonly techniques like meditation, yoga, and journaling come to mind. These are great techniques, to exist certain. But getting a new best friend can too have many stress relieving and health benefits. While human friends provide corking social support and come with some fabled benefits, this article focuses on the benefits of furry friends: cats and dogs.

How Pets Lower Stress

Enquiry shows that, unless you're someone who actually dislikes animals or is absolutely too busy to intendance for one properly, pets tin provide excellent social support, stress relief, and other health benefits—peradventure more than people. The following are more health benefits of pets.

Ameliorate Mood

For those who love animals, it's virtually incommunicable to stay in a bad mood when a pair of loving puppy eyes meets yours, or when a super-soft cat rubs up confronting your hand. In addition to the social support, stress relief, and full general wellness benefits pets can bring, research supports the mood-enhancing benefits of pets. A 2017 written report found that those with AIDS were less probable to suffer from low if they owned a pet.

Reduce Blood Pressure

Yep, it's true. While ACE inhibiting drugs tin can generally reduce blood force per unit area, they aren't as effective in decision-making spikes in blood force per unit area due to stress and tension.

Research has concluded since the mid-1980's that at that place are positive physiological effects, especially lowered claret pressure level, to petting dogs and social interaction with companion animals. Bear on, the actual human activity of petting the dog, appeared to be the major component of the and then-chosen pet event.

Encourage Exercise

Whether we walk our dogs because they need information technology, or are more than likely to enjoy a walk when we have companionship, dog owners exercise spend more time walking than not-pet owners, at least if we live in an urban setting.

Most people with dogs will likely tell you that they enjoy their walks more considering of the companionship of their pets, and mayhap even the feeling of beingness function of a customs of other pet lovers. Because exercise is good for stress management and overall health, owning a dog can be credited with increasing these benefits.

Provide Social Support

When we're out walking, having a dog with us tin can make us more outgoing and give people a reason to cease and talk, thereby increasing the number of people nosotros meet, giving us an opportunity to increase our network of friends and acquaintances, which besides has slap-up stress direction benefits.

Offering Company and Unconditional Love

Pets can be there for you in ways that people can't. They can offer love and companionship, and can also savor comfortable silences, keep secrets, and are first-class snugglers. And they could exist the best antitoxin to loneliness.

In fact, one report found that nursing home residents reported less loneliness when visited by dogs lonely than when they spent fourth dimension with dogs and other people. All these benefits can reduce the amount of stress people experience in response to feelings of social isolation and lack of social support from people.

Pets vs. People

While we all know the power of talking virtually your bug with a practiced friend who'due south also a practiced listener, enquiry shows that spending time with a pet may be even better.

1 study showed that, when conducting a job that's stressful, people actually experienced less stress when their pets were with them than when a supportive friend or even their spouse was present. This may exist partially due to the fact that pets don't judge us; they simply love us.

A Word From Verywell

Information technology'south important to realize that owning a pet isn't for anybody. Pets exercise come with additional work and responsibility, which can bring its own stress. However, for most people, the benefits of having a pet outweigh the drawbacks. Having a hirsuite best friend can reduce stress in your life and bring you back up when times become tough.

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Verywell Listen uses only loftier-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to acquire more about how we fact-bank check and keep our content authentic, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Friedman East, Krause-Parello CA. Companion animals and human health: benefits, challenges, and the road alee for human-animal interaction. Rev Sci Tech. 2018 Apr;37(1):71-82. doi: x.20506/rst.37.1.2741

2. Muldoon AL, Kuhns LM, Supple J, Jacobson KC, Garofalo R. A Web-Based Report of Dog Ownership and Depression Amidst People Living With HIV. JMIR Ment Health. 2017;four(4):e53. doi:x.2196/mental.8180

3. Schreiner PJ. Emerging Cardiovascular Risk Research: Impact of Pets on Cardiovascular Risk Prevention. Curr Cardiovasc Take a chance Rep. 2016;10(2):viii. doi:10.1007/s12170-016-0489-2

4. Cherniack EP, Cherniack AR. The Benefit of Pets and Fauna-Assisted Therapy to the Health of Older Individuals.Curr Gerontol Geriatr Res. 2014;2014:623203. doi:10.1155/2014/623203

5. Banks MR, Banks WA. The Furnishings of Animal-Assisted Therapy on Loneliness in an Elderly Population in Long-Term Care Facilities. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2002;57(seven):M428-32. doi:10.1093/gerona/57.7.m428

6. Allen 1000, Blascovich J, Mendes WB. Cardiovascular reactivity and the presence of pets, friends, and spouses: The truth about cats and dogs. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2002;64(five):727-739.  doi:10.1097/01.psy.0000024236.11538.41

Additional Reading

• Beetz A, Uvnäs-Moberg K, Julius H, Kotrschal K. Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: the possible role of oxytocin.Forepart Psychol. 2012;3:234. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00234

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Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/how-owning-a-dog-or-cat-can-reduce-stress-3144701

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