This Study Shows The Effects Of Petting Animals On Your Stress Level

There is a certain joy in petting animals, and a certain wave of relaxation once we get to pet them during stressful periods. This is a “coping method” for students in universities, where organizations would set up a petting booth for students. Sometimes even the university administration would set up support pets to help students out during their hectic semesters. 

It is an accepted fact that interacting with animals can make someone happy or relaxed, but is there an actual scientific backing to this? Well - researchers from Washington State University studied the psychological benefits of petting animals on campus,  as Science Alert reports: 

"We already knew that students enjoy interacting with animals, and that it helps them experience more positive emotions," says human development researcher Patricia Pendry from Washington State University.
"What we wanted to learn was whether this exposure would help students reduce their stress in a less subjective way."
Using salivary cortisol levels as an indication of academic stress, the study focused on 249 college students, who were randomly split into four groups during a real university animal visitation program.
This suggests that just 10 minutes of petting time can have a significant impact on a student's physical stress levels. And the authors are hopeful that this could assist universities in determining the best type of interaction and dosage for their animal intervention programs.

image credit: wikimedia commons


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