Can petting dogs and cats work as a de-stressor for college students?
| Jul 17, 2019, 11:10 IST
Going to college might look like all fun and games, at least that's what Bollywood films want you to believe but we all know that there's a lot of hard work that goes into it too. Students have a ton of projects to complete, they have exams to give and most of them even work part-time to help pay for their education. All of this can lead to quite some stress. But now, a study has found that an easy way for these college-goers to de-stress is to pet cats and dogs.
Yes, you read that right. Petting dogs and cats has been associated with mood relaxing properties and many universities have now even come up with ‘Pet Your Stress Away’ programmes so that students can interact with dogs and cats to help relax and stay calm. “Just 10 minutes can have a significant impact, students in our study that interacted with cats and dogs had a significant reduction in cortisol, a major stress hormone,” said Patricia Pendry, Associate Professor at Washington State University.
For the study, the researchers divided 249 students into four random groups. While one group was allotted 10 minutes with pets where they could play with the pets or observe them as they wanted, the second group was only allowed to observe the first group while they waited for their turn. The third group was shown a slideshow of the pets they would get to play with while they waited their turn and the fourth group was simply waitlisted. Saliva samples were collected from all of these participants.
It was found that amongst all groups, the one that interacted directly with the pets had the least amount of cortisol (stress hormone) in their saliva. “What we wanted to learn was whether this exposure would help students reduce their stress in a less subjective way. And it did, which is exciting because the reduction of stress hormones may, over time, have significant benefits for physical and mental health,” Pendry said. Stay tuned for more updates.
Yes, you read that right. Petting dogs and cats has been associated with mood relaxing properties and many universities have now even come up with ‘Pet Your Stress Away’ programmes so that students can interact with dogs and cats to help relax and stay calm. “Just 10 minutes can have a significant impact, students in our study that interacted with cats and dogs had a significant reduction in cortisol, a major stress hormone,” said Patricia Pendry, Associate Professor at Washington State University.
For the study, the researchers divided 249 students into four random groups. While one group was allotted 10 minutes with pets where they could play with the pets or observe them as they wanted, the second group was only allowed to observe the first group while they waited for their turn. The third group was shown a slideshow of the pets they would get to play with while they waited their turn and the fourth group was simply waitlisted. Saliva samples were collected from all of these participants.
It was found that amongst all groups, the one that interacted directly with the pets had the least amount of cortisol (stress hormone) in their saliva. “What we wanted to learn was whether this exposure would help students reduce their stress in a less subjective way. And it did, which is exciting because the reduction of stress hormones may, over time, have significant benefits for physical and mental health,” Pendry said. Stay tuned for more updates.