Pets are the best friends you’ll ever have. Not only do they keep you busy, but they can dramatically improve your mental health. Have you ever noticed how great you feel when you walk in the door after a long day of work and see your pup wagging his tail waiting for you? There’s nothing better than the love of a furry animal. Here are the ways that pets impact your mental health.
- Reduce Stress
Everyone feels stress at one point or another. Whether you’re stressed because of work or your personal life, it can make you feel exhausted constantly. Stress can even have negative implications on your physical health, resulting in weight gain and sickness. Luckily, your best friend can help calm your worries.
The simple act of petting your animal can help ease stress for both of you, ultimately reducing your blood pressure. Additionally, pets can also detect stress through our senses. Sensory stress relief might come from the sound of your cat purring or the feel of your dog’s fur between your fingers. Believe it or not, you can even reduce stress by watching your goldfish swim around in his bowl.
- Companionship
Pets are affectionate and loyal. If you’re feeling isolated, pets can provide companionship like nobody else, reducing your loneliness and improving your confidence and mental health.
- Provide a Sense of Purpose
Nothing gets you up in the morning like having a sense of purpose. Caring for an animal makes you their parent, and they rely on you for food, water, potty breaks, and more. By giving you a sense of purpose, pets can make you feel like the responsible adult you are while providing you with love and affection at the same time.
- Increase Social Interaction
Pets can help you increase your social interaction with other humans because they create new opportunities for you. Going on a walk with your dog can help introduce you to new people because people are drawn to pets. Of course, you should never let a stranger approach your dog because you won’t know how they’ll react. However, you can wave to your neighbors and get to know each other from across the street before becoming friends.
You can also meet like-minded people at the dog park. While dogs are playing with each other, humans have nothing better to do than sit and talk to each other and watch their adorable animals play.
- Improve Fitness
Dogs are especially beneficial for your physical health. They need regular exercise in the form of walks, which means training for both of you. Going on a walk around the neighborhood can improve your physical health and help you reduce stress to improve your mental health and wellbeing. Walking your dog also helps you form a strong bond.
- Increase Self-Esteem
Being a pet owner can increase your self-esteem, which directly impacts your mental health. For example, suppose you have a bad day at work. Depending on what was said to you, your self-esteem might be low after receiving negative feedback on a project. When you go home to an empty house, you might find yourself dwelling on your mistakes, impacting your self-esteem day after day.
With a dog or cat waiting for you at home, depending on your ability to put their needs first, you won’t feel the need to dwell on something that happened earlier that day. Instead of sitting on the couch thinking about your mistakes, you’ll need to take your dog outside or for a walk since they’ve been waiting for you all day. Not only that, but because stress can instantly melt away as soon as you see your happy furry friend, you may not even remember how harsh the critiques on your project were.
- Teach Mindfulness
Pets can only focus on what’s happening right in front of them in a single moment. They don’t worry about tomorrow or last week. Instead, they’re one emotion at a time, depending on what’s currently happening around them. Dogs and cats live in the moment and don’t worry about the future, something we can learn from. As a result, pet parents can become more mindful of the present so they can enjoy spending time with their animals instead of worrying about the past.
- Support Mental Illness Recovery
Pets can help people recover from mental illness because of all of our outlined ways in this article. They can help people manage their emotions, give them a purpose in life, and teach them how to be more mindful while reducing stress. Pets offer unconditional love in a way that humans can’t, making them great companions for anyone going through a difficult time.
- Improve Relationship Skills
While pets can help us become more social, they can also help us build upon our relationship skills. Dogs follow human cues that humans themselves might ignore. Your dog knows when you’re happy, sad, or stressed, making them great animals for children during the years they’re developing emotionally.
Animals also make socialization easier for children who might find it stressful. Having a dog nearby in a social situation can ease the stress a child might have talking in front of others.
- Unconditional Love
Pets show us unconditional love, no matter what we do. While a spouse might get mad at you for leaving your socks on the floor, your dog never will. Dogs never judge; they simply accept you for who you are regardless of anything else. Dogs are happy when their owners are happy. In fact, dogs love you so much they might even get separation anxiety when you leave the house. While you never want your pet to feel the anxiety of any kind, this is just more proof that they love you.
Mental Health Benefits of Pets
Pets offer powerful mental and physical health benefits, but you need to take proper care of them. Being a pet parent is a big responsibility, so you should never get a pet for selfish reasons; instead, only adopt a pet when you’re ready to put their needs before yours.