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Key points
- Interacting with an animal for 15 minutes reduces stress and anxiety.
- Reduced stress and anxiety and increased exercise that accompany interacting with a pet can improve sleep.
- Many colleges use animal-assisted interactions to counter the steep rise in students' mental health problems.
Feeling anxious? Cuddling your pet—whether it’s a dog, a cat, a chicken, a horse, a bunny, or any other animal you love, can help. Such interactions are called animal-assisted interactions (AAI) in therapists’ professional jargon.
There are many ways that therapists use animals to help treat people with different conditions, and AAI is just one of them. Other animal-human relationships are animal-assisted therapy (AAT) animal-assisted education (AAE) and animal-assisted activities (AAA). A long-established example of AAA is the use of dogs to assist people with vision impairment. AAT is used to help treat persons with posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury—a particularly popular approach in the military for wounded service persons. Another example of AAT is for persons with autism spectrum disorder.
The difference between AAI and these clinical applications of animal-human interactions is that AAI are used primarily in persons who have situational anxiety or stress, such as college students heading into exam periods. Numerous studies have shown that such interactions, even for as short a time as 15 minutes, can immediately reduce perceived stress and anxiety and also reduce physiological measures of stress, including blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol. Some studies even show improved heart rate variability—a measure of a reduced stress response and enhanced relaxation response, or vagal tone. While most of these studies were carried out in college students, some were done in older adults, aged 55 and older.
One study in adults in a senior living residential community who were grooming horses showed that heart rate variability improved in both the humans and the horses during the grooming activity—a measure of their reduced stress and enhanced relaxation responses. Their heart rhythms even synchronized with each other as the person and horse became more relaxed.
In younger children, other forms of animal-assisted therapies, such as AAE for teaching kids to read, are well established. Although increasing, AAI has been used comparatively less, largely due to valid concerns of school administrators, teachers, and parents for allergies and the potential for harm to the animal or the students if things get out of hand.
AAI, however, is so successful in higher education that a reported 925 colleges had such programs across the United States in 2023. The popularity in colleges reflects a growing need: In the past 20 years, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed in this population, even with increases in suicidality. The success of such programs is underscored by a recent reduction in suicides in college-age students, attributed to the widespread use of suicide intervention programs. While certainly not entirely due to the use of AAI, animal-human interactions are one quiver in the armamentarium of management of mental health issues in this vulnerable group.
There are several reasons why cuddling your animal—or an animal in an AAI program, improves your mood. Connecting with a creature who unconditionally loves you enhances the dopamine reward pathways that are enhanced in any positive relationship.
As well as the stress-reducing benefits of interacting with animals, AAI programs, and even your own pets, also bring you together with other like-minded people, thus enhancing human-human relationships, and reducing loneliness along with the stress response. For college students, many of whom owned pets at home, being able to interact with a dog or cat reminds them of home, and reduces their grief at having left the beloved animal behind. Simple warmth and softness are tactile ways to reduce the stress response and also enhance sleep and sleep quality if your pet snuggles with you before bed. Having to care for another being also triggers altruistic love, thus activating dopamine reward pathways that counter stress.
Finally, if you own a dog, the added exercise you get walking the dog is good for your health and improves mood. People who exercise during the day, with as little as 30 minutes of walking, have a measurably lower stress response in the evening, have better sleep quality at night, and wake up the next day with less fatigue and in a better mood. But you don’t need to be a dog owner to get this benefit—even a quick search of social media shows that people also walk other pets, including chickens! Not so much for cats, though.
There isn't much you can do about all the awful things that happen in this world, but you can control your immediate environment. So let your pet—or an animal in your local AAI program—be your guide to less stress, less anxiety, better mood and relationships, and a peaceful slumber!
If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
References
Baldwin, A. L., Rector, B. K., & Alden, A. C. (2021). Physiological and behavioral benefits for people and horses during guided interactions at an assisted living residence. Behavioral Sciences, 11(10), 129.
Bailey, T. K. (2023). A Scoping Review of Campus-Based Animal-Assisted Interactions Programs for College Student Mental Health. People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice, 6(1), 1.3.
Baird, R., Berger, E., & Grové, C. (2023). Therapy dogs and school wellbeing: A qualitative study. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 68, 15–23.
Baird, R., Grové, C., & Berger, E. (2022). The impact of therapy dogs on the social and emotional wellbeing of students: a systematic review. Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 39(2), 180–208.
Gee, N. R., Rodriguez, K. E., Fine, A. H., & Trammell, J. P. (2021). Dogs supporting human health and well-being: A biopsychosocial approach. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8, 630465.
Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Random House.
Rumayor, C. B., & Thrasher, A. M. (2017). Reflections on recent research into animal-assisted interventions in the military and beyond. Current Psychiatry Reports, 19, 1–7.
Scherer, L. A., & Leshner, A. I. (Eds.). (2021). Mental health, substance use, and wellbeing in higher education: supporting the whole student.
Sternberg, E.M. (2023). Well at Work: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace. Little, Brown Spark.
Wood, E., Ohlsen, S., Thompson, J., Hulin, J., & Knowles, L. (2018). The feasibility of brief dog-assisted therapy on university students stress levels: The PAwS study. Journal of Mental Health, 27(3), 263–268.
