A recent research study showed that heart patients who adopted a shelter pet showed more improvement and lived longer than heart patients who practiced meditation daily.
Why would adopting a shelter pet make such a difference? Consider the body chemistry involved.
Cortisol (a steroid secreted by the adrenal glands in response to stress and trauma) in the “bad boy” of our homone system, causing depression, atrophy in neurons in the hippocampus, high blood pressure, more rapid aging, slowed healing responses, suppression of the immune system, and increases in body fat . . . the list goes on.
Cortisol secretion is suppressed by oxytocin. Simply raising oxytocin levels on a regular daily basis helps to override all the health problems listed above.
There are a number of ways to raise oxytocin, but among the most potent is physical touch–touch by a human being who is loved and trusted, or touch by a loving pet. Petting a dog or cat raises oxytocin and suppresses cortisol.
However, the healing impact of pets, both in our personal lives and in therapy, has much more variety and richness than the simple (but potent) oxytocin effect.
The animal-assisted therapy movement gained momentum back in the 1970s with the research of Dr. Samuel and Elizabeth Corson. Working in an institutional setting with patients who had been completely unresponsive to other therapies, the Corson team found that giving the patient a pet with the same temperament as the patient (withdrawn, shy but friendly, or aggressively friendly) produced significant improvements in 47 out of 50 patients.
Pet Therapy became an answer for the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Giving the inmates a pet to take care of significantly reduced fighting, and dropped suicide attempts almost to zero.
The research backs up the theory, with outcome studies showing that caring for, petting or talking to an animal reduces blood pressure, drops stress hormones, and can slow down brain waves to states of calm relaxation. Pet therapy increases the will to live, reduces loneliness, diminishes the perception of pain, and lowers rates of anxiety and depression. Transplant patients feel a greater sense of comfort and feel more in control of their lives if they can take care of aquarium fish in their room. Amputee veterans will progress faster if caring for a pet requires them to move and interact with an animal.
From time to time there is even evidence that the animals desire to give comfort, and give it freely and willingly–like Oscar, the cat, who shows up reliably a few hours before the passing away of elderly patients in a Nursing home in Rhode Island, and always lies by the side of the dying patients so that no one dies alone.
Find out more about pet therapy, and learn why animals teach us and heal us–and sometimes know more about us than we know about ourselves.
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