Benefits Of Animal Therapy

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Animals as pets are considered part of most households. They are not just simply creatures that provide company and friendship but they can amazingly bring you positive health benefits. Just merely the presence of a furry friend is very soothing. Examples of pets you can see on most households are fish, guinea pigs, cats and dogs as being the most popularly catered pet. Dogs are good at interpreting the owner’s voice, gestures or even body language and unbelievably can even gauge their emotional state. Indeed, spending time with these cute and adorable animals brings an unexplainable joy and satisfaction from nurturing them as pets.

Several research have gone through extensive studies and had come up with abstracts and articles on human-animal bond or relationship on how animal therapy can really be associated with the benefits it provides on a person’s life. Some of these studies are very encouraging while some still needs more digging to draw reliable conclusions and facts.

Among these benefits from Animal Therapy are as follows:

  • Promotes cardiovascular health

Animal companionship encourages an individual to engage to a more sustained and enjoyable degree of physical exercise as simple as walking a dog which will, in the long run may promote a healthy heart rate, lowers blood pressure and improves your cardiovascular health as a whole.

  • Stress reliever

Stress is sometimes considered as shadows of our everyday lives. Animal therapy is a plausible option to better cope with stress. Research on hormonal involvement associated with pet therapy found that interaction and stroking (which fulfills one of the human basic needs, to touch) your own pet promotes the release of hormones that are responsible for mood elevation such as serotonin, oxytocin and prolactin (also called “social inducing hormones) and a significant drop in aldosterone, cortisol and adrenaline or called the “stress hormones”. To add on, owning and nurturing a pet provides unconditional entertainment that can magically ease out burdens from stress and may cause someone to feel a little bit elated following pet interaction.

  • Enhances psychological state and well being

From different research conducted, animal therapy helps assist recall of memories and events by increasing mental stimulations which are highly beneficial for people with Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, it lessens their episodes of outburst and agitation with pet companionship.

  • Provision of sense of emotional security and belongingness

Loneliness might be one of the most devastating feelings of any individuals at some point in their lives and they fill the void and actually brighten their emotional outlook and hence, reducing boredom. Pet companionship provides a certain level of focus of attention as a result of decrease sympathetic nervous system arousal promoting feelings of comfort. Dog therapy has been in the picture of most nursing homes and becoming an integral part of the residents’ lives that are astonishingly filling the emptiness within them from missing something.

  • Improve social interaction of children with autism

This is true when they are engaged in a type of occupational and physical therapy utilizing animals with the supervision of trained personnel to guide the child in all the aspects of the therapy as part of the program. These special children tend to feel that they are able to engage in a more comfortable and better ways to them, because some children on the autistic spectrum relates better to animals than people. In the psychological perspective, pets may act as a catalyst in the provision of acceptance for autistic children as the interaction is more spontaneous and engaging for them. Overall, they can aid the progress of enhancing their social skills, concentration and attention span.

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