By: Jenny Zhou

Research shows that hanging out with dogs, even for a few minutes at a time, is good for health because it promotes higher doses of oxytocin, also known as the love hormone.

Nancy Gee, a professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, says that just spending five to 20 minutes with a dog can lower people’s stress and help them experience an increase of oxytocin.

Gee says that humans also help dogs become happier in return. “We see the same thing in the dogs, so the dogs’ oxytocin also increases when they interact with a human,” she said. This is why dogs wag their tails when we pay attention to them.

Furthermore, in a recent UK study on 8- and 9-year-olds, kids who interacted with dogs at least twice a week demonstrated better thinking skills and more focus than the ones that didn’t.

“We actually saw [those effects] one month later. And there’s some evidence that [they] may exist six months later,” Professor Gee told NPR.

Megan Mueller, an associate professor at Tuft University, says that dogs help us experience the world more like them. “Animals, and dogs in particular, live in the moment. They’re experiencing their environment with wonder and awe all the time, and they’re not bringing up what happened to them earlier in the day or what they’re thinking about in the future. They’re there right now,” Associate Professor Mueller said. “They sort of pull you out of your phone and into whatever environment that you’re in.”

Megan Mueller says that there is some evidence that touching dogs can help calm humans. In a study conducted in Canada, university students who interacted with dogs reported that they had less stress and weren’t as homesick as those who didn’t. In fact, this had more effect on the students who actually touched the dogs. Megan Mueller is also running tests with the same results.

Link to article: https://www.kidsnews.com.au/animals/research-shows-spending-as-little-as-5min-with-a-dog-can-make-you-happier/news-story/3371160f69d2423763994593ee363e0a