By: Katelyn Chen

Teachers have always been tried to help students to reduce stress. Recently, researches have found that if you are with a dog for 20 minutes, it will reduce stress, which can affect your mental and physical state. At the University of Lincoln, they found out the stress level of students based on their saliva, and those students would go on a “Doggie Date”.

The students who had too much stress were split up into three groups randomly. For 20 minutes twice a week, each group would go in a room that has the trained dog and the dog’s handler.The students also spent the same time limit doing meditation, and surprisingly the dog worked better for most of them.

According to the article, Classroom “doggie dates” reduce stress in primary school kids, The study that was published in the Plos One journal found that stress was at their lowest in the children with the dog. After their meeting, the group immediately reduced stress after their sessions with the pooches. Research was found that Dog-assisted interventions can reduce stress for students with and without special educational needs. The more the students spend with the dog, the more stress was reduced.

Dogs can help reduce stress, and even interactions as short as 20 minutes could help reduce stress even more than doing meditation or yoga. Stress can overcome students, and so “Doggie Dates” it could help a lot with student’s health.