By: Ansha Kottapalli

Recent studies show that being with dogs for even just five minutes can make you happier and can improve your mental health.

Even though the effects may be minor, spending time with dogs increases our levels of oxytocin, also known as our love hormone. Studies show that spending about five to twenty minutes with dogs decreases our stress hormone, cortisol, while simultaneously increasing our oxytocin.

The research also shows that the benefits of these interactions are not one sided.

The reason dogs wag their tails when they see their owner is because their oxytocin levels rise from these interactions as well. An associate professor from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University says petting dogs “might be an important part of their calming effect”(KidsNews).

In the UK there was a recent study on eight and nine-year-old children who connected twice a week with dogs. This study showed that the kids were less stressed, more focused, and their reasoning and thinking had improved compared to before this experiment took place. Professor Nancy Gee, professor of psychiatry and the director of the Centre for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University, said these effects showed up one month later and that they might stay for up to six months.

Associate Professor Mueller said the reason why our health improves is because “dogs prompt us to experience the world more like they do”(KidsNews). Dogs live and experience the world in the present. They don’t think about the past and don’t care about the future. Rather, they expose themselves in the moment.

When people interact with dogs, they are being drawn out from laying around and playing on their phone. Instead, they are pushed to immerse themselves in the moment.