Animal lovers around the world can agree that pets do wonders for our mental and emotional states. This is true regardless of age, as pets find a way into our hearts, leaving precious memories to always treasure.
The impact of pet ownership increases as one ages, providing essential benefits to senior citizens in particular. Below you’ll find a shortlist of benefits that come with owning a pet. Hopefully, these thoughts will help encourage pet ownership later in life.
Lowering Blood Pressure
Believe it or not – animals can help reduce one’s blood pressure. Several studies have looked into the correlation between healthier blood pressure and pet ownership, and the results are promising. It’s believed that pets tend to have a calming effect on humans, which directly affects our blood pressure.
Decreasing Loneliness
Pets are amazing creatures, providing unconditional love, loyalty, and companionship. Naturally, their constant affection helps reduce the loneliness that all people experience in life, especially as we grow older.
Exercise
It may be easy to forget that when we’re stepping up and helping our pets stay healthy and active – we’re frequently doing the same for ourselves. Pets help encourage people to be up and about more. Dogs need walking, cats need playtime, and all critters need to be fed on some sort of schedule.
Helping with Stress
According to News in Health, interacting with animals (especially pets) lowers cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a stress hormone, so this is an indirect way of saying that pets reduce stress.
Sense of Purpose
Pets provide a sense of purpose in life. Every day their owners know that they are there, that they need and love them. Sometimes this simple fact is enough to encourage a person to get up in the morning. Pets make people feel loved, wanted and can have a positive impact on mental health. They stave off those feelings of helplessness and worthlessness, as only an animal could manage.
Helping Hands (Or Paws)
Remember, pets can do more than console us on an emotional and mental level. They can also provide physical benefits, such as being helpers. Dogs can easily be trained to retrieve items, provide medical alerts, and obtain assistance if needed.
We’ve all seen an amazing and memorable story in the news, where an untrained pet went out and got aid for its injured owner. This story is so familiar because it’s true – animals will go above and beyond to take care of their owners.