People don’t necessarily decide to get a pet with their mental health in mind, but the reasoning behind getting a pet often relates–whether directly or indirectly– to one’s health and wellness. You may also decide to register for an ESA and get a housing letter for your cat, specifically because of your struggles with mental health.
Fortunately for pet owners, there are proven benefits of owning a pet. Whether you’re a cat lover or a dog parent, here are some of the ways pet ownership helps improve mental health.
Direct Benefits
The main way pet ownership directly impacts your mental health is by providing a judgment-free companion with whom you can form an emotional bond. For many struggling with mental illness, it can be challenging to connect with other people out of fear of rejection, social anxiety, or lack of understanding. Despite the great strides in mental health awareness during recent years, there is still a long way to go.
Picture this: you’ve had your good days and bad days with depression over the years. During the good days, you function as normal. During the bad days, you can’t convince yourself to get out of bed and get dressed. Your loyal feline friend treats you the same both days, and sensing that something is wrong, stays with you when you’re at your worst. This treatment from animals can be uplifting and comforting.
Pet ownership also helps counteract stress. A study was conducted in elderly patients, seeking a connection between an increase in physician visits (indicating declining health), stress, and pet ownership. Those who did not own a pet had marked increases in stress levels and trips to the doctor’s office. Pet owners, particularly dog owners, reported fewer medical checkups and less stress overall. Researchers surmise that a pet acts as a buffer between their owner and a stressful event.
Indirect Benefits
If you own a dog, you can bet on getting more exercise, especially if you have an active breed. Dogs require walks and lively games of fetch to stay happy and healthy. 
Cat owners may not get the same level of physical activity with their species of pet, but a happy kitty loves playing around with a laser pointer or toy mouse.
Increased exercise and positive experiences have a hormonal response in the body. Dopamine and endorphins are released into the bloodstream, boosting one’s mood and triggering their pleasure centers. Regardless of how poorly one is feeling as a result of their mental health disorder, pets require care and encourage you to get up and get moving even when you don’t feel like it.
Pets can also encourage social conversations as well. Walking your dog or chatting with a cat group online fosters a social connection that can be beneficial to those struggling with mental health. Finally, when people get to be too much, you can still engage in communication with your animal.
Pets in Therapy
Using pet ownership as a form of therapeutic treatment is nothing new. The first recorded experiments date back to York, England in the late 1700s. In addition to Emotional Support Animals, pets have been used as a transition tool for those recovering from addiction, transitioning into civilian life from the military, and transitioning into society after incarceration.
Similar to exercise, this holistic approach to medicine is often scoffed at, but offers a lot of promise and helps a lot of people. While more research needs to be conducted to show the many benefits of pet ownership as a mental health treatment, results so far are promising. Regardless of if you have a mental health disorder or simply feel the need to nurture a living creature, pet ownership is a rewarding and healthy endeavor.
