Feeling anxious? Cuddling your pet—whether it’s a dog, a cat, a chicken, a horse, a bunny, or any other animal you love, can help. Such interactions are called animal-assisted interactions (AAI) in therapists’ professional jargon.
There are many ways that therapists use animals to help treat people with different conditions, and AAI is just one of them. Other animal-human relationships are animal-assisted therapy (AAT) animal-assisted education (AAE) and animal-assisted activities (AAA). A long-established example of AAA is the use of dogs to assist people with vision impairment. AAT is used to help treat persons with posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury—a particularly popular approach in the military for wounded service persons. Another example of AAT is for persons with autism spectrum disorder.
The difference between AAI and these clinical applications of animal-human interactions is that AAI are used primarily in persons who have situational anxiety or stress, such as college students heading into exam periods. Numerous studies have shown that such interactions, even for as short a time as 15 minutes, can immediately reduce perceived stress and anxiety and also reduce physiological measures of stress, including blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol. Some studies even show improved heart rate variability—a measure of a reduced stress response and enhanced relaxation response, or vagal tone. While most of these studies were carried out in college students, some were done in older adults, aged 55 and older.
One study in adults in a senior living residential community who were grooming horses showed that heart rate variability improved in both the........