Suffer from Depression ? Did you know Dogs can help?
When you feel all down and out about life, your pooch maybe just the cure. After a long hard day, cuddling with your dog or getting a sloppy lick in the face might be just the medicine you need to lift you spirits. But what if your stress level runs extremely deep and makes you anxious and nervous about dealing with everyday issues? What if you hate to even get out of the house and you find yourself suffering from depression. Can a dog help?????
Did you know that there are studies that now show how service and companion animals are effectively treating depression and anxiety? Not only that, but they show how a dog can actually help to improve over all health. We love hearing about all the ways dogs are being used to help people and improve everyday life.
Service Dogs and Depression
Often, people that suffer with anxiety or depression keep to themselves and avoid contact with the outside world. People that suffer with depression or anxiety can have a lot of emotional turmoil and negative thoughts, that can become unrealistic and make things seem more difficult than they truly are. Accorking to Dr. Kate Kangas, cofounder of the Pet Wellness Academy, dogs can help.
Here are just a few ways Dogs can help!
- Responsibility for their well-being. “A dog needs to be fed, needs to be walked, and needs to be pet, so on days when a person feels least motivated, a thump of a happy tail motivates a person to get back to living,” Demling says.
- Unconditional love. “This 100% acceptance without judgment when a person is depressed, anxious, lonely, wearing the same clothes as yesterday and can’t get out of bed helps people feel like they have a true friend during their difficulties,” Demling says.
- Recognize signs of a panic attack. “The mere presence or non-reaction to a stimulus of a trusted companion often calms an attack,” Demling explains. “Dogs can also be trained to use passive methods to block strangers from approaching their handler unexpectedly.”
- Staying connected. “In today’s society, with the advance of internet and technological connection, we are losing real interpersonal connection, and that is contributing to more emotional problems and disorders,” Dr. Kangas explains. “Love and connection does exist in the world, and animals are a great resource to find this within one’s life.”