TUESDAY, Sept. 24, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- When stressed to the max, your first thought may be to spend time with your significant other or a friend.
However, new research says you should be cozying up to Fluffy or Fido, instead, to calm your frazzled nerves.
A study of married couples both with and without pets shows that having a pet is associated with lower perceived and actual responses to stress. Not only do you feel less jittery with your pet around, your blood pressure and pulse are likely to reflect your relaxed state of mind.
In the past, "we've documented that people perceive pets as great for them," says lead researcher Karen Allen, a research scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "People are right."
The researchers, whose study appears in the September/October issue of Psychosomatics, visited the homes of 120 couples who'd owned a dog or cat for at least six months, and an equal number of couples who'd been pet-free for at least five years.
They checked baseline blood pressures and heart rates, and then administered two stress-inducing tests: The participants were asked to do mental arithmetic problems for five minutes, and then to submerge one hand in ice water for two minutes.
While everyone in the study had normal blood pressures and heart rates to start with, those with pets had lower baseline measures. During the tests, those without pets suffered more stress.
Interestingly, people with pets did better in terms of performing and handling stress when their pet was around, but not as well if a spouse or friend was also present.
This suggests that when doing the mental arithmetic in front of a spouse or friend, the study participants felt pressured to perform well, Allen says. But taking the test with a pet didn't produce the same anxiety level.
In addition, pet owners perceived themselves as less stressed, and had blood pressure and heart rates that returned to normal faster than people without pets.
Those with a spouse present who did not own a pet exhibited the most anxiety. They had systolic blood pressures up to a full 40 points above their norm when performing the mental arithmetic in front of a partner.
In general, men fared better than women under pressure.
Allen says an earlier study by her research group in 1996 produced similar results, but that review only looked at women who owned dogs. This new study was larger, showed that men also benefit from having pets, and found that cats offer the same stress relief. This surprised Allen, who owns a 14-year-old dog, but, she admits, "cat owners were not surprised."
It's possible that most any pet you're attached to would confer similar results, she says: "It depends on how you feel about your animal."
Susan Everson-Rose, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, studies how risk factors influence cardiovascular disease.
"Pets really do have a calming effect," she says. In the Buffalo study, the cardiovascular benefits of having a pet versus not "were pretty noticeable. Presumably, extrapolated over time, (people with pets) could have lower rates of cardiovascular disease."
Allen says that based on these new findings, if one likes animals and can handle the responsibility, getting a pet might be a good option. "They have excellent behavioral and cardiovascular benefits," she says.
Allen next plans a follow-up study using virtual reality to determine whether thinking about one's pet or seeing a picture of one's furry friend can confer similar benefits.
What To Do
To read about a previous study by Allen that found pets help reduce blood pressure in stressed-out stockbrokers, visit Oregon Health and Science University. And this story in the Detroit News described how pets help cut stress in the workplace.
