With finals week coming up, myself, along with many of my peers I’m sure, are feeling the pressure and beginning to stress. Fortunately, Penn State recognizes this, and provides a multitude of services throughout finals week to help us cope and get through it, with one of these services being stress puppies. By doing this, Penn State is making the claim that spending time with dogs will help lessen or remove stress, which is the alternative hypothesis. That being said, the null hypothesis would be that dogs unfortunately do nothing to help with stress.
According to an article on Harvard Health by Christine Junge and Ann MacDonald, not only does being around dogs help with lowering and maintaining stress levels, their presence has also been found aide with an array of health related issues, such as lowering blood pressure, improving recovery time from heart disease, and reduce the effects of asthma and allergies. While looking up whether or not there are mental health benefits to owning or being around dogs, I came across emotional support dogs. The US Dog Registry has stated that dogs can be registered to provide emotional support to their owners or other humans, and help them deal with mental health disorders and diseases such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, fears, phobias, and several other mental health conditions.
After looking a bit further into this, we are to reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis that dogs are able to reduce stress. That being said, it would be a good idea for Penn State to continue this tradition from finals weeks in the past and bring puppies to campus this year to alleviate some of the pressure students face during finals.
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Works Cited
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_485b270c-f214-11e4-8304-3f5f185dfa63.html
I really enjoyed to hear that dogs can indeed help relieve stress. I think the companionship of a dog can be the source of all the mental health benefits that the have. Having a dog by your side is a constant support system and this helps people with mental health because of the unconditional love and support that dogs have for their owners.
I think this article is extremely relevant now more than ever. With finals week and the end of the semester approaching, stress on campus is at an all time high. I question if dogs are the only mechanism for relieving stress. What about dogs specifically make them so good at relieving stress? Is it the sense of companionship that people find comforting? If this is the case, could other animals be used to help relieve the stress of school?
I found this article very interesting. I have a dog, and I absolutely love her. Just being in the presence of her makes me so much happier and stress-free. I never really realized that, though, until I had to leave her to go to college. About a month and a half ago, I took a weekend trip back home, and it was so needed. The excitement my dog showed when she saw me was so great, and just being around my dog made me so happy. I found an article that says that not only is being around a dog a good way to reduce stress, but it is in fact the best way. The article is presented below.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299743/Why-petting-dog-best-form-stress-release.html
I’ve been seeing puppies all over campus and I wish I had one of my own. I think these are a great idea to help students destress and lower their anxiety. I remember last year at my high school we had an event all day where a shelter brought in animals like bunnies, kittens, puppies etc to students for animal therapy. It was the best surprise for us. Also, there was a frat here at PSU that brought puppies in for a fundraiser for Thon where people paid 5 bucks to play with a puppy. I feel like college students don’t have a lot of interactions with cute fluffy stuff here other than the squirrels and a lot of them miss their pets at home.
Here’s an article I came across that talks about how pets make the owners happier and healthier.https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-self/201107/friends-benefits-pets-make-us-happier-healthier Obviously cute pets have positive impacts on us!