Puppy cuddles impact on mental health

by Olivia Kennaway, Paws in Work blogger.

“The cuddle chemical”.

Have you ever been looking longingly into a pup's eyes and felt a surge of warmth wash over you, a soothing warmth that relaxes you yet hurts your heart with happiness? Chances are you’ve been hit with a case of “the love hormone” or “the cuddle hormone”, otherwise known as oxytocin. Produced in your brain (hypothalamus), oxytocin is a hormone that stimulates the feelings of happiness, love and trust and enhances social bonding and social recognition, primarily between a mother and an infant. Mothers with high levels of oxytocin during pregnancy bond better with their babies. This is true for all mammals, not simply humans.

Author and researcher Meg Daley Olmert explains “When we call our dog, ‘our baby’ it is because we recognise it on a neural level as such. And this recognition triggers the same maternal bonding brain networks that allow a mother to look at her newborn and say, mine!”.

Think of the production of oxytocin as being controlled by a positive feedback mechanism in our brains (the pituitary gland). This mechanism allows the release of the oxytocin hormone when a trigger occurs, such as maternal behaviour like breastfeeding, hugging, or cuddling. More recently, oxytocin has been suggested to be an important player in a certain social behaviour, hence it’s popular nickname “the love hormone” (I’ll leave it to you to work out the behaviours associated with it). This release of oxytocin into your body, in turn, reduces the levels of cortisol (otherwise known as the stress hormone) in your bloodstream, i.e it reduces stress levels, anxiety and depression.

So, the release of oxytocin = important for social and relationship bonding and makes us feel less stressed.

11 interesting effects of oxytocin.

Oxytocin...

• Promotes attachment
• Solidifies relationships
• Eases stress
• Crystallizes emotional memories
• Facilitates childbirth and breastfeeding
• Boosts sexual arousal
• Reduces drug cravings
• Improves social skills
• Triggers protective instincts
• Induces sleep
• Fosters generosity

Where do the puppies come in?

A scientific study was conducted to measure the effects of oxytocin and cortisol levels (the stress hormone) when interacting with a dog. Ten women were asked to stroke, pet, gaze at and talk with their male labradors then measured the effects this had on both parties’ (pup and human). It concluded that the dogs' own oxytocin levels increased significantly after 3 minutes of human interaction and that the owners' oxytocin levels peaked between just 1 and 5 minutes. It also found that the owner's cortisol levels displayed a significant decrease at 15 minutes of interaction - dogs really do make the world a better place!

It's clear a cuddle a day from a puppy or pooch can have huge physiological benefits for the both of you, leaving you both happier and more relaxed (which is why pets can be a prescription for a happier, healthier life). No pup at home? No worries, Paws in Work can bring them to your office (yes, really!) You might want to send this to your boss!

As we now know, humans use eye contact to communicate with other humans to bond. Dogs, however, do not use eye contact to bond with each other. So how do they know that a held gaze between them and us can make us buckle under the cuteness and give in to their every desire? The very title of this next study is almost enough to explain that: Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds.

Animal behaviourist Takeumi Kikusui of Azabu University in Japan and his team speculated that “some small population of ancestor dogs showed an affiliative eye gaze toward humans. In this process, we agree that there is a [possibility] that dogs cleverly and unknowingly utilize a natural system meant for bonding a parent with his or her child."

Genetically programmed to love pooches.

The evolutionary journey between people and pups has been recorded back to around 32,000 years ago, when dogs split from grey wolves and began to evolve into how we recognise domestic dogs today, both emotively and biologically. Our shared environments led to the parallel evolution of humans and dogs.

For example, aggressive dogs living in crowded conditions with humans would not have been treated as favourably as less aggressive canines. This in turn would have led to more submissive dogs, who ultimately evolved into the pets we know and love today. These original pets, worked out that we are suckers for eye gazing (that’s our oxytocin speaking) and that this unconditional affection from them would result in more benefits from us humans - puppy eyes are very much a thing.

Paws and people.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. EVERYBODY has mental health. Whether you have good or poor mental health is a different matter. An article from The Guardian discusses the ‘magic effect’ and therapeutic value of our relationship with dogs and how pets can improve our mental health. Marion Janner, a mental health campaigner, says that dogs teach us a whole range of lessons. “Dogs love us unconditionally. They’re the ultimate in equal opportunities – entirely indifferent to race, gender, star sign, CV, clothes size or ability to throw cool moves on the dance floor. The simplicity and depth of this love is a continuous joy, along with the health benefits of daily walks and the social delights of chats with other dog walkers”.

The ability for dogs and pups to alleviate stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness has been recognised by the prison systems. The mental health impact of therapy dogs in prisons was commissioned by the Centre for Mental Health and incurred extremely positive feedback, like these comments from one prisoner who said “Dogs have a magic effect on you, you can feel their love and that just makes you feel better inside you.” Hello oxytocin!

As well as prisons, unsurprisingly, psychiatric hospitals also use animals as therapy for mental health. The State Hospital in Scotland, one of four high-security psychiatric hospitals in the UK, is doing just that. Patients stay on average up to seven years here and staff say that animal therapy helps to develop problem-solving skills, empathy, attention to the needs of others, a sense of responsibility and a way of channelling aggressive thoughts among individuals who have proved hard to reach with conventional psychiatric drugs and talking therapies.

Are you in need of some oxytocin?

Here at Paws in Work we also know the huge mental health benefits of puppy therapy (and the importance of socialising puppies). If you and your colleagues are in need of some mental wellbeing TLC in your workplace, have a look at our fully licensed puppy therapy sessions. We promise it’ll lower those cortisol levels!

Similarly, if you or someone you know needs someone to talk to or a helping paw, remember to check out our Paws in Work mental health support pages. We also offer an array of mental health training courses if you are looking to continue expanding your overall knowledge of mental health.