Surprising literally no cat-owners at all, science says that owning a cat can provide stress relief.
Unless that cat is a little terror-ball, in which case they might not be as helpful for coping with anxiety. But according to a growing amount of scientific literature, the simple act of owning a cat at some point can be a life-saving partnership.
Let’s start with a 2009 study published in The Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology. This study broke up a group of 4,000 people into two groups: current and former cat owners and people who had never owned a cat in their miserable lives. The study then kept track of those people for 10 years to see who died.
Of the cat-owner group, researchers found that those who had a cat or owned a cat at some point were less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, heart attack, or stroke. By up to one third.
That’s right: simply having owned a cat at some point in your life means that you can lower your risk of heart attack or stroke by a third. Or, as the study put it, “Acquisition of cats as domestic pets may represent a novel strategy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases in high-risk individuals."
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Naturally, the study controlled for other factors such as smoking, obesity, and diabetes, so they knew it wasn’t just because smokers were less likely to own a cat.
So why do cats reduce stress? There is tons of research that says that stroking a cat can reduce the stress hormone cortisol in the body almost immediately. Less stress is always better when it comes to heart health, and a periodic shot of "anti-cortisol" can be exactly what the heart doctor ordered.
But before cat owners start ringing the final victory bell over their hated dog-loving neighbors, a 2017 study in Scientific Reports found that having a dog gave pretty much the same health benefits.
So the takeaway here is that owning a cat is great for your health, but so is owning a dog. Really, owning any pet is great. Just go out and adopt a pet already!