A new study shows what dog lovers have known all along: petting dogs isn't just nice for the dog—it's good for you, too.
Scientists being scientists, they had to headline today's best story with this buzzkill of a buzzword salad: "Psychophysiological and emotional effects of human–Dog interactions by activity type: An electroencephalogram study."
I'm curious why Dog is capitalized but human isn't. Maybe these guys like Dogs as much as I do. Or maybe the AP Stylebook considers Dogs to be a marginalized group worthy of capitalization, like "Black" but not "White." Also, I had to look up "electroencephalogram," and I'm okay getting my skull all wired up for one if there are Dogs involved.
So what the scientists did was take a group of 30 adult humans between the ages of about 20 and 35 and give them Dogs to play with. But scientists being scientists, there was a bit more to it than that.
The humans had their heads wired up for electroencephalogram readings from the prefrontal, frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes of the brain. Each human was then given eight activities to perform with a single dog for three minutes per activity. The activities included "meeting, playing, feeding, massaging, grooming, photographing, hugging, and walking." Those are all things that good dogs love, except for the photographing part, which most dogs love but that the most photogenic dog in the world — my best girl, Remy — shies away from.
The photo atop this article is one of maybe six really good pictures I've gotten of her in 11 years. Seriously, she sees the camera come out (or the iPhone; she figured that out at once) and hides her face.
But back to the science.
The verdict among the 30 humans was unanimous: "Can we get a few more minutes to play with the dogs? Three seems kind of stingy."
Sorry, I made that part up. What I'm not making up are the actual results of the test, which were derived from both the electroencephalogram readings and the humans providing "subjective evaluation of their emotions" done "via the Profile of Mood States, Semantic Differential Method, and Stress Numeric Rating Scale," which I now know is a thing.
A summary of the findings:
The alpha (relative, relative slow, relative fast) power spectra indicated that the brain’s relaxation and resting state significantly increased when playing with and walking a dog. The beta (relative, relative low, and relative mid) power spectra significantly increased during dog massage, grooming, and playing activities, indicating improved concentration without stress. Notably, playing with a dog positively affected both relaxation and concentration.
If you read just a little further on, you'll see the details are even more encouraging, that "specific dog activities could activate stronger relaxation, emotional stability, attention, concentration, and creativity by facilitating increased brain activity."
Keep in mind: these are the results the scientists obtained even when people's skulls were covered with electroencephalogram wires. Imagine how much more relaxed everyone would be — probably even the Dogs, too — if the humans weren't done up like Pinhead from "Hellraiser."
But anybody who has ever seen a small child (or a large adult) meet their new eight-week-old Puppy for the first time already knows that. I just wish there were more time to adopt more Dogs.
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