You’ve taught your dog to sit, beg, and roll over.
But their best trick of all? Helping you heal from your stress and anxiety.
Simply being around our floppy-eared besties can help us feel more relaxed and even reduce pain. I mean, there’s nothing more therapeutic than coming home to a wagging tail and a cuddly ball of fur.
(I mean, just look at Bachelor’s cute face!)
But when you take the time to train and teach your dog a few special tricks, you can transform your mental health journey.
What is Animal-Assisted Therapy?
Animal-assisted therapy trains animals to help facilitate our healing and treatment plans.
It takes the bond between us and our pets and turns it into a plan that can relieve stress and anxiety, reduce depression and loneliness, and provide support for PTSD, panic attacks, and other mental health conditions.
The best part (besides the adorableness)? It’s how customizable animal-assisted therapy is. Your therapy plan will be built around your needs, your pet, and your mental health. From meditating with your dog to doga (dog yoga!), you can find powerful ways to exhale and paws from the comfort of your home.
4 Tail-Wagging Benefits of Animal-Assisted Therapy for Mental Health
1. Relieve Stress & Anxiety Regular yoga, meditation, and stress-relieving exercises can help us find calm and relief. But meditating with your dog? That takes these benefits to a whole new level.
Meditating can be difficult, especially when sitting with painful memories and trauma. By practicing doga and meditating with your dog, you can find peace and strength in their familiar presence — and extend the same calming benefits to them, as well.
2. Feel Safety in a Daily Routine
When the world feels a constant whirlwind of chaos and “what ifs,” we need routines and structure to keep us grounded. Animal-assisted therapy can help us stay accountable to our goals and consistent in our healing plans.
Remember: Dogs are creatures of habit. They won’t let you forget when it’s time for puppy pilates, meditation, or your other stress-relieving routines.
3. Balance Mental Health & Physical Health Our minds and bodies are connected. When we take care of one, we take care of the other! Doga and other animal-assisted therapy exercises can help us stay active, giving our minds endorphins (happy hormones!) and oxytocin (love and belonging hormones!).
4. Enjoy a Sense of Togetherness Stress, anxiety, and depression try to convince us that it’s just us against the world. But animal-assisted therapy reminds us this isn’t true.
It fosters a relationship with our pets that makes us feel less alone. That reminds us that there’s always a puppy-dog face waiting to do meditate, cuddle, and play with us!
Find Healing from Stress & Anxiety with Animal-Assisted Therapy
Bachelor is one of the biggest reasons I’m here, ready to help you today. He taught me how to be calm again. How to be happy again. How to play again. He’s my Certified Good Boy, and without him, my healing journey would look a lot different.
Whether you’re interested in meditating with your dog, trying out a movement session with your pup, or developing a unique animal-assisted therapy plan, I’m here. Let’s find healing with your best pal so you can finally exhale and paws.
Book a complimentary 20-minute consultation with me
I can’t wait to exhale and pause with you.