Many lovers of videos with funny animals explain that such a pastime helps to relax and relieve stress. We decided to check if this belief has a scientific justification.
The fact that watching a video about cats and dogs helps in the fight against stress is written, referring to the research of scientists, different Russian Mediaincluding Federalas well as Russian -speaking Media from others countries. In some publications even specifiedHow much stress is reduced from such a pastime, namely, by 50%. Bloggers add this information to Collections funny videos with animals, about a decrease in stress in this way write channels About health on Instagram*, Media for teenagers, sitesdedicated to living nature, gardening And Travel.
Interaction with animals, or petotherapy, is a common practice in the treatment of many diseases. The most popular canistrapy (communication with dogs), felinotherapy (with cats), hippotherapy (with horses) and dolphin therapy (its evidence many specialists Put doubt). Also, in Pet therapy they can use rabbits, hamsters, screams, frenocks (domestic ferrets) and other animals. Apply this method Recommend With a whole row diseases: Cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, PTSR, depression, dementia, schizophrenia, epilepsy. Popular animals-therapists as in children's hospitals, and in houses nursing And Hospice.
However, the basis of Peter therapy is precisely the physical interaction with animals: patients are stroke and scratch dogs and cats, ride horses, feed animals or allow them to lie down next to them. In the case of watching the video, there are no kinetic components of such therapy, only the image itself remains.
At the same time, the popularity of animals in the network is huge. In 2014, the creator of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee in an interview with the 25th anniversary of his invention celebratedThat most of all on the Internet is surprising what important role in it cats and kittens play - grumpy, touching or simply touching meowing. According to research Reelseo, in 2014, on YouTube posted more than 2 million videos with cats, in total these videos watched 26 billion times. A year later, It wrote The Bloomberg agency, the content related to cats accounted for 15% of the total Internet traffic.
Some cats gain popularity on the Internet so large that they even fall into the Guinness Book of Records. In 2022, this happened with the Ragdoll breed cat named Puff, whom Recognized The most popular cat on YouTube - the videos with it watched 7.5 billion times (by April 2024 this indicator grew up more than three times). Other Internet star has a grami cat (Grumpy Cat), 7.6 million subscribers on Facebook*. Among the most popular Internet animals are the Scottish straight -up cat Maru from Japan, known for its love for boxes (555 million Views On YouTube), a cat with himmerism named Venus (2.2 million subscribers on Instagram*), Pomeranian Spitz Bu from San Francisco (14 million subscribers on Facebook*), dwarf cat Lil Bab (2.5 million subscribers On Instagram*).
Stress is a fairly broad concept. Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye, who put this term into a scientific circulation, I mean Under it, the "non -specific response of the body to any requirement presented to him." Now the WHO Determines Stress as a “natural reaction of a person who focuses his attention to problems or threats arising in everyday life.” How He emphasizes The British non -profit organization “Mental Health Fund”, manifestations of stress in emotionally are extremely diverse - it can be excited, fear, anger, sadness, irritability, depression and confusion. Harvard Medicine Harvard Experts MarkWhat stress has an impact on the functioning of the brain - a person can become more forgetful, worse cope with everyday tasks and have problems with concentration. A high level of stress, expressed in increased irritability, isolation and hostility, influences And on our relations with loved ones. Therefore, scientists are constantly analyzing what can help in the fight against stress.
In 2012, a group of researchers from the University of Hiroshima I studied The phenomenon of Kawaii is a aesthetic concept of all the sweet - on the example of photos of kittens and puppies, as well as adult animals. Scientists were interested in the potential benefits of such images to improve physical and mental concentration, which is often reduced under the influence of stress. In the first experiment, volunteers first performed the assignment for coordination - they needed to gently extract 14 small foreign fragments from the layout of the human body, without touching certain areas. Then half of the participants received cards with images of kittens and puppies, and the second with adult animals. Scientists asked the volunteers to relax, examining these pictures, and then repeat the coordination test. For those who looked at the images of kittens and puppies, the results were better by 54%, in the second group - by 11%.
Participants in the second experiment solved another problem: inside table 4 to 10 cells, they needed to calculate the number of letters F among letters T and vice versa. Having dealt with one such matrix, the volunteer was shown the following - and so on within 3 minutes. Then the scientists gave the subjects images (either kittens of both puppies, or adult animals, or aesthetically decorated food - land, pastes or steak), gave time to study the pictures, and asked to pass the test again. The results after viewing the images improved by 13.2% for the group, which considered kittens and puppies, by 4.3% - for those who got cards with adults, and 3.2% in the case of images of beautiful food.
Finally, in the third experiment, the course of which was identical to the first and second, volunteers needed to quickly evaluate which letter in front of them: F or T - and press the corresponding button on the remote control. When the assignment is repeated after a break for examining pictures, the most noticeable improvement was shown by the group considering kittens and puppies by 15.7%. For comparison, the study of cards with adults and beautiful food increased the results very insignificant - by 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively.
In the conclusions, scientists noted that Kawaii not only makes us happier, but also improves the performance, attentiveness and speed of reactions. Lovely pictures and videos suggest researchers, can improve the quality of work of office employees and public transport drivers.
In 2018, a group of scientists from the University of Colorado investigatedHow to watch videos with cats and dogs affects students who need to learn complex material, that is, to concentrate as much as possible and at the same time remember the large amount of new information. As volunteers, the authors of the experiment invited 113 students of a veterinary school. They listened to lectures on pharmacology, in the middle of which students either showed a cute video about animals or not. In total, future veterinarians attended 20 lectures, they showed the video in half the cases. After lectures with the viewing of the videos, students evaluated themselves as happier, satisfied and well mastered the material they heard. True, scientists also note the limitations of their conclusions - a break to watch other videos (for example, with sedative types of nature) or physical exercises may be no less effective in this situation.
In 2020 scientists From the University of Lids Offered View videos with cute animals 19 volunteers: 15 students who were worried before the exam, and four college employees who complained about everyday high level of stress. The participants in the experiment were shown funny ducklings, kittens, puppies, alpaca, tiger, lion, cubs of gorillas, as well as “the most Happy An animal in the world ”is a kkuka. It is she I provided The most “significant and immediate positive” influence on volunteers. It turned out that a half -hour viewing of rollers with ridiculous animals reduces the heart rate by 6.5%, normalizes the pressure (from the average in group 136/88 to 115/71) and lowers the level of anxiety (on average by 35%, and for some participants in the experiment - even by 50%). By the end of the session, scientists appreciated all volunteers as people with a healthy level of stress. One participant relaxed so much that he almost fell asleep, despite the excitement noted before the experiment.
However, watching a video with cute animals is not a panacea. Researchers from Indiana University in 2015 invited To participate in the experiment 6827 volunteers who stated that regularly (about one and a half days and a half) are watching videos with cats on the Internet. Scientists were interested in the emotions of these people: how exactly they feel before and after watching such videos. To find out this, subjects were proposed to evaluate the intensity of their positive and negative emotions: anxiety, irritation, sadness, guilt, optimism, happiness, satisfaction, a feeling of exhaustion or energetic. It turned out that all negative emotions after watching the rollers became less intense, and positive - on the contrary, intensified. However, guilt on average decreased in the least pronounced, and in some volunteers it increased, which could lead to stress. Researchers explained this by the fact that people associate watching a video about cats with procrastination. At the same time, it turned out that the more the video liked the video, the stronger the positive emotions suppressed the negative, including guilt.
Thus, the existing scientific data confirm the benefits of watching video with cute animals. Such videos soothe, reduce stress and anxiety, normalize the heart rate and pressure. However, watching such videos, it is important to ensure that the cats, dogs or other animals really touch, otherwise, instead of positive emotions, you can get the increased feeling of guilt due to procrastination.
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Image on the cover: social networks
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