Eating certain foods might boost your health very well, but do you know that owning a cat gives you almost the same effect? Especially for your mental health, it does help. There are numerous benefits that you can enjoy simply by having a cat so that you might be thankful of having one in your home.
- Supporting During Hard Times
Benefits of Owning a Cat could be best ways give us support in many time. It may seem illogical considering that cats are only animals, but the fact that they can support you during your hard times is interesting. It can be done by talking to them about your feelings and you won’t even need any responses. It is in one side helpful because you don’t have to listen to any judgment from human due to your story. You can feel your pain is getting better as you burst out all that you have inside your heart without worrying that the cat will open your secret.
- Helping You Sleep
Another interesting benefit of having a cat is that you have something to sleep with. It has been reported by some studies that cats can help you sleep better. So if you usually sleep alone and is having difficulty of sleeping, this one may help.
- Protecting Children from Allergies
It is indeed true that cats have parasite called Toxoplasma Gondi, which is bad for children, but on the other side, cats can also protect them from allergies. It must be started from the early ages to get such benefit. If you have kids who are still under a year, have a cat and let them play together. The exposure from the cat can reduce the risk of having allergies in children, not only animal allergies but also some other types of allergies such as grass and dust. Children who are used to cats have a higher immunity in dealing with allergies. Remember that you need to keep the litter box of your cat changed regularly to keep it free of the parasite. Accompany your children when playing with cats and don’t let them be with them too long. Also, let your cat stay inside your house to prevent it from getting dirt.
- Providing Therapy
Having a cat is calming as it is a nice pet that can give joy to your house. When you feel calm, your body can have the hormone called oxytocin, which is good for triggering love feeling. Moreover, autism children can also feel the calming sensation when they have a cat, according to a study.
- Giving you Companionship
One of the reasons why cats are good companionship is their ability in remembering kindness. When you love them, the can love you back in their own ways. They can give you something in return if you are good to them. That is why cats can be a good friend. Even a study stated that a romantic relationship can happen between the cat and the owner.
- Decreasing Stroke’s Risk
A study showed that having a cat can reduce the risk of having stroke about one third. Although it is still unsure why makes such ownership can give you the big benefit, there is a speculation that the low maintenance is one of the causes.
- Improving the Health of Your Cardiovascular
As has been said above that cats can reduce the risk of stroke, then it is absolutely related with your cardiovascular condition. This was shown in a study from the University of Minnesota that the comparison between cat owners and non-cat owners reveal that there is decreasing number of people suffering from cardiovascular diseases on those who own cats. However, you surely cant be healthy simply just by owning a cat.
- Encouraging Children’s Empathy
It works in children since they can learn more about feeling as they play with cats. By owning cats children is able to feel what others feel, so when they grow up they already had the feeling of empathy to others. Such empathy will help them consider of what they need to do dealing with others depending on how they feel.
- Reduce the Feeling of Anxiety
It has been said before that cat can bring you calmness and it is automatically reducing anxiety. This feeling happens whenever you care to someone or in this case, a creature, considering that your worry is eliminated. Moreover, cats can love you unconditionally making you feel less anxious.
- Making Your Environment Better
Consider petting a cat than a dog makes your environment better since cats make less carbon footprints compared to dogs. This is because cats mostly eat fish, unlike dogs. It has been even proved in a study that feeding dogs are not good for your environment. So, love your environment by leaving the dogs and go pick a cat.
- Helping Your Children Learn Things
If you have kids at home having a cat would be a great idea as children can learn many things. Aside from empathy mentioned before, traumatic problems can be also solved by having a cat. The relationship lets your children learn how to share and care with the cat while improving their self-esteem.
- Improving Sociability
People who own cats tend to talk to them although they know that there wouldn’t be any response. This talking habit can help improving sociability and make you easier to deal with people in your environment.
- Lowering Triglycerides
It is said by some studies that having a cat can help you lower your triglycerides. Surely you can’t depend on this only, but owning a cat can support the plan so that not only by doing exercises, but also petting your pet may help.
- Keeping Cholesterol Low
Petting a cat can reduce cholesterol level and as has been mentioned before that owning a cat is able preventing you from cardiovascular diseases, one of the contributing factors is the low cholesterol. It is interesting that simply having a cat keep your cholesterol in control. Even a study in 2006 had shown that petting a cat is better than taking medications when it comes to lower cholesterol.
- Making Your Mood Better
Mood can be improved when your heart is calming, so in the other word owning a cat can improve your mood to be better. So when you feel like your mood is going down, you can spend a little time with your cat and make it better to start your day over again.
- Preventing Asthma
Not only owning a cat can reduce the risk of having allergies in children, but it can also help keeping asthma away. Simply letting the children get in touch with a cat regularly and it is good in preventing respiratory-related problems. It had been showed in a study that there is a reduction of respiratory problems in children who own a cat. The key is by letting them exposed to a cat during their early years to get them used to it. However, there are surely still some precautions to be taken.
- Improving Immune System
Immune system booster doesn’t always to be healthy foods. Sometimes unexpected thing like owning a cat can give you the same benefit. Immune system can be boosted when you feel happy. Since cats can make your mood better while helping you eliminate stress, at the same time your immune system can be also boosted. Also, when you are feeling unwell, you have your cat that will always be there for comforting you. The happiness in your mind and heart plays an important role in improving your immune system so that you won’t get sick so easily.
- Preventing Stress
Feeling stress is very common, but some people may have it more often than others. Taking medicine is not an option since there is no medicine can completely cure stress. It comes again and again in your life uncontrollably. Having a cat is a cure for stressful heart because simply petting it can give a positive effect to your heart. Although there is no scientific proof about it, it can be generally caused by the happy and calming feeling of petting a cat. The best scientific reason is because the serotonin production in your body is increasing when you are playing with a cat. Serotonin improves the happy feeling and reduces your stress. At the same time, the cortisol level, which influences your blood pressure and cholesterol, is lower along with the improved serotonin. Not only will you be happy, but also healthy.
- Help to Detect Seizures
Cats can be good pet for those suffering from seizures due to their ability in warning people before seizures happen. Cats tend to recognize the signs and are able making an effort to warn the sufferer. The reason why they can do that is unknown, but it would be helpful to do some seizures’ prevention.
- Strengthening the Bones
It might sound strange, but purring cats are helpful in treating bones-related injuries. If you have a cat and some problems with your muscles or swelling, let it purr for giving you natural treatment. The reason behind its benefit is because cats produce purring frequency that is suitable for healing problems with bones.
- Lowering Blood Pressure
Still closely related with the calming effect of owning a cat, it gives a good benefit for your blood too. Studies found that the calming feeling of petting a cat makes your blood pressure low and it happens not only for adults, but also for children. So caring and petting a cat really provides your body good health surely when it is followed with a good lifestyle at the same time.
- Preventing You from Loneliness
When you live far away from your families, loneliness could be your best friend. Feeling lonely might be very normal at that time, but having a cat can make your life brighter. So although you live alone by yourself, there is a thing inside your house that can move and make a sound.
- Dealing with Autism
People with autism tend to have problems with communication. It is so hard for normal people to understand what they mean except they are used to it. A therapy of communication can be done with a cat so that people with autism can learn better of how to interact with others.
- Relieving Depression
Relieving here doesn’t mean that a cat can cure it, but it just means decreasing the feeling of depression. Still about the other benefit from the calming effect of owning a cat, some problems inside your mind can be freed so that you can concentrate more on things you are supposed to. So when you feel like depression has conquered your mind, play with your cat for a while and you might feel better.
Tips Caring a Cat
Here are some tips to care a cat whether you are a new owner or just having a plan to adopt a cat as your pet.
- Provide a Good Place
Prepare a high quality litter box is the first thing to do. You need to give the cat a nice and comfortable place to sleep so that he won’t feel bad living in your house. Clean the box regularly as the dirt will influence the health of your home too. Surely you don’t want your home to be filled with nasty smell from the dirty litter box.
- Give Appropriate Foods
They needn’t be expensive, but the foods for your cats can be simply things you can inexpensively buy from the market like fish. Some cats can even eat the leftover of your meals as long as it contains fish. Some cat foods might be expensive so you don’t have to force yourself spending money for them just because you want to care a cat. Don’t forget to supply the cat with fresh water so it can drink easily without getting too thirsty.
- Bring The Cat to the Vet
Once you find something wrong with your cat, bring it to the vet immediately to get the cat properly treated. Some diseases could be bad for your health so you need to get them fixed right away. Treating an ill cat improperly might be harmful for your cat as well so leaving it to the vet is just the best decision.
Disadvantages of Owning a Cat
Although above there has been a long list of benefits of owning a cat, there are still some disadvantages of having it that could be used as consideration before deciding to bring a cat home.
- You Will Get All Scratched
Cats have claws that are easy to make scratches. They are naturally born with such claws and it is hard to avoid them. The bad news is they like scratching many things from fabric, furniture to sofa. They don’t care whether or not they are expensive because what they only know is that all the things around them inside the house are there for them. So they can just do anything with your stuff. If you are ready with such situation, then just pick a cat hone to rip of your curtains, carpet and sofa.
- Their Claws are Dangerous
As has been mentioned in the first point, cats have claws that can rip and make scratches. You might think that as the owner you can declaw them, but declawing a cat means that you can put it outside. A cat can’t be out there without claws because they use them as protections from the other cats. Cats like fighting so they always need their claws when they wander around. You will put your cat in danger by declawing it and letting it go outside. However, leaving the cat inside all day and night is also not good for your home as you might find it cluttered.
- You are Exposed to Many Diseases
Cats are cute, fun and interesting, but they also carry some diseases like rabies, ringworm, tetanus and toxoplasmosis that could be bad for your health. In order to keep your cat healthy, get it vaccinated is necessary and it means that you need to spend your money for that, which seems unnecessary. Think about it again. Rather than spending your money for a cat, why don’t you use it for your family?
- You Can Have a Stingy House
Putting your cat inside means that you should be ready having a stingy house. Cats love crapping in their litter boxes and the stingy smell can spread to all over your house. Imagine how annoying it is to live in a stingy house all day. If you want the litter box clean without smell, you need to change it maybe every some hours and it could be very frustrating. How free you are to be able changing a cat’s litter box many times a day?
Some say that owning a cat is less expensive than a dog. While this might be true, you still should spend a lot of money for the maintenance and the foods, which is mostly unnecessary. If you want a cat, stop buying it, just pick or adopt it. If you are worried about certain allergies or diseases the cat might carry as you don’t pick it from a pet shop, then why do you have to have one? When it is just about for having companionship, a thing that can make you calm or something that makes you happy, there are still things out there can do that instead of a cat or a pet.