Mental Health & Pets – How Pets Can Benefit Your Mental Health:
A recent review has suggested that pets provide benefits to those with mental health conditions. That’s right: having a pet can help you if you have a mental health issue.
Interestingly enough, this review comes just a few weeks after we have expanded the Regan household to include Nibbles the rabbit. She’s on her own right now as the other rabbit we were going to adopt fell ill yet soon we will be socialising her to live with a new rabbit friend. It’s been pretty great to see how my girls have taken on the responsibility of looking after Nibbles. They are out there first thing in the morning adding hay and food and changing the water. They are out there again after school and before bedtime to make sure she is ok and to have some rabbit time. In fact, I think that the amount of times they spend watching TV and on other screens has probably dropped about 50% or more.
And, combined with a change of school for our eldest, we’ve really got our daughter back after the issues we had at her old school that were impacting on her mental health and wellbeing. It’s been great to see. It’s also given me a great excuse to repeatedly sing the classic 80’s Chas & Dave song ‘Rabbit’ which although having nothing to do with actual rabbits, certainly mentions them a lot!