I recently posted on how owning a dog is associated with a number of powerful health benefits.
Turns out you don’t even need a real dog to experience some of those effects. Watching a video of a cute animal can reduce heart rate and blood pressure in under a minute.
Via Richard Wiseman’s excellent book 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute:
In an innovative study, Deborah Wells examined whether merely looking at a video of an animal can have the same type of calming and restorative effects as those created by being in its company.
And:
…compared to the two control conditions, all three animal videos made the participants feel much more relaxed. To help reduce your heart rate and blood pressure in less than a minute, go online and watch a video of a cute animal.
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