Three minutes with a mini horse or donkey might be enough to take the edge off teen stress, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of California at Davis had 61 teenagers spend just 180 seconds petting or scratching four rescued miniature horses and donkeys, then rate their own anxiety and mood before and after, reports the Washington Post. The teens later reported feeling less anxious, lonely, and sad, and more calm, according to findings published in Scientific Reports.
“Our work raises this beautiful possibility that making the interaction better for the animal may be part of what makes it better for us,” Rebecca Calisi Rodriguez of the Green Care Lab at UC Davis says in a release. “This has the potential to change how we think about designing animal-assisted interventions.” The effect showed up whether the animals leaned in with a “lip wiggle” (a sign of enjoyment) or simply walked away. Calisi-Rodriguez now wants to track heart rate and breathing in both teens and animals during these micro-interactions to better understand how brief contact with nature affects mental health.
