More proof that pets are good for our health

If you've been on the fence about adopting an animal, here's some news that might finally push you over the edge: a recent study that analyzed the brain waves of dog owners found that proximity to their pups made them feel calmer and significantly reduced their levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.

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The cuddle cure.

Dr. Sandra Barker (yep, that's her real name) a professor of psychiatry and director of the School of Medicine Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University, studies what happens inside our bodies when we interact with dogs and is the creator of the brain wave study.

Says Barker, "We're trying to find out what's really physically going on...No one's ever looked at the brain waves before with human-animal interaction."

According to the study, after Barker's subjects interacted with a dog, they showed an increase in both theta and alpha brain frequencies — the frequency bands associated with relaxation. And regardless if the dog was familiar to them or not, people showed the same measurable response — a preliminary finding that could prove useful to health experts that employ animal assisted therapy.

Over the years, numerous other studies have pointed to the many heath-giving benefits of pets, including lowering blood pressure, keeping depression at bay and even increasing longevity. In the face of all of this glowing evidence, the National Institutes of Health recently announced that it's sinking $2 million into new research on the subject.

Barker agrees that larger-scale studies are needed to find out more about how animals — and especially therapy dogs — can make an impact in a clinical setting. But once the financial challenge is met, there are also a few technical hurdles to overcome. Unlike most other medical trials, you can't give a subject a placebo pill when you're studying the effects of pets on people. "It's really tough to blind somebody to a dog," says Barker.