Spending 3 minutes with a donkey or mini horse makes teens less lonely and sad: study
A little horseplay might be just what the doctor ordered for today’s teens.A new study from the University of California, Davis found that spending just three minutes in the company of a miniature horse or donkey can lift adolescents’ spirits.Better yet: The feel-good effect appears to linger even after their four-legged friend trots away.
That small burst of joy could be exactly what young people need.Nationwide, 40% of high school students report feeling persistently sad or hopeless, while nearly 20% of youth ages 12 to 17 have experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year.And it’s not just an American problem.Research by the World Health Organization shows that teens are the loneliest demographic around the globe.
In the study, researchers recruited 61 teens and analyzed their interactions with a small heard consisting of two miniature horses named Olivia and Randy and two miniature donkeys named Mary and Memphis.Each teen spent three minutes with the furry crew.Half were asked to gently stroke the animals’ backs, while the others were instructed to vigorously scratch their necks — a move that mimics the way equines groom one another.The teens were also taught how to spot two important signals: lip-wriggling, a sign of pleasure or enjoyment, and walking away, which means the animal wants a little space.After just three minutes, all of the teens reported feeling calmer and less nervous, sad, lonely and excited.And the animals appeared to enjoy the interaction, too.
They wriggled their lips during 75% of the neck-scratching sessions and 48% of the gentle-petting sessions.Interestingly, the teens who noticed the animals’ lip-wriggling had bigger drops in loneliness — suggesting that paying attention to their cues may be part of what makes the interaction so rewarding.“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 Rodr�...