Horsing Around Leads to Less Stress for Kids

Kids who work with horses have less stress, according to a new study.

“We were coming at this from a prevention perspective,” said Patricia Pendry, a developmental psychologist at Washington State University (WSU).

“We are especially interested in optimizing healthy stress hormone production in young adolescents, because we know from other research that healthy stress hormone patterns may protect against the development of physical and mental health problems.”

For her study, she analyzed the effects of human-equine interaction by measuring the kids’ levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

“The beauty of studying stress hormones is that they can be sampled quite noninvasively and conveniently by sampling saliva in naturalistic settings as individuals go about their regular day,” she said.

While human-animal interaction programs with animals has shown to improve self-esteem and behavior in children, there was limited scientifically valid research to back up these claims.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/04/27/horsing-around-leads-to-less-stress-for-kids/69024.html