One of my favorite websites is Prevention.com. You’ll find me skulking around its pages regularly – reading, taking notes, vowing to do this, promising to cut out that.
One of the things I love even more that great reading material is animals (Had you guessed how much I love of animals?). So I found the following extremely interesting. It’s from an article titled, Prevention’s Anti-Aging Guide: How to take off 10 years or more–and look and feel better than ever.
The author gives great advice on staying youthful and healthy. The following is tip #4 and you’ll soon discover why it’s my favorite one of all.
Open up your home and heart to Rover or Boots. Owning a pet reduces the number of visits to the doctor, prolongs survival after a heart attack, and wards off depression, says James Serpell, PhD, director of the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. (His family has a cat, a dog, a large green iguana, a bearded dragon, and a dozen fish.)
Pet ownership also protects against a major problem of aging: high blood pressure. In one standout study at State University of New York, Buffalo, stockbrokers with high blood pressure adopted a pet. When they were faced with mental stress, their BP increased less than half as much as in their counterparts without animal pals.
We have cats, hamsters, and even two hermit crabs in our family. I’ve been campaigning hot and heavy for another dog since ours passed away a year ago. In fact, I think two dogs would be ideal – they could entertain one another. I’ve used everything on my husband – how they’d make wonderful walking companions, how they’d serve as a security system, how they add to the quality of one’s life, etc.
What Prevention just did was give me another angle. Honey…. animals are like drops from the fountain of youth. The more you have, the younger you’ll be.
Click the link to read the entire article: How to Take Off 10 Years or More