College is an incredibly stressful experience, and students are always looking for ways to reduce their stress. Now, a new study has found that spending just ten minutes with dogs or cats will “significantly” reduce stress levels.

Many universities have enacted “Pet Your Stress Away” programs in which students can come in and interact with cats and/or dogs to help relieve their stress levels. Researchers at Washington State University recently carried out a study that found that programs like this can “get under the skin” and have huge psychological benefits in terms of stress relief.

“Just 10 minutes can have a significant impact,” explained Patricia Pendry, an associate professor in WSU’s Department of Human Development. “Students in our study that interacted with cats and dogs had a significant reduction in cortisol, a major stress hormone.”

This is the first study that has conclusively shown reductions in students’ cortisol levels during a real‑life intervention rather than in a laboratory setting. Researchers took 249 college students and randomly divided them into four groups. The first group got ten minutes of hands‑on interaction in small groups with cats and dogs, and during that time, they could pet and play with the animals as much as they wanted.

The second group watched other people petting the animals while they waited for their turn, and the third group watched a slideshow of the same animals available during the intervention. Meanwhile, the fourth group was “waitlisted,” meaning they had to wait for their turn quietly for 10 minutes without their phones, reading materials, or other stimuli. During this time, they were told they would experience animal interaction soon.

Throughout the study, several salivary cortisol samples were taken from the students. After looking at the data, the researchers found that the students who interacted directly with the pets showed significantly less cortisol in their saliva after the interaction. These results came in even while considering that some students may have had very high or low levels to begin with.

“We already knew that students enjoy interacting with animals, and that it helps them experience more positive emotions,” Pendry said. “What we wanted to learn was whether this exposure would help students reduce their stress in a less subjective way. And it did, which is exciting because the reduction of stress hormones may, over time, have significant benefits for physical and mental health.”

Pendry and her team are now taking this a step further by looking at the impact of a four-week-long animal-assisted stress prevention program. They are hoping to have the results of this out in the near future!