Sleeping Next to Your Dog Can Improve Your Mental Health, According to Expert

Need more proof that dogs are the best? Well, as it turns out just plain sleeping right next to them may improve your mental health. Yup, just a dog's presence is enough to make things better which is a huge thing if you think about it.

Karen Barrett, a dog behaviorist, says welcoming your dog into your bed has a lot of benefits. Aside from having a cuddle buddy, dogs comfort us in ways we never thought of before. That is, as long as you make sure you let them know it's your bed by establishing dominance.

"If the dog is sleeping on your head, they think they are higher up than you and this is a problem. But, by lying next to you, there is an oxytocin release that encourages us to cuddle up together. It's also a basic genetic survival instinct," Barrett told the Daily Telegraph.

She continued, "When you've got single or elderly people, whose partners have passed, having a dog that sleeps on the bed is comforting."

Dogs don't only help with our mental health, they also make us live longer. While dogs provide plenty of emotional support (petting a dog already lowers blood pressure), another part of the boost for human's life expectancy comes with physical exercise. Makes sense.

h/t: Daily Telegraph