Dogs make better bedfellows for women than people – or cats, according a new study.<\/p>\n
The groundbreaking research from Canisius College (which is for people, and is named for one – a saint – not for the genus that Saint Bernards belong to) found that more than half of women snuggle up to at least one dog.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And those that keep canine company at night tend to get to bed earlier, sleep better and get up earlier in the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sleeping next to a furry dog may even make women feel more comfortable and secure than a human partner can.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"Women](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2018\/11\/27\/23\/6721456-6435673-image-a-1_1543361879658.jpg\")
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Women sleep more soundly next to dogs than with people or cats, according to new research<\/p>\n
Humans and animals have had a symbiotic relationship for thousands of years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dogs and cats have both long abounded our camps, caves, farmlands and, today, homes, but we definitely, intentionally bred dogs for keeps.<\/p>\n
Canines are naturally hierarchical creatures that we were able to breed to look at us as their pack leaders and train to act as our protectors and hunters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We even have a clear chemical interaction with our dogs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When dogs and humans stare into one another’s eyes, our levels of of the love neurochemical, oxytocin, sky-rocket, Japanese researchers have found.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dogs feel the love, as seen by the 130 percent rise in their oxytocin levels when the gaze up at their owners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But people really feel the love when they look into their canines’ eyes. Oxytocin is the same chemical that makes mothers – human or otherwise – feel warm and fuzzy when they look at their babies so that they feel attached and protective of their helpless little ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Do you need an ’emotional support’ animal on a plane? Is it…<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Now they’ve found it in dog food! Scientists discover traces…<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n When women and men alike look at their dogs, their oxytocin levels spike surge by 300 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n This may explain why more than half of the 962 adult women surveyed in the Canisius College study felt such a sense of ‘comfort’ next to their canine cuddlers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 31 percent who had at least one cat didn’t get the same snuggly sense from their pets.\u00a0<\/p>\n We really didn’t mean to get so close to cats, research suggests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead they snuck into our lives to eat our scraps – which these solitary creatures much preferred to mice or insects that they caught in the wild – and we mostly let these unaffectionate animals stick around because there was something familiar about their faces.\u00a0<\/p>\n We don’t share an electric gaze like we do with dogs or other humans, but cats’ faces are, bizarrely, proportioned like human babies’ faces – and the two are about the same size.\u00a0<\/p>\n Big round eyes in the center of the face, short little nose, rounded head with a small, slightly pointed chin (and a lot more hair).\u00a0<\/p>\n That’s good enough for our animal brain to say ‘okay, you can stay,’ apparently.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in our sleep, we seem to sleep through the cat trick.<\/p>\n Though women with any kind of pet or any kind of partner experienced more sleep disturbances overall, those who fell asleep cuddling a cat or a person woke up feeling less well-rested.\u00a0<\/p>\n The seven percent of women who got the bed to themselves got better sleep overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, if you really want to rest well, consider kicking everyone out of your bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though sleeping together releases that same magical cuddle chemical, most of us really don’t like to sleep next to our partners.<\/p>\n Just 13 percent of people sleep spooning or otherwise cuddling up to their partners in bed, while 63 percent push the other person away.\u00a0<\/p>\n And women have it worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n Men, according to a Sleep.org study (at least) say they sleep better with a woman beside them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Women said just the opposite.<\/p>\n Plus, women are more likely to be startled awake by the sound of someone next to them sawing logs – and men are worse snorers than their female counterparts.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, if you’re like 11 percent of American adults that are afraid of the dark, or you just don’t want to be lonely, you might want to try huddling up with a hound.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dogs make better bedfellows for women than people – or cats, according a new study. The groundbreaking research from Canisius College (which is for people, and is named for one – a saint – not for the genus that Saint Bernards belong to) found that more than half of women snuggle up to at least Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}