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Yuritci Martinez

Professor Nolen

English 1302

September 3, 2022

“Dogs help college students with stressed and anxiety”

Introduction

Around 90.5 million dogs are owned by households in the US, according to the Humane

Society of the United States. When students are presented with new surroundings, as well as the

social, academic, and emotional obstacles that are a part of university life, it can be a very

stressful time for them. For instance, first-year students are more likely to encounter challenges

as they learn to adjust to and manage their new obligations.

For people who are struggling with psychological conditions like anxiety and despair,

these new hurdles could be much more challenging. College students who spend time with a

therapy dog may find it easier to study or complete their schoolwork. Prior to a difficult exam,

college students can spend time with their dog or a therapy dog, giving them the opportunity to

calm. The research will be super interesting since they will observe and document how a dog

will help relief stress and anxiety toward college students. By studying the dog can help to relief

stress and anxiety to college students. The purpose of this study was to understand what a dog

can do to relief stress and anxiety toward a person. These pets have the potential to be research

participants in addition to being man's greatest good friends.

Although both stress and anxiety are emotional reactions, stress is often brought on by an

outside trigger (American Psychological Association,). The reason may be brief, such as missing

class, not turning in homework on time, or failing an exam, or it may be hard, such as having to
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study for five classes or missing a deadline for a homework assignment or test. People who are

under stress may experience both mental and physical symptoms, such as low energy, anger,

sadness, headaches, muscle pain, and trouble sleeping (American Psychological Association,).

Anxiety is described as overwhelming, ongoing worries that remain even in the absence of a

stressor (Marks,2021). Stress and anxiety share many of the same effects, including sweating,

shaking, difficulty concentrating, feeling nervous, insomnia, etc. “For instance, the participant

for the experiment suffers from both stress and anxiety, every symptom mentioned above, she

has it. The worst is that, when she feels overwhelmed, she starts biting her nails and skin of her

fingers, but what helps her to calm down is her dog.

Method

A 4- day research experiment was conducted to see how would dogs help college

students to relief stress and anxiety. The experiment was conducted over the course of four days

from Saturday through Tuesday doing different activities related with college, all of which have

different types of activities for every day. The materials for the experiment are a dog, a

participant, homework section, studying section, and test section (4-day schedule/planner for

each day), and a notebook. The participant in the experimental is on the aged of 19 years. During

the four days the dog will be two days with the participant and two days without the participant

during her study, homework, or test section.

In total, they are four trials for everyday and the student will be doing different activities

for each day. The first day, the participant will study for test of Music and take the test on

Saturday, while being with the companion of the dog. The second day, the participant will be

doing homework for History without the dog. The third day, the participant will be doing

homework for English with the companion of the dog. The fourth day, the participant will study
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and do the test for PSYC without the dog. The first day and third day, they want to know if the

dog will help the student to distress and to not be anxious, while doing homework and studying

for the test. They also want to see if the participant can concentrate while studying and doing

homework with the dog’s companion. Then the second day and fourth day, the participant will

be doing their studies and homework without the dog, they want to see how stressed and anxious

the participant will be without the dog. They also want to know if they can concentrate and do

good on the test and homework without the dog helps.

Result

The result of this research examinate the data helped the researcher test the study's

hypotheses, which suggested that the student/participant who physically interacted with the dog

would experience reduced levels of tension, stress, and anxiety. The data collected in this

research showed that on the days that the student/participant was with the dog, while studying

and doing homework help the student to reduce the stress and anxiety. Those days were the first

day and third day that the participant was on her best mood and was distress and wasn’t anxious

at all because of the dog.

Discussion

The goal of the study was to ascertain whether associating with a dog would have a

beneficial effect on a college student who was stressed and anxious. According to this study,

when the student engaged with the dog for two days, their satisfaction significantly increased,

and their levels of stress and anxiety drastically reduced.

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References

“Pets by the Numbers.” HumanePro, The humane Society of The United States

https://humanepro.org/page/pets-by-the-numbers. 

“What's the Difference between Stress and Anxiety?” American Psychological Association,

American Psychological Association, 28 Oct. 2019,
https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/anxiety-difference. 

Marks, Hedy. “Stress Symptoms: Physical Effects of Stress on the Body.” WebMD, WebMD, 19
Aug. 2021, https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-symptoms effects
of-stress-on-the-body. 
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Now it is your turn to come up with search terms (or keywords) for your research. List as many
as you can think of in the space provided below. Highlights or circle the words that help you find
what you are looking for when you use them to search.
 pet
 Dog
 Stressed
 Anxiety
 Therapy dog
 Sadness
 Anger
 College student
 Relief
 interact

Now it is your turn to come up with search statements for your research. List as many as you can
think of in the space provided below. Make sure to use the Boolean terms (and, or, not).
Highlights or circle the statements that help you find what you are looking for when you use
them to search.

 studying Not teaching

 stressed Not happy
