It goes without saying that getting enough sleep is good for your health. There are a lot of experts who are interested in finding the best way to get decent sleep. Don’t worry about chamomile tea and meditation before bed. Women sleep better when their dogs are close by. Indeed, a research project from Canisius College in New York State found that dogs are better at sleeping with than people or cats.
Animal behaviorist and study leader Christy Hoffman, Ph.D., said, “We found that women generally rate dogs as better bed partners than cats and human partners and report that their dogs improve the quality of their sleep.”
Research shows that women sleep better next to dogs.
After polling almost a thousand American women, Hoffman came to these findings. 31% of the people who took part and 55% of the people who took part shared a bed with a cat or a dog, respectively. Also, 57% of these women slept in the same bed as a human partner, while only 40% did not.[1]
Hoffman also found out why dogs seemed to be the most comfortable people to sleep with.On the one hand, this could be because dogs’ sleeping routines are more like ours than cats’.
Hoffman said, “It’s not a surprise that dogs and cats sleep at different times because dogs’ main sleep periods tend to match up better with humans’ than do cats’.”
For sure, more study is needed to find out if these similar sleeping habits are actually helpful. Hoffman does, however, have some thoughts on how this could work.
According to her, dogs might be better at working with their owners’ sleep schedules than people who sleep with them. They often go to sleep and wake up at very different times from their human bed partners. Certainly, time differences between spouses can make it hard to sleep. Canine bed partners might be better at adapting to their owners’ schedules than human bed partners.
Dogs also need set schedules and duties, like going for a walk early in the morning. Sticking to a plan is easier when you have these kinds of routines. This helps you sleep better.
Peace and safety
For some reason, dogs also tend to stay stiff while they sleep. If you’ve ever slept with someone who was always moving around, you know how annoying it can be. In any case, the women who took part in the study said that their dogs stayed in bed most of the night, while their cats came and went.
This means that cats may be more likely than dogs to wake you up by getting in and out of bed at different times. Hoffman also said, “We found that dog owners went to bed and woke up earlier than cat owners and also stuck to more regular schedules for when they went to bed and when they woke up.”
The third and most important reason is that dogs make their people feel safe.more so than when they’re with people or even cats.
“Some dog owners may find comfort in knowing that their pet will let them know if there is an intruder or some other emergency. A dog’s barking may also scare off a possible intruder.” Hoffman said that a dog might be able to help someone feel better, but a cat might not be able to do that.
The Best Person to Sleep With
The study says that dogs are the best sleeping companions, but their benefits change based on the situation.For example, a dog could snore or make the bed too hot. An increasing number of cat owners say that their pets help them fall asleep.
Keep in mind that the study relied on what the volunteers said about how their pets affected the amount and quality of sleep they got. Because of this, more unbiased research is needed before it can be said for sure that dogs make better sleeping partners. But Hoffman still thinks that these studies might be useful because many Americans have pets.
“This line of research will help paint a clearer picture of the situations in which sleeping with a pet may be bad for your health and the situations in which pets and their presence in their owner’s bed may be good for your health,” the spokesperson said.
Studies show that women sleep better when they are alone than when they are with a person, but a lot of people think the opposite. Scientists may one day use devices like Fitbits to scientifically measure people’s sleep quality in a variety of sleeping conditions.
