Owning a Pet Is Good for Your Health

Pets in America are incredibly well loved: according to a 2015 Harris poll, 95% of owners think of their animal as a member of the family. About half buy 【小题1】 birthday presents. And it’s a two-way street. People who have pets tend to have lower blood pressure, heart rate and heart-disease risk than those who don’t. Those health benefits may come from the extra exercise that playing and walking 【小题2】 (require), and the stress relief of having a steady best friend on hand.

Scientists are now digging up evidence 【小题3】 animals can also help improve mental health, even for people with challenging disorders. Small 【小题4】 the studies are, the benefits are impressive enough that clinical settings are opening their doors to animal assisted interventions — pet therapy, in other words — used alongside conventional medicine. “【小题5】 (think) of an animal in a hospital used to be one of the great no-no’s,” says Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University, citing the fear of causing infection. “Now, I don’t know of any major children’s hospital 【小题6】 at least some kind of animal program.”

The rise of animal therapy 【小题7】 (back) by increasingly serious science showing that social support — a proven antidote to anxiety and loneliness — can come on four legs, not just two. Animals of many types can help calm stress, fear and anxiety in young children, the elderly and everyone in between.

More research is needed 【小题8】 scientists know exactly why it works and how much animal interaction is needed for the best results. But 【小题9】 (publish) studies show that paws have a place in medicine and in mental well-being. “The data is strong,” Beck says. “If you look at 【小题10】 animals do for people and how we interact with them, it’s not surprising at all.”

Martin Seligman is leading the research on what might be called a happiness revolution in psychology. Since World War Two, psychologists have focused on fixing 【小题1】 is broken--repairing psychosis (精神病) and neurosis (精神衰落). Research 【小题2】(pile) up steadily when it comes to looking at patients who are neurotic, while the happy or joyful people among us have received little scientific examination.

When Seligman did a research to find academic articles about “positive psychology”, he found only 800 out 70,000. “Psychologists tend 【小题3】(concern) with taking a negative 8 person, and helping him to get negative 2,” said Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “My aim is to take a plus 2 person and boost him to a plus 6.”

In the last 50 years, statistics have shown that we are 【小题4】 (happy) as a people. “Though our quality of life has increased dramatically over that time, and we’ve become richer, we’re in an epidemic of depression,” Seligman said. “Depression is ten times more common now, and life satisfaction rates are down as well.” Seligman argues that the new science he writes about is shifting psychology’s model away from its narrowed focus on mental illness towards positive emotion, virtue and strength, which increase people’s happiness. In his new book, Authentic Happiness, Seligman argues that overall lifetime happiness is not the result of good genes, money, or even luck. Instead, he says we can increase our own happiness by making use of strengths and virtues that we already have, including kindness, originality, humor, optimism and generosity. He has named the field “positive psychology”, arguing that we would be better off building on our own strengths 【小题5】 mourning, and, hence, trying to repair, our weakness. By frequently calling upon their strengths, people can build up natural barriers against misfortune and negative emotions, he said.

Science has shown that there are several distinct roads to 【小题6】(be) a happy person-- though happiness might not mean what you think it does. Material goods--even simple stimulating ones like ice cream, and massages-- are things which will only be able to temporarily boost your mood.

These days it seems that everywhere you turn you hear stories about how people are psychologically falling apart. On an individual level, I feet it. My late thirties brought about the worst clinical depression I have ever faced.

But there is a real crisis 【小题1】 (affect) both men and women in our society — a cultural crisis. We inhabit a cultural landscape that 【小题2】 (strip) of meaningful life markers. Of course many rites of passage (人生重大仪式) endure to this day in the modern world — Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Quinceaneras, Seijin-no-hi, to name but a few. Some might argue that we just need to embrace the ones we have.

But that's not going to work. For one, our world bears very little resemblance to the world 【小题3】 gave rise to these traditional rites. Besides, today we live on average much longer lives than we did 【小题4】 these traditions were first established. We're not the same people as we were when we developed these tires. It only makes sense, therefore, for us 【小题5】 (develop) new ones.

This is 【小题6】 my essay starts to run by. I don't know how to do that. Does one crowd-source a ceremony? Does one outsource it to an unusually creative event planning firm — possibly with the help of a philosopher, or a science fiction author?

In an inspiring 2017 TEDx lecture, tech CEO Ron Fritz tells the story of 【小题7】 he and his family created entirely new "coming-of-age" rituals for their own children. It involves all the traditional components: involvement of【小题8】 (extend) family and friends, a physical endurance part, a learning-from-an-elder part, and solitary contemplation, I felt immediately jealous, as I had never had 【小题9】 like that during my own life. To my mind, this is one of the great blind spots in our modern world. If we're lucky we get some memorable birthday parties, a fun high school graduation, and a not too bad wedding. And after that we're on our own.

This year I turned 42. According to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Why not make that our culture's new age threshold (开端) for a middle-aged rite of passage?

We have every reason to be happy about moving into our forties. We live longer and healthier lives than any of our ancestors 【小题10】 have dreamed of, and have access to opportunities and information previously unimaginable. Surely we can still be creative in how we live and celebrate our lives.