Emotional support animals - benefits and challenges for owners

 

Human beings crave for love. It is in their nature to find immense pleasure in being loved. Regrets, tragedies and problems are a part of everyone’s life. These problems are irrespective of age, caste, color and gender. Emotions are what differentiate humans from robots, and for the mind to work efficiently, it needs to be stable. Emotional stability is difficult to achieve. For this very purpose, humans throughout history experimented a lot, invented different technologies, discovered and made various therapeutic drugs that could serve for the purpose. As we know that depression and anxiety is a leading cause of suicide among teenagers and people of all age groups, so to control the rate of it, psychologist came up with new idea, which at time has always proved to be very beneficial.

There is a new term used called emotional support animals or ESA. It includes the group of animals that are used to emotionally support humans who are suffering from depression or anxiety. It also includes people who are physically or mentally disabled. Most of the people suffer because of their loneliness and emotional support animals provide companionship to these people.

People often confuse the two terms that are emotional support animals and service animals. Service animals, as their name indicates, are the ones which are specially trained to perform a specific task or assist a person with disabilities. They are trained by the professionals to perform duties or tasks, like to press the elevator button, to guide the individual across the street, to remind the person of medication time. Not only this, in case of emergency, they are on high alert and call people in the surrounding area that could possibly help the patient or the person owning it. On the other hand, emotional support animals are different from the common pets; they are somewhat similar to service animals as they at times can also perform these tasks too. The primary purpose of these animals is to provide emotional support and companionship to the people that need them.

Emotional support animals are now becoming the new normal and its demand is increasing day by day. So now the task is to identify those who actually need emotional support animals. Clinical professionals or therapists refer ESAs to mental health patients or people suffering from depression and anxiety through realesaletter . There are specific laws that deal with the adaptation and other issues related to ESAs. 

According to the Federal Fair Housing act, people with some sort of disabilities are allowed to keep these animals. Any therapist must approve these people to have these animals. When they are allowed to keep ESAs, they are provided with an official document with signatures of officials which is called emotional support animal Letter or simply ESA letter. There are aviation laws too for ESAs. Normally, the airline does not allow every pet. Also the people carrying pets are required to pay an extra fee. On the other hand, people having ESA’s can take them without paying extra fee. The new aviation laws regarding ESA’s state that

1: The ESA letter should be submitted before the flight.

2: The number of species should be limited.

3: The emotional support animals must be comfortable in the environment.

Dogs for most of the time are categorized as the best emotional support animal because of their capabilities. They are very adjustable and become easily comfortable with the person. Also, they are known for their loyal nature. Cats are also considered to be very good ESA. Other animals can also serve the purpose such as monkeys, turkey etc.

Now comes the benefits of emotional support animals. There are innumerous benefits of real esa letter . We all need a reason for living and emotional support animals becomes the purpose of living for most of the depressed people. They get attached to them and instead take care of them because their animals provide them love and emotional support which they need.

Pets in general are known for their stress realizing property because they are so lively and engage the person in various activities. These activities  prove to be having a positive impact both on physical health and mental health. Physically they make one active by running, playing different games etc.; mentally they release your stress. Not only this, but they teach you different things. As animals can’t talk, one needs to understand the gestures through which they communicate; this activates one's brain ultimately.

They provide companionship to an individual. Loneliness is not only dangerous for the individual solely, rather it can be dangerous for the society as well. Because when a person is lonely, he/she generates negative thoughts. Whereas during the availability of a pet or ESA, one's mind is occupied.

Pets, specifically dogs, help produce a neurotransmitter. There is this neurochemical called dopamine which is produced by the human brain and is responsible for happiness.

There are few challenges for the owner too. The first thing is to ensure a comfortable environment, provision of proper food and health care facilities, e.g., vaccines etc. The second biggest challenge is that the life expectancy of the pet is very less. Having said that, the level of emotional attachment between ESA and owner is unbearable for the owner to go through the trauma if the pet dies. Hence, he becomes more emotionally unstable than before.

More Resources :

Top Care Tips for ESA Dog Owners

5 step guides to getting an emotional support dog letter from your LMH

ESA letter, ESA letter for housing, ESA dog