Many times it has been thought that sleeping with pets could worsen the quality of sleep, because they make noise, move and take up space, however, now a study carried out by members of the Laboratory of Pediatric Public Health Psychology (PPHP) has found that not only is this not the case, but sleeping with pets could even improve the quality of sleep in children.
The corroborating research, published in the journal Sleep Health, was carried out thanks to the participation of 188 children between the ages of 11 and 17 who answered a series of questionnaires about their sleep routines – such as bedtime, sleep techniques, employees relaxation, or space in which they slept – and wore bracelets that measured the quality and duration of the night’s rest. In addition, they were also fitted with a polysomnography device that recorded brain waves using an electroencephalogram.
Improvements in children’s sleep could be due to children seeing their pets as friends and feeling comfortable sleeping with them
One of those sleep hygiene questions included whether young people slept with pets, and one in three (34.6%) answered yes. This caught the attention of researchers, who began to study how this nocturnal company affected children’s rest. To begin with, they divided the children into three groups, based on how often they slept with their pets (never, sometimes, or frequently), and correlated it with different sleep variables.
Sharing the bed with the pet promotes restful sleep
“Given the broader goals of the Healthy Heart Project, we were able to analyze not only bedtime and the amount of time you sleep (duration), but also the time it takes to fall asleep (latency), nighttime awakenings (interruptions) and the quality of sleep”, explains Jennifer McGrath, one of the authors of the study.
For her part, Hillary Row, another of the researchers, has indicated that they found that at bedtime pets did not have a negative impact on children’s sleep. In fact, they found evidence that children who slept with their pets reported better quality sleep, especially for adolescents.
Apparently, this could be because children consider their pets as friends and feel comfortable sleeping with them. Therefore, it has not only been shown that it is not harmful to share the bed with our furry companions, but that it is even beneficial to have a restful sleep.
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