Spending more time close to your cat is linked to a better mood, study finds

Anyone who lives with a cat knows the calm that comes when it climbs onto your lap and starts to purr. A study from Kyoto University suggests that feeling shows up in our hormones too, and that what matters most is how much time we spend close to our cat.

How they measured it

The team followed the daily lives of 29 cats and their 19 owners at home for one month.

• They analysed urine from cats and people for two hormones: oxytocin, linked to bonding and affection, and cortisol, linked to stress.
• Each cat wore a small Bluetooth beacon on its collar to record how much time it spent near its owner.
• Owners filled in mood questionnaires, and researchers watched how the cats behaved with them and with strangers.

What they found

• Cat and owner oxytocin moved together: cats with more oxytocin tended to have owners with more oxytocin.
• The more oxytocin a cat had, the lower its owner’s cortisol and the fewer negative feelings they reported.
• Owners’ good mood did not depend on how many years they had had their cat, but on how much time they spent close to it day to day.

“I think many cat owners are familiar with the sense of comfort and peace they feel when their cat climbs onto their lap seeking affection, they start to pet it, and the cat begins purring contentedly,” says lead author Saho Takagi. “Our findings suggest that this feeling may be partly reflected in the hormonal connection between cats and their owners.”

A note of caution

It is a small study and shows an association, not a cause: it does not prove that cats improve their owners’ mood, or the other way round. The team now wants to study how cats and people influence each other in everyday life.

Why it matters

Earlier research on whether owning a cat is good for your health gave mixed results. This study points to a reason: simply having a cat is not enough, the relationship you build with it matters.