Greetings beautiful Felines and Hoomans of Hivelandia! Hope this day finds you happy and healthy!
Taking a little bit of a departure from my usual fare today to talk about the healing power cats as companions... of course — in the interest of transparency and disclosure — this is also my first post to the Natural Medicine Community as part of my ongoing series of articles about "building Community."
Enjoying a sunny moment by the window
Anyway, we cats have been part of Human lives for a very long time, and we have often been the subject of your worship, even. Those Egyptians even built entire temples for us!
Although we have historically been thought of mostly as useful because we would catch vermin in your farm barns and thus control your "pest problems" in exchange for our keep, there's really much more to cats than rats and mice!
The popular saying goes that "Dog is man's best friend," but where do cats fit in this picture?
I often think the person who coined that phrase was mistaking the word "friend" for "servant;" because cats are generally not recognized as "trainable" the way dogs are. But that doesn't mean we aren't loyal and loving companions!
"Laser eye cat" having a nap in the Dog's bed!
I suppose it also depends on your perspective: Dogs tend to be great at very tangible things like herding sheep, fetching slippers and dead ducks... we cats excel at more intangible things like knowing when you're not feeling well and need healing vibes.
And we are very good as "Therapy Animals," especially able to give comfort and warmth to the elderly in nursing homes... where we are valued for being quiet and soft, rather than boisterous and enthusiastic. You might argue that's a subjective thing to say, but the proof is in the pudding: Nursing homes that have admitted cats as therapy animals actually often experience a reduction in the volume of medications they needed to dispense."
We're also good for human stress levels and heart wellness!
Aren't I adorable?
Now, I'm not just "saying that;" in a large longitudinal study started in the 1970s that followed 4,500 men and women for twenty years, those who never had a cat were 40% more likely to die of a heart attack than those who had a cat as a companion pet! Interestingly enough, the researchers found no such correlation with people who kept dogs.
There's also growing evidence that having a purring cat in your lap (or next to you) will substantially reduce your blood pressure. Scientists aren't entirely sure how that works yet, but it is theorized that holding a purring cat reduces stress-related hormones in the blood, leading to lowered blood pressure.
Of course, we should not fail to add that we are awfully cute and soft and cuddly, too! And that has it's own kind of calming and healing effect!
Thanks for visiting!
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Love Cats? Get Involved in Hive's Cat Communties!
If you're a cat lover and often/sometimes post pictures or other content that includes your feline friends, why not become an active part of Hive's growing Cat Communities?
These are some of the more active Cat Communities — why not join them ALL? Remember, you can also "cross-post" your cat posts to them!
HiveCats by @curatorcat is a central "gathering place" for cat content on Hive; promoting the use of the #hivecats tag for feline content!
Cat Snaps by @manorvillemike is a place to post pictures of your cats when you don't have a whole lot to say beyond just sharing your cute photos!
Caturday Community by @saboin is a community where we get to celebrate posts relating to Saturday — aka "Caturday" — our own special day!
Cat Photos by @andrarchy is a "mixed use" cat content community; posts can be just photos or longer, as long as the subject is CATS! It has a lot of subscribers but is not very active.
Cats by @captainklaus (and Sissi!) is another "general" cat content community; it's there, but not very active.
Last, but certainly not least, a special shoutout to the recently formed Hive Pets Community which has become quite active and has quite a bit of cat content!
There are a number of other feline communities listed on Hive, but I am not sharing them for now as they have not had any activity (by their Admins OR users) since the Steem/Hive fork. Updates as they become available!
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