ESAs: Benefits of Emotional Support Animals

Ever wondered how these emotional support animals help people with mental and emotional disabilities? Besides the traditional treatment, people are using animals as pets and emotional support animals to help them manage their symptoms better.

Emotional support animals, ESAs, play a significant role in helping people cope with various emotional and mental limitations like stress, depression, and anxiety.

Read below to understand more about the benefits of emotional support animals.

What is an Emotional Support Animal (ESA)?

An emotional support animal is a special animal, which is more than a pet and is prescribed by a mental health professional. They do not have or need any specialized training like service dogs or animals to perform specific tasks. However, they help their owners by providing support and companionship for dealing with depression, phobias, and panic attacks.

ESAs also comfort the mentally disabled persons by helping them cope with their temperaments. Moreover, by offering them self-confidence and unconditional love, they assist their owners during depression attacks, helping manage their condition and boost their self-esteem.

‘Do I need to choose between dogs and cats for my ESA?’ No, you can choose any animal to be your ESA. Other types of animals, including cats, snakes, and horses, also serve as ESAs.

Benefits of Emotional Support Animals

Why would anyone want the assistance of an animal for emotional support? Are they effective and helpful or just a trend? Do they only draw attention for the wrong reasons or have any positive effects also?

In a world where more than 264 million of the entire population suffers from some kind of mental illness, it is very important to understand the concept of ESA. And how these furry friends help us in different ways.

In reality, there are a variety of psychological, emotional, and social benefits of owning an emotional support dog or animal. Following are the ways in which these support animals can help disabled people:

Increased Dopamine in the Bloodstream

One of the key advantages of having a companion for emotional support is that it provides comfort and increases the levels of dopamine in the bloodstream. Especially those who may struggle with issues such as insomnia, suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder, or certain phobias.

Depression affects more than 15 million individuals in the US alone, which is equivalent to 6.7% of the country’s population. Animals are very intelligent and keep in sync with human emotions. They can sense anyone who is feeling down and empathize with them by giving them unconditional love. This is something everyone can enjoy whether they have a mental illness or not.

Emotional support animals especially dogs are preferred by the mentally and emotionally disabled individuals. As per the studies, looking into those ‘doggie eyes’ can increase the release of dopamine, which is also known as the love hormone.

Helps with Loneliness

Loneliness is one of the symptoms of mental illness and stress. Emotional support animals can provide company when you feel lonely and need a loving companion.

Playing with them releases your stress and calms you down in so many ways. It might seem stupid to drag a thread on the floor to make your pet go nuts. But the effects it has are mind-blowing.

Seeing your pet do those crazy things actually brightens your mood up, leaving you happy and relaxed.

Works with Other Forms of Treatments

Heavy medications are not enough to treat many illnesses because of their adverse effects like nausea and headaches. While an ESA can provide natural treatments for those specific disabilities.

Being around an animal can be of much more important than just having treatments. Seeing your pets, being around them, and petting them can cause your body to release many neurochemicals. They act as antidepressants in the body.

Helps in Improving Mental and Physical Health

An emotional support animal helps you in a number of ways; physical and mental.

The ESAs keep their owners busy and occupied and they focus less on their problems and issues which controls anxiety in them. Also when you take your pet outside daily, you get some fresh air for yourself. This is essential for boosting your mood as well as your physical health.

Provides Social Support and Security

Nothing is as terrible as feeling insecure, scared, and being alone. Having an emotional support animal provides a sense of security and protection at home and outside.

Many people suffer from social isolation. Having emotional support animal provides a sense of security and belonging to the owners and help them build meaningful connections with others. Since most of them are psychologically close, they offer and improve cardiovascular, immune, blood pressure levels, and endocrine systems.

Traveling and Housing Benefits

A person with ESAs also enjoys some other legal privileges. According to FHA, people with assistance animals; emotional support animals, and service animals, do not have to pay any extra or pet deposits. Moreover, the landlord must also provide reasonable housing for them under the said housing act.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development also compels the landlords to allow these animals to live with their owners, regardless of a no-pet housing facility.

Other than FHA, the Air Carrier Access Act also allows physically and emotionally disabled people to travel with their assistance animals. As per the law, airlines are obliged to allow people with assistance animals to travel with them.

However, the person should notify the airline at least 48 hours ago before traveling with the ESA in some cases. These pets help people to calm their anxiety on the plane.

There can be several mental health benefits of having pets for treating disabilities and providing long-lasting companionship. Having a friend who is there when needed is surely a big relief that can help reduce the feeling of isolation and causes of anxiety.

How to Get an ESA Letter?

An individual can visit a mental health professional to check if he qualifies for an ESA or not. However, there is another way of applying for an ESA.

We offer authentic and legal ESA letter on our website where an individual just has to fill out the questionnaire upon which his responses are analyzed by our licensed mental health professionals. If qualified, our therapist will issue a prescription stating your need for an emotional support animal in order to treat your disability.

Apart from that, there are cases when a person may require several pets to treat the disability. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) states that a mentally or emotionally disabled person can have more than one emotional support animals. We can also help you get an ESA letter including multiple pets.

Request your letter from RealESALetter.com now.