Cats are proven to have lots of benefits for our mental health. One important thing about cats and mental health is that cats show us balance.
This article is the first in an occasional series about cats and mental health. It will also delve into the concept of dogs and mental health and tropical fish and mental health.
Cats are great for our mental health in numerous ways. They make super companions, their purr is soothing, and they make tremendous therapy animals. All of this will be explored in due course, but today I am going to focus on the way cats demonstrate how important it is to have and keep balance.
In another article, I have explained how important balance is for our mental health. Now let me explain how owning a cat might just be a constant reminder for us to keep balance and improve our mental health.
Cats in the balance
All you need to do is watch a cat walking across the kitchen floor to see that they have an innate sense of balance.
Their paws gently touch the floor as if they were seeking to tread on catkins. Their whiskers tremble evenly on each side of the face. Their tail ascends in a perfect vertical to the heavens as if a train seeking to extract electricity from an overhead line.
When cats tread warily along the mantlepiece, as mine are sometimes prone to do, they keep a keen sense of balance along a path that you might think would have them fall off. They weave in and out of the ornaments, barely touching them when you imagine that they must all tumble to the ground.
When a cat approaches you for a petting stroke, you lower your hand towards him or her, and he or she rubs first his left cheek along your fingers, and then his right. Then he or she purrs deeply and rubs his or her left flank across your ankle and then his or her right.
All this is ingrained and natural to a cat: they have an innate sense of balance, much more than a dog. You can hardly imagine a dog thrashing across the mantlepiece without half the house coming crashing down around it.
A cat in your lap is a beautiful thing
And when the day is done, and you are calmly sitting on the sofa watching the TV, your cat eases himself or herself into your lap and curls himself or herself up into a perfect little ball, and purrs himself or herself to sleep.
It’s when this happens that I notice myself doing something extraordinary. When I am petting my cat, I pet him in complete balance. First I stroke him down his spine five times. Then I gently wrap my fingers around his tail and soothe my hand down it five times. Then I stroke him down his flanks five times each. On and on it goes for ages.
My cat loves it. He purrs all the more because he has taught me balance and I am reflecting that balance in the way I am petting him.
Restoring balance in the strangest ways
When I have finished petting my cat on my lap, another extraordinary thing occurs. In order to restore balance, I seek out my other cat and do the same to him: it would be imbalanced not to treat them equally.
And that is the beauty of balance in cats. Their balance is infectious and you soon find yourself inspired by their sense of balance. Suddenly, you realise your cat has taught you something very precious: balance.
Read the article on Balance in the context of Success & Wellness again in the light of this article, and see how a cat can inspire you to keep balance.
So at the beginning of this article, you wondered how cats and mental health merged. But now you see that cats are excellent for your mental health because they teach you balance.
Look out for more articles about cats and mental health and how cats can inspire you to success. You can already access yet another article in The Successity Blog explaining three ways cats are good for our mental health.
After all, that’s what The Successity Blog is all about.
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