Here's one of them, Cat - yep, that's his name...

I have two of ’em – and they adopted me.  Both were abused, and then abandoned in my neighborhood, both decided on mine as their new home.  Obviously a good choice, because they’ve been living here for many years, now.

Both are now in fine health and living the good cat life: I am their concierge, feeder of exactly the right foods (or they shall not deign to eat it), back scratcher when they want attention & ignorer when they don’t, etc.

I’ve always been of the opinion that cats serve no useful purpose as companion animals – they don’t:

• “come when you call” (although mine do sometimes…sort of…)
• make you feel needed (more like tolerated when you do all of your cat-caring duties properly)
• act like they care whether you live or die (see bullet #2)

But I have discovered something very important for our human well-being that I learned from them – just noticed it, actually.

When they are in their most relaxed state is when they groom themselves.  And then as a cyclic thing, grooming themselves perpetuates their state of relaxation.

With humans, one of the first outward signs of stress is letting go of our appearance – ignoring our “grooming”…

So, conversely, perhaps one of the best stress-reducers is grooming – whether going for the standard soak in a hot tub, or just taking some time to get (or give yourself) a manicure/pedicure, get your hair done, or taking some extra grooming steps at home as a treat.

Try it…and let me know how it works out!