In this article, we will help you understand how CBD can help relieve cat anxiety and how you can use it for your anxious kitty too.
If you’re a pet parent with a cat that suffers from anxiety you know how crippling a condition it can be for your cat. At the same time, it can also leave you feeling just as stressed and even frustrated. Seeing your fur-baby dealing with the symptoms of this condition and not knowing what to do can be painful.
Luckily CBD can help with cat anxiety relief, and an increasing number of cat parents are successfully treating their kitties with it.
What Causes Anxiety in Cats?
Cats are by nature quite skittish. It’s quite possible that your cat’s natural fear response can become problematic if exposed to triggers for a prolonged period of time. When this happens, your cat anticipates future danger all the time – real or imagined – and the normal body reactions to fear become chronic.
Likewise, your kitty may display behaviors they adapted for survival but are now abnormal or inappropriate. Situations that can make your cat anxious include fireworks displays, thunderstorms or bringing other animals into the home. In contract, some triggers can be more subtle.
So, for instance, scolding a cat or just speaking loudly can stress a cat out. It makes them feel anxious while change and uncertainty can cause long term anxiety.
And just like dogs, cats can also suffer from separation anxiety. If you have an adopted kitty, for instance, he or she can become anxious if reminded of a past traumatic experience. If your adopted your cat is from a shelter, it may be difficult but try to learn as much about their background and previous care as possible. This will help you avoid situations that lead to a traumatic memory and trigger anxiety.
Recognizing Symptoms the Symptoms
- Failing to use the litter tray
- Change in mood
- Hiding Aggression
- An increase in vocalization (excessive meowing)
- A change in appetite or weight
- Following people around the house
- Increased lethargy
- Vomiting
CBD Oil for Cats with Anxiety
Right now we don’t have any studies aimed at using CBD for cats with anxiety but we do have some decent evidence from other animal studies. From this, we can draw some conclusions about how CBD oil may help a cat with anxiety. And it is also helpful to remember, that cats and humans should respond to CBD in similar ways.
What Does the Science Say?
A team of Spanish and American scientists reviewed animal and human data from studies on the efficacy of CBD for treating and managing the symptoms of anxiety disorders. They concluded that CBD has unique anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) effects for a range of anxiety issues, including stress-induced and obsessive behaviors.
Researchers aren’t sure exactly how CBD works to help treat anxiety and reduce symptoms. However, studies have also shown that CBD can help promote the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the area of the brain associated with anxiety. This is important because brain scans have shown that in humans, patients with anxiety and depression often have smaller hippocampi. This means that by helping to regrow neural cells in that area, feelings of anxiety can also be reduced.
Likewise, researchers have found evidence suggesting that CBD has the ability to act very much the same way as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozak and Paxil by stimulating 5-HT1A receptors – a specific class of serotonin receptor in the brain. When CBD interacts with these serotonin receptors, the absorption of serotonin is blocked and several things happen:
- Blocks panic responses
- Reduces cardio-vascular, as well as behavioral responses
- Reduces contextual fear conditioning
- Modulates the defensive behaviors evoked by the presence of threatening stimuli
What’s interesting is that, when you look at the different behaviors, symptoms, and responses CBD helps with, they are very similar to the types of behaviors and issues your cat experiences when feeling anxious.
Practically speaking, this means that CBD can help your cat’s panic response when confronted with fireworks, for instance, reduce his or her physical and behavioral responses to it, while also helping to reduce future anxiety attacks by reducing fear conditioning.
How Much CBD Should you Give your Cat?
The next step is to figure out when and how much CBD oil to give to your anxious kitty. Always follow the basic dosage guidelines and monitor your cat’s response to CBD when you first start using it. Once you understand how your cat reacts to CBD, you can adjust the dose. The exact CBD oil dosage will depend on how much your cat weighs and the product you use.
If your kitty’s anxiety is triggered by a specific event like fireworks, we recommend giving them a dose of CBD 30 minutes to an hour before the event. Naturally, triggers can’t always be predicted, so the next best thing is to give it to them when you notice any signs of anxiety. Your kitty should feel relief within the hour. If not, wait a little longer before giving them another dose.
For more chronic, behavioral anxiety issues, we recommend supplementing daily.
For more information check out our article on how much CBD oil to give to your cat.
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