Understanding Anxiety Disorders
What It Is:
Intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Fast heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and feeling tired may occur.
Clinical anxiety often manifests as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety, or Panic Disorder. When these symptoms significantly limit major life activities, an Emotional Support Animal or Psychiatric Service Dog can be a life-changing medical necessity.
What Can Cause It:
Anxiety can be normal in stressful situations such as public speaking or taking a test. Anxiety is only an indicator of underlying disease when feelings become excessive, all-consuming, and interfere with daily living.
Factors contributing to chronic anxiety can include genetics, brain chemistry, and environmental stressors. For many, the constant presence of a supportive animal helps regulate the nervous system.
How a Psychiatric Service Dog (PSD) Assists with Anxiety
Unlike a pet, a PSD is trained to perform specific tasks to mitigate anxiety symptoms, such as:
- Deep Pressure Therapy (DPT): Using their weight to calm the handler during a panic attack.
- Grounding: Nudging or pawing to bring the handler back to the present moment.
- Tactile Stimulation: Licking or leaning to disrupt repetitive anxious behaviors.
How We Can Help:
An emotional support animal or psychiatric service dog is able to often provide additional joy and happiness. As seen in several studies that have been conducted, emotional support animals and psychiatric service dogs tend to increase the positivity rate of the individuals mental state as well as providing mental release from stressful and overwhelming situations. Petcerts offers affordable emotional support animal and psychiatric service dog letters and a number of resources to provide the best support to individuals in need.
The Process for Obtaining Your Legal Letter
To get started, you'll need to take an assessment and create an account. To take the assessment and make an account you can click here. Once the assessment is processed and the needed services are selected, the assessment is sent to a therapist for review and then either approved or denied. After an approval is provided, Petcerts can then issue an ESA or PSD letter on behalf of the therapist.
Our process is 100% compliant with the Fair Housing Act (FHA), ensuring your right to live with your support animal without extra pet fees or deposits.
If you have any questions, you may visit our contact page to touch base with us by clicking here.
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**All data is provided to Petcerts.com on behalf of the Mayo Clinic.**