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stress relief

A group of around 20 moms gathered at a Boston area high school to vent their frustrations loudly.

The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but there are certain groups of people who have faced particularly intense challenges these past two years. Healthcare workers? For sure. Teachers? Definitely. Parents? Um, yes.

Moms specifically? Yesssss.

It's hard to describe how hard navigating the pandemic with kids has been. Figuring out childcare when schools and daycare centers shut down, managing kids' remote or hybrid schooling, constantly making decisions about what's safe and what's not, dealing with the inconsistency and chaos of it all, weighing risks with who is vaccinated and who isn't—none of it has been easy. Many parents are also raising kids with mental, emotional, behavioral or physical challenges that have only been made harder by pandemic life.


COVID-19 has forced us to give up and/or alter the systems we rely on to keep our lives running smoothly, and because moms tend to take on the lion's share of child-rearing and logistical household management, we've felt those changes intensely. And at this point, heading into the third year of pandemic uncertainty, we're exhausted. Wiped out. So done.

That's why when editor Lucy Huber shared that her online moms group had invited everyone to an empty field to scream, it resonated with so many:

Some days we just want to scream because it feels like we can't do anything else. We need to vent somewhere, let out some of this tension and frustration and exhaustion we're carrying around, and we don't want to take it out on our families. The idea of getting together with other moms who get that feeling is incredibly appealing.

The group Huber mentioned actually did this, gathering at a high school in the Boston area on the evening of January 13. Around 20 moms showed up and participated in a group scream session led by licensed therapist Sarah Harmon, according to GMA.

Looks cathartic, doesn't it?

The idea of a primal scream isn't exactly new. In fact, The New York Times set up a "primal scream" hotline for parents to call and scream or cry or vent about anything they feel like getting off their chest. The hotline number is 212-556-3800, and you can let it all out for a full minute.

"Any of our readers or anyone who is not a reader can call to scream, laugh, cry," said the Times' editor at large Jessica Bennett, according to WCBS Newsradio. "We've been hearing for months now about how women have been disproportionately affected in the pandemic and we've been hearing about parents who are struggling to manage work and child care."

Anyone can utilize the primal scream hotline, but most of those who have called in have been women. Shocker.

Ironically, Huber herself wasn't able to attend the in-person scream session because she had to put her toddler to bed. That's how it is, and part of why the scream space is needed in the first place. Even under normal circumstances, mothers need an occasional space to vent. In pandemic times? Absolutely vital.

Really, anyone could probably benefit from finding a place to scream right now, whether it's to the air in the middle of an empty field, into a pillow in a closet or to a random someone on the end of a newspaper's hotline. Times are hard, folks. Let it out, let it out, let it out.

Airports are stressful.

Even the most relaxing vacations usually start with you dragging a half-broken suitcase through a maze of terminals and expensive egg sandwiches while removing your shoes in public and wondering if you forgot your neck pillow. (You did.)


You also forgot your headphones. Have a nice flight! Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Things get way worse if you miss your plane or have to sit through a nine-hour delay. There's only so much CNN a person can watch before they start wanting to punch Wolf Blitzer in the mouth (about 5 minutes by my estimate).

"The most common thing we notice at airports is that most passengers don’t smile at all," says Aakash Lonkar.

Lonkar, a director at Animal Angels Foundation, which specializes in animal-assisted therapy, says there's one thing that always changes people's moods, even at airports: dogs.

"Whenever they see a dog, a natural smile comes on their faces — they keep their bags aside and pet the dogs. The entire mood at the airport changes," Lonkar told The Better India.

This is a picture of a very not-stressed-out person. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

That's why Animal Angels, an non-governmental organization in India, has started bringing dogs to Mumbai Airport (with the airport's permission, of course).

When it comes to animal-assisted therapy, animals are "a catalyst to help the patients help themselves," explains the Animal Angels website. "For example, a child may not want to walk or reach after surgery because it is painful, but will happily take a dog for a walk or throw a ball, forgetting the pain for a little while and moving closer to going home."

Photo from Animal Angels Foundation, used with permission.

While people waiting in line at the airport may not be recovering from surgery, the physical and emotional stress of traveling is no joke, and neither is the healing ability of some animal company. Being able to spend a few minutes with a friendly dog can do wonders to relieve that burden on passengers coming on or off their flights.

So far the group has brought three golden retrievers (named Pepe, Goldie, and Sunshine) to provide some much needed smiles at the busy Terminal T2.

It's a simple solution that has had hugely positive effects — Lonkar even said that some people cry when they see the dogs "because their stress is immediately released."

Photo from Animal Angels Foundation, used with permission.

The stress-relieving abilities of dogs are no secret, and other airlines and airports have run similar programs.

Many studies have found that spending even a short amount of time with a pet can lower blood pressure and stress hormones like cortisol while raising oxytocin, which is linked to happiness and relaxation.

San Jose International Airport was one of the first to introduce the concept of therapy dogs to airports following the events of 9/11. Since then, airports in other cities like Los Angeles and Miami have followed suit.


In 2013, San Francisco International Airport welcomed what it calls the "wag brigade," a legion of adorable dogs whose job it is to be adorable dogs while people are at the airport.


A boy pets a therapy dog at San Francisco International Airport. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

The Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin, also has a therapy dog program — though if you ask me, it's a totally missed opportunity if none of their dogs are Great Danes:

The point is this — dogs are awesome and they make people happy, and it'd be great to see more programs like this at other places too.

There should be dogs at work! There should be dogs when you're studying for finals! There should be dogs at the supermarket to help you deal with that lady in front of you who's somehow in the midst of her very first encounter with a self-checkout machine even though that technology has been around since the early '90s. And there should 100% absolutely and completely be dogs around at the DMV. Just thinking about that place makes me stressed.

Therapy dogs everywhere! C'mon, who's with me?