Today’s Solutions: April 18, 2025

Yoga, journaling, and mindfulness may be great options for boosting your mental health, but if you’re looking for something that is, well, different, consider a rural wellness trend out of the Netherlands: Koe knuffelen, which translates to cow hugging in Dutch.

The practice revolves around the inherent healing properties of a good human-to-animal snuggle. How it works is cow cuddles take a tour of a farm before resting against one of the cows for 2-3 hours. From the cow’s warm body temperature to its slow heartbeat and giant size, rubbing up against a Dutch cow is apparently a very soothing experience. You might give the animal a back rub or simply recline against it. In return, you might get a lick as a part of the therapeutic encounter.

Cow cuddling is thought to reduce stress by boosting oxytocin in humans, which is a hormone released in social bonding. The calming effects of curling up with a pet or emotional support animal, it seems, are accentuated when cuddling with larger mammals. Another beautiful aspect of cow cuddling is that the cows enjoy it too. In a 2007 study featured in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, researchers found that cows show cues of deep relaxation, stretching out, and allowing their ears to fall back when massaged in particular areas of their neck and upper back.

If you want to enjoy some “koe knuffelen,” you don’t need to travel to the Dutch countryside. In fact, farms in Switzerland and even the United States are offering cow-hugging sessions. Happy cuddling folks!

Image source: Boederij Wammes

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Spring’s morning symphony: the mystery and beauty of the dawn chorus

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM As winter fades and spring awakens, the world doesn’t just bloom—it sings. Each morning, just before sunrise, birds ...

Read More

Science-backed trick to make your pour-over coffee stronger, no extra beans n...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you’ve ever wished your morning pour-over packed more punch without using extra coffee grounds, science has good ...

Read More

MIT to publish free plans online for a cheap emergency ventilator

Imagine a class project from over a decade ago ended up holding the solution to a global issue? Well that's the case for a ...

Read More

Foggy windshields? Here’s how to defog them in no time

For all the cozy things we associate with wintertime, there are some particularly frustrating aspects as well. Foggy car windshields in the morning are ...

Read More