How to Take Care of Your Cat’s Mental Health

We see our cats lay around all day in the sun looking blissful and care free. But like us, cats can be hiding a lot behind-the-scenes. Even though your cat may seem happy and carefree, they could be carrying a lot of stress. It’s important to keep track of how your cat is acting, play with them, and keep their environment clean and risk-free.. 

What to Look For

There can be many factors that go into making your cat stressed. Things like a change in scenery, having guests, a change in routine for their human, or sickness can all be contributing factors. Here are some signs to look for if you think your cat may be stressing:

• Over and under eating and drinking
• Excessive meowing or vocalizations like hissing or growling
• Being excessively withdrawn 
• Scratching the furniture, the carpet, or you
• Being hesitant to be around you
• Resistance to using their litter box or use other items they might typically use
• Seeming lethargic or not energetic
• Increased sleepiness. This one is tough because cats are known to sleep for long hours, especially during the day. But if you find your cat laying around more than usual, it may be an indicator of stress or sickness. 

Looking for these signs could help you identify possible solutions to how to help your cat. 

What You Can Do

Coming up with a plan of action to help your cat can actually be harder than it might seem because of their lack of ability to speak. We all, at some level, feel a connection to our pets. Sometimes we can see and feel things about our pets that others just can’t. Your intuition about your pet is often right. If you observe that they’re not eating and laying around all day and not moving around as much, this may be a sign of sickness. That’s when you can take your cat to the vet and just make sure everything is going ok with them.

Sometimes your cat is being stressed out by its environment. Whether it’s if you moved around the furniture, or if you’ve moved into a new house, new surroundings can mess with a cat’s routine. Since cats are such creatures of habit, what may be refreshing and new for us can be disastrously stressful for them. If your cat is having trouble adjusting to their new surroundings, try spending more time with them. Playing with them, petting them, and relaxing with them in the new environment can help the cat associate their new surroundings with warmth and love rather than simply stressing out about the unknown.

Of course you should reward your cat and keep their physical health in mind as well. That’s why we created Houdi’s Foodies. It’s an all-natural pet supplement that can help support healthy immune responses in cats and serves as a nice treat to reward them as well!