Kaylie Wang is an English freshman and opinion columnist for Mustang News. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
In Toy Story 3, before Andy moves off to college, he gives away all his childhood toys and stuffed animals to a kid named Bonnie. In the heartbreaking scene, he tells her, “I think it’s time for someone else to take good care of them now.”
But at Cal Poly, lots of first-years bring their childhood stuffed animals or new plushies to school. Students have found that these soft, fluffy toys have actually taken care of them in their first few weeks at college. Stuffed animals are not just for toddlers – more college students would benefit from nightly cuddles with a plushie.
“They remind me of home, basically,” said Jessie Rizvi, a Theatre Arts freshman. “I don’t have a ton of sentimental stuff that I brought with me, but I like having my stuffed animals because they’re on my bed and I see them a lot. And I can cuddle them at night if I feel homesick.”
Separation from friends or family is easily one of the hardest challenges students face when moving to college. So before moving to college, Corbin Fuchs, a Public Health freshman, and his friends went to Build-A-Bear. They personalized the bears by recording messages for each other, so Fuchs’s friends’ voices play whenever he squeezes the bear.
“For me at least, it’s a way I can just calm down if I’m ever feeling anxious or stressed,” Fuchs said. “For this one especially, cause we FaceTime a lot, but they’re not always available too, like they have classes they have their own lives. So it’s nice to just be able to clench it and it just reminds me of them. I feel like they’re also here with me, sort of.”
Stuffed animals – with precious beady eyes and lots of fluff – can also mimic the feeling of snuggling with a beloved pet.
Addison Singh, a Biological Sciences freshman, was never a huge fan of stuffed animals before coming to Cal Poly. Back home, her cat would snuggle in her arms and her dog would lay by her feet every night. When she moved to college, she brought a fuzzy koala that she got from her grandmother on her fourth birthday. Singh didn’t plan on sleeping with the koala in college, but it has felt like a piece of home to her.
“Since I would always sleep with my pets at home, having my stuffed animal has really helped,” Singh said. “It’s helped me sleep a lot, more than I was expecting it to, because it’s just a whole new environment, whole new bed. All the feelings from when I would sleep are all different now, other than this stuffed animal, which brought some familiarity from home.”
Hugging stuffed animals are effective sources of stress relief because they remind us of home and our loved ones. But these benefits also come from the act of hugging itself.
Five common stress-relief tasks were compared in a study – hugging a pillow, watching a video, squeezing a stress ball, popping bubble wrap and listening to alpha music (a type of music involving alpha waves to promote relaxation). Hugging a pillow was the most effective in releasing oxytocin (a hormone that creates feelings of happiness and relaxation) because it mimics the feeling of hugging a loved one.
The study notes that oxycontin improves memory performance, but so does sleep – and cuddling with a stuffed animal can increase oxycontin and help with sleep. Sebastian Leyva, a Construction Management sophomore, noticed that his stuffed animals help calm him down at night.
“They just bring me comfort and they’re just very relaxing and they help me sleep,” Leyva said. “When I’m by myself in bed, sometimes I’ll get scared or get anxious or just think about college and, you know, everything overwhelming me. But my stuffed animals help me just relax to some degree.”
Leyva didn’t bring any stuffed animals with him to college. But since then, his girlfriend bought him two stuffed animals, which makes them more special to him, Leyva added.
“College will teach you valuable life lessons” is considered a cliche at this point. But all students should learn how to cope with stress, and perhaps these college students are already learning how to de-stress by hugging their stuffed animals.
There is no age limit to snuggling stuffed animals. Many adults still rely on their childhood stuffed animals for emotional support, a study concluded. In 2017, Build-A-Bear commissioned a survey for 2,000 adults living in the U.S. and found that 40% of respondents still sleep with a stuffed animal.
So no matter what grade you are, or how old you are – if you ever find yourself spiraling at night instead of counting sheep, grab your favorite plushie and hold it close.