--- title: Pets Can Help People With Serious Mental Illness description: Here’s how pets can be a lifeline for people with serious mental illness, Lego is the perfect toy and more. canonical: https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-12T17:00:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:14.810Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Pets Can Help People with Serious Mental Illness og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pets Can Help People with Serious Mental Illness twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Pets Can Help People With Serious Mental Illness by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Dec 12, 2016 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Dec 12, 2016 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Here’s how pets can be a lifeline for people with serious mental illness.**](http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/09/504971146/pets-help-people-manage-life-with-serious-mental-illness) By Erin Ross at NPR **2\.** [**Lego is the perfect toy. Here’s why.**](http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/lego-is-the-perfect-toy.html) By Genevieve Smith in the Science of Us **3\.** [**A hard line on immigration leaves an unanswered question: Who will grow, process and serve our food?**](http://civileats.com/2016/11/29/if-trump-goes-hard-on-immigration-who-will-grow-process-and-serve-our-food/) By Elizabeth Grossman in Civil Eats **4\.** [**The midwest has infrastructure to spare. Let’s move some government agencies there.**](http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/12/9/13881712/move-government-to-midwest) By Matthew Yglesias in Vox **5\.** [**Medical marijuana is used to fight pain. Why aren’t NFL players allowed to use it?**](http://deadspin.com/nfl-players-need-medical-marijuana-but-their-union-won-1789780548) By Chris Roberts in Deadspin  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/"},"headline":"Pets Can Help People With Serious Mental Illness","datePublished":"2016-12-12T17:00:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:14.810Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/","keywords":["Innovation","medical marijuana","Immigration","Lego","Mental Illness","Midwest"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4597754/pets-can-help-people-with-serious-mental-illness/","name":"Pets Can Help People With Serious Mental Illness"}}]}] ```