I was recently asked to write about whether cats get high on catnip, and it inspired some interesting reading I thought I’d share with you.
My first challenge was to define a ‘high’, since it has different definitions in different contexts. Next, I had to decide if cats are capable of feeling a high – without being able to articulate their feelings, can we attribute their behaviours to a high? And lastly, I needed to decide whether catnip gives them that feeling.
For those that don’t know, catnip has a strange effect on cats. After smelling it, they chew it and roll around in apparent pleasure, or sometimes rush from room to room in excitement. Then, about 10 minutes later, they relax – and spend two hours just chilling out. They can’t respond to catnip again during this time – waving it back under their nose does nothing.
Not all cats respond to catnip – it’s only about two in three cats and appears to be genetically linked. They also can’t respond to it until they’re old enough (about six months usually). Other herbs that produce similar reactions to catnip include Tatarian honeysuckle, valerian root, and silvervine. Silvervine is an interesting one – eight out of 10 cats respond to it, and it often gets a response from cats who don’t respond to catnip. The response is also more intense in most pets. But is it a high?
While my initial instinct was that catnip (and silvervine) doesn’t give cats a high, I came to change my mind. Once I’d defined a high as equivalent to ‘euphoria’, or ‘strong feelings of extreme wellbeing and happiness’, it seemed to fit the picture of a cat on catnip quite well.
You see, when cats smell catnip, their body releases endorphins which act on the opioid receptors in the body. These receptors are the same places that opioids like fentanyl or morphine would act – and plenty of humans abuse those opioids for the high. Cats are lucky – instead of addictive drugs with side effects, they can get a similar effect from their own natural endorphins after smelling a herb. They don’t even have to inhale it or ingest it. It’s often likened to the ‘natural high’ people get from exercise or sex.
So, why evolve such a bizarre response to smelling a herb? Well, researchers might have worked that out, too. The ‘iridoid’ chemicals in catnip and silvervine repel insects. While we can’t say cats are self-medicating (that requires too much understanding and thought – we don’t think animals can do that), we can say nature knows best. The cats who react to the chemicals by rolling themselves in it are less likely to get mosquito-borne diseases and are more likely to survive and pass on their catnip-reacting genes. The cats who actively seek out that high are even more likely to be protected. And the plants who produce these compounds and encourage cats to chew their leaves smell more strongly and are less likely to get damaged by insects.
Isn’t nature fascinating?
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