The Anxiety Spiral
Have you found yourself with your anxious horse getting caught in the anxiety spiral with them?
Even though you know that YOU are not actually anxious.
Even though YOU are normally able to manage your emotions and anxiety well.
It’s potentially a vicious cycle – when our horse becomes anxious, we can feed off their anxiety state, which then confirms to the horse that there is something to be worried about and so their anxiety becomes more heightened, making them harder to control and in turn us more anxious, and before long the situation escalates out of control.
Unintentionally your heart starts to race, your breathing hastens and your body becomes stiff and tense.
Your horse picks up on all these signals without you realising your even giving them!
It is in their best interest to be able to pick up and react to subtle signals quickly because it’s what keeps them safe in their herd in the wild. To overcome this anxiety, you not only have to have proven yourself as a strong leader that your horse trusts and follows, but also to be able to control your own response to anxiety.
This is where we talk about the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve is essentially in control of our rest and digest state. The rest and digest state and the fight or flight state act in opposition to each other. When we are in fight or flight mode, all the functions in our body that aren’t necessary for escaping danger are “turned off” to focus our efforts on immediate survival. Once we have escaped this threat we can relax and focus on digestion and eliminatory functions and the like.
We can control our state of anxiety and the corresponding effects on our body by stimulating the vagus nerve and keeping our body in a state of rest and digest. There are a few little tricks we can do for this:
Deep breathing
Meditation
Singing
Humming
Chanting
Gargling
Laughter
Some additional practices that will help you gain awareness and control of your relaxation to “switch it on” as needed.
Restorative yoga postures
Practicing emotions of love, compassion and empathy
Exercise
Massage
Acupuncture/acupressure
While I practice a lot of these things in my spare time, when I’m working with horses I most commonly hum to get control over my breathing and then practice deep breathing to settle the horses. This may be why my students have noticed me humming when I’m riding!! If I can feel my horses’ anxiety coiling up underneath me, it’s a great way to diffuse that energy.
After a period of time your horse will start to associate these as cues for relaxation, so will start to relax when you hum or will take a deep breath when you take a deep breath.
