01/03/2010
Hypnotherapy helps nervous equestrians
by Sarah Howard
For many horse riders, just the thought of zipping up their boots instills feelings of anxiety, fear and nausea. These pre-riding nerves generally affect riders before competitions, but for some, the nerves are felt every time they are ready to mount.
Horses are sensitive creatures and can feel any tension in the rider, making them more likely to spook or misbehave when the rider is nervous and thus exacerbate the rider's tension further - starting off a vicious circle of negativity.
Your Horse magazine investigates the use of anxiety hypnotherapy to address riding nerves, finding that feelings of anxiety were most prevalent after a fall, or were attributed a slow build up of negative feelings after riding an unsuitable horse or feeling 'over-horsed'. Nerves were also felt more after becoming a parent, as individuals felt that they had a duty to their children to stay safe in the saddle.
Horse-riding, both at non-competitive and competitive levels can be a dangerous pursuit, where nerves are often felt when the subconscious mind tells the individual that the situation is perceived unsafe, often going in direct opposition against conscious desires to complete an equestrian activity.
In the magazine's 'Calm him down' feature, hypnotherapy was featured as being a very successful method of channelling feelings of fear into self confidence and calmness. Particularly successful for those with 'hot-headed' horses such as ex-racers or warmbloods, hypnotherapy can help a rider stay positive and deal with any behavioural situations in a confident and calm manner, improving their riding whilst finding their hobby less stressful and more enjoyable.
Featured case study Julia, with her ex-racer Mabon, lost her nerve after Mabon bolted and caused her to have a nasty fall. Before having children, Julia admitted she would ride anything, but now mother nature had kicked in and she felt more nervous. After a series of hypnotherapy sessions, Julia was able to school Mabon with ease and felt more positive about their long-term future together.
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