Riding/Horses and Mental Health

SaddlePsych'D

SaddlePsych'D

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I started riding again this year after several years off. Once riding schools opened after lockdown I started taking lessons every week and found these were really giving me a welcome boost every week - taking me out of my head and into the moment, leaving me feeling refreshed afterwards. I'm also sharing a horse for the first time, something I'd have killed to have the opportunity to do as a child/teen! It's taking time to get to grips with things but I'm so pleased to have this and to have found such friendly people at the yard.

Over the last couple of weeks though, my mental health seems to be impacting the riding/time with horses negatively, and it seems harder to take away the positives. Examples: last week I had a really fab hack with share horse, but the following day in the school didn't go as I hoped so I felt rubbish. This week share horse didn't want to come in so I handled this as shown but my slight clumsiness was capitalised upon and he was bargy, once I'd collected myself I thought probably I did okay (neither of us was hurt, he didn't get loose, and I was confident to give a firm 'no!' and 'walk on' then lead him in with no issues) but all I can think of is that I'm a useless novice. And in this week's lesson I got totally overwhelmed and froze, I hated it, got frustrated and cross with myself, and it just seemed like a total waste of time.

Not sure why I'm posting this to be honest, maybe others have had similar experiences. It sort of helps to write it down and share it - hopefully tomorrow will be different. As I see it, I can give up completely, or take a break (problem being I'm not doing a whole lot else right now and might just make things worse), or stick with it/change how I do things. Do people find their riding/horse time boosts their mental health? Do you change things up when your overall mood/headspace/resilience isn't quite where it needs to be?
 
It definitely does do wonders for mental health. I’ve had my guy since I was 14 and he’s seen me through a lot. If I ever have a ‘bad’ day at the yard, I just take 5 and reflect on how lucky I am to even own a horse and all the best parts of it.

It sounds like you’re maybe putting too much pressure on yourself. Relax and enjoy it. Things will never be brilliant or go to plan all the time. Just enjoy what you have.
 
You are putting too much pressure on yourself. Forget "lessons", go for hacks, enjoy the company of the horse, enjoy the feel of the horse, the smell of the horse. You don't have to ride, you could learn some in hand moves and that will boost your confidence by simply being able to put the horse where you want him and move him where you want at the pace you want. Keep it simple.
 
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my horses. Simple as that. I’m regularly hospitalised but even hospital know the benefits and allow me out to see horse. The crisis team will prescribe horse time and go and ride (and take a picture to show us). Sometimes if I am having a really bad day I just take pressure off. It doesn’t matter if I don’t ride, he dosnt care. I find brushing tails incredibly soothing and some days I might just do this for ages. I do sometimes push myself to ride as I know it actually helps. I have to concentrate on Robin (he is not a horse you can sit there and do nothing) and so I stop thinking about being miserable. For example today was a bad day. I did ride, was just for 25mins round the fields and I did forget for a while.

HOWEVER I am very emotionally linked and if something is going wrong I get very anxious and down. After Minto was PTS I landed in hospital. My main worry is they will get hurt and I always have anxiety driving up the road. With help I have learned that something MIGHT go wrong but today nothing did and everything was ok and I need to acknowledge that. I find it very very hard not to obsessively worry about him.

Im guessing it is different if you share a horse as perhaps owner will expect you to ride. I do find taking the pressure off helps. I just hack, we find it is easy and I also don’t need to be around people.

So it’s mixed. It definitely helps having him and HAVING to get out my bed and go and at least feed him. But yes if things go wrong, in my head, it goes badly wrong.
 
scats said:
My mental health is scarily tied in with the horses. Everything going ok with the horses and I can cope with life, if something goes wrong with the horses, I feel my mental health unravelling.
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Kamikaze said:
HOWEVER I am very emotionally linked and if something is going wrong I get very anxious and down. After Minto was PTS I landed in hospital. My main worry is they will get hurt and I always have anxiety driving up the road. With help I have learned that something MIGHT go wrong but today nothing did and everything was ok and I need to acknowledge that. I find it very very hard not to obsessively worry about him.
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Sharing hasn't put me off buying my own one day, but it has certainly opened my eyes to a lot more things to think about. I could really imagine worrying a lot about whether the horse was sound/well/happy/warm enough/cool enough/eating enough/eating too much etc etc. And that's before anything to do with my riding!

With share horse I probably put even more pressure on myself because I want to get things just right and not let him or his owner down.
 
J&S said:
You are putting too much pressure on yourself. Forget "lessons", go for hacks, enjoy the company of the horse, enjoy the feel of the horse, the smell of the horse. You don't have to ride, you could learn some in hand moves and that will boost your confidence by simply being able to put the horse where you want him and move him where you want at the pace you want. Keep it simple.
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I think you are right. Perhaps I'll drop the lessons down for a while - I've had a couple now where I've come away feeling really rubbish.

I wouldn't mind trying some in hand stuff. I could ask share horse's owner if she does any with him or if there is someone who could show me some basic stuff to have a try. I'm hacking again later this week and will just try to enjoy the moments as we go along. He's been a real star every time we have been out and it's helping my confidence riding out of the school.
 
scats said:
My mental health is scarily tied in with the horses. Everything going ok with the horses and I can cope with life, if something goes wrong with the horses, I feel my mental health unravelling.
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Same. Its marginally easier when you have more than one because if one's going wrong there's a chance the others will be better. But if they're all going wrong at the same time that strategy doesn't work out ?

This year I've really got a lot of nice fuzzy feelings from my broodmare and foal, there's no pressure to do anything except exist for them so nothing to beat myself up over (still plenty to worry about though).

I think its a symptom of wanting to do well or improve with something, it sometimes makes you really dwell on the bits that went badly. I try and reflect on them briefly, have my 5 minute pity party if necessary and then figure out how I will do it better next time. I am someone that benefits from Having A Plan when I'm in the dumps.
 
scats said:
My mental health is scarily tied in with the horses. Everything going ok with the horses and I can cope with life, if something goes wrong with the horses, I feel my mental health unravelling.
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Kamikaze said:
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my horses. Simple as that.
HOWEVER I am very emotionally linked and if something is going wrong I get very anxious and down.
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This is so me
 
I think if you are having problems then riding and being around horses can help but is unlikely to solve things completely. My job has recently become much more stressful and I have noticed my riding and my confidence riding has suffered and like you I’m beating myself up about it. It hasn’t been helped by retiring my veteran and swapping to a new share horse. Not being in 100% control is tricky and actually I miss *having* to go and muck out and sort my horse every day. Now there is an option to just stay at home and rest (very flexible/absent owner!) it is tempting. I’m trying to take the pressure off and accept some schooling sessions might not be as good as I would like/do in hand pole work/lunge/do bodywork instead. Interestingly I was really down this weekend and even a visit to the yard didn’t pick me up much but a 5k run I forced myself to do had a massive positive impact.
 
If you read my thread Feeling down you'll see what emotional roller coaster I've been through recently. Things going wrong with my new horse nearly tipped me over the edge , mental health wise.
I also find it hard to separate my own feelings of worth from how well things are going with the horse. If things aren't great, I'm stupid, useless and my anxiety goes through the roof.

I've started listening to Karl Greenwood's hypnosis tape and have found it very helpful, and I'm waiting for his book to arrive too. I wouldn't usually go for things like that but I have to say I'm a convert. He talks about changing the way you think into something more positive and constructive, to aid your confidence and your relationship with your horse.

A lady at my yard rarely rides. She likes coming to the yard , mucking out, grooming him, hand grazing him, but she's not fussed about riding. Sometimes just being with a horse is therapeutic.

I'm always massively hard on myself so take it from me when I ask you very firmly to stop being so hard on yourself ! ?♥️
 
OK - Im one of the very lucky individuals that doesn't suffer from MH problems. Reading your post, you are doing nothing wrong. Horses are not motorbikes, they will test you, stretch you and pull you apart. On the other hand they are fantastic keeping you grounded.

Reading your post, on one day you had a great success, the next day it didn't go as you had hoped. That's pretty normal - it's how you cope when the horse doesn't react as you expect that matters. So if the horse doesn't react how you expect, then go back a state or two, back to where the horse is comfortable before you ask for something more tricky. You need to school to what the horse can do in that moment. A horse also has feelings, you are a strange rider to him, so he will try for you, but he has to learn to trust you as well.

You said that you had trouble catching and bringing in, but you coped, handling a strange horse. We all feel like total novices at times. Even the most experienced of us, the horse suddenly throws something at us that we haven't dealt with before - non of us are total experts (even CDJ) you never stop learning.

Of course you are a novice at handling a horse, but you learn from each experience - even bad ones. A good example, is what happened to me at the weekend. I have had my current horse for two years, but recently moved yards, which has upset him a lot. Saturday, I was schooling him, and he got himself totally stressed. When he does this he locks up and can't move forward. I ride him forward, put more pressure on him, and then it all falls apart. I had a think about it, and on Sunday took him back into the school, and when he started to shorten and tense, instead of pushing him forward, I stopped him, asked him to stand still and once he relaxed I could ask for forward again. Do not be worried about feeling like you have failed on one day, review what the problem is, think about how you can change it and try a different approach. We are all learning - don't beat yourself up
 
When other stuff happens in life, it does make you less resilient. Then other stuff that would be a minor inconvenience in stronger times, affects you.

If I have a stressy time in other areas, I hold back in my horse time and do less demanding stuff. Over the past two winters I pulled the shoes of my horse and just walked out in-hand. This year, the stress (mum being ill and all the associated stuff) I actually sold the demanding horse and bought a cob.

I would stay with the loan, but be easier with yourself. Horses do take you out of your stuff and into the moment. Laugh when it goes wrong. Enjoy when it goes right. If the lessons give you happiness then do them. If they don't then don't.

Maybe have fewer lessons, but make them private lessons? Is there a trainer who could come and give you lessons on the share horse? That way you would have targeted help.
 
I do think its harder with a share/loan horse. I've loaned horses in the past and I've treated them like they were made of bone China! Its easy to put pressure on yourself to do everything perfectly because you don't want to let the owner down. I decided loaning wasn't for me in the end.

I lost my horse of a lifetime 18 mths ago. I kept half heartedly looking at sale ads but my heart wasn't in it and I got to the point where I seriously considered giving horses up altogether.

3 weeks ago I bought a new pony and all of a sudden its like sun's come out. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed having my own pony and how important horses are to my mental health. When I look back now I can see that I was probably suffering mild depression. Now I feel like my life has purpose again.

Its a very expensive hobby and I struggle to justify the money spent sometimes, but the truth is that without horses in my life I am a shadow of myself, and im frankly quite unhappy.

I think even when I can't ride any more I'll still have a couple of pet ponies or donkeys. Life is just so much better when you are around equines! ?
 
scats said:
My mental health is scarily tied in with the horses. Everything going ok with the horses and I can cope with life, if something goes wrong with the horses, I feel my mental health unravelling.
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Same here... Last year was a tough one for me horse wise, had to retire my horse of a lifetime in the March due to injury, was lucky enough to get another just after, but then 6 months down the line the new boy was having an op for a field injury, after which he had a damaged tail (no function at all) and less than 48hrs after I picked him up, he was back at the vets very poorly with a badly impacted ceacum. I then had my 29yo mare, PTS at the beginning of Nov, who I'd had for over 22yrs, that was the final straw for my mental health and I had to take a week off work.

No matter how experienced you are, there will be days when it just doesn't go right and you feel useless. Sometimes you have to take the pressure off, take a step back and try to learn from what went wrong.
 
PSD I’ve replied a few times to your riding lessons thread and I know EXACTLY how you’re feeling as my last two lessons have been rubbish. Things that I’ve been doing well just didn’t work and both times I left feeling confused, pathetic and a really crap rider. My mh is normally pretty robust but for whatever reason it takes gets knocked with horses, probably because I care too much. I am not in a position to own or share and love your posts because they show me exactly what it would be like, so thank you.
If you can get an instructor and do some groundwork please try it! I’ve just had my second lesson (lungeing, long reining, back reining), it was wonderful and a welcome relief from being in the saddle. I think you’d be good at it ?.
Am supposed to be doing a Prelim dressage test next week and it’s unsettling me (given my recent track record?) to think how bad it will be, but if I don’t I’ll beat myself up for chickening out and being a gutless wimp! Aaaaggghhh.
 
Learning new skills is hardwork and painful. Its not easy and its often a horrible process. I think you need to sit down and evaluate what you now know that you didn't know last week and be kinder to yourself. A diary will help you track progress better.
 
Red-1 said:
When other stuff happens in life, it does make you less resilient. Then other stuff that would be a minor inconvenience in stronger times, affects you.
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This is exactly where I am with things I think, my general mood and resilience level isn't great at the moment and I suppose it makes sense for that to follow me into my riding/horse time sometimes. Need to work on those separately of riding as well as when I am with the horses.

I've booked a hack at a different RS with my non-horsey partner which I'm really looking forward to. Share horse is hacking only at the moment. Initially I was disappointed by this as I wanted to do try working on things between lessons, not that I have grand competitive goals, but it's probably just as well because he's been so good out hacking and I enjoy chatting away to whoever I'm with (and to share horse!) and trying to take pictures as we go along. Much less pressure!
 
AandK said:
Same here... Last year was a tough one for me horse wise, had to retire my horse of a lifetime in the March due to injury, was lucky enough to get another just after, but then 6 months down the line the new boy was having an op for a field injury, after which he had a damaged tail (no function at all) and less than 48hrs after I picked him up, he was back at the vets very poorly with a badly impacted ceacum. I then had my 29yo mare, PTS at the beginning of Nov, who I'd had for over 22yrs, that was the final straw for my mental health and I had to take a week off work.

No matter how experienced you are, there will be days when it just doesn't go right and you feel useless. Sometimes you have to take the pressure off, take a step back and try to learn from what went wrong.
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That sounds like a really tough year indeed! I'm sorry to hear about this. Puts things in a bit more perspective for me I think - another sign my resilience is so poor; compared to really big issues and difficulties, what has happened for me over the last couple of weeks is so insignificant.
 
LEC said:
Learning new skills is hardwork and painful. Its not easy and its often a horrible process. I think you need to sit down and evaluate what you now know that you didn't know last week and be kinder to yourself. A diary will help you track progress better.
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This is a really good idea, thank you :)
 
SaddlePsych'D said:
That sounds like a really tough year indeed! I'm sorry to hear about this. Puts things in a bit more perspective for me I think - another sign my resilience is so poor; compared to really big issues and difficulties, what has happened for me over the last couple of weeks is so insignificant.
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it's all relative. Don't make yourself feel even worse! x
 
Rumtytum said:
PSD I’ve replied a few times to your riding lessons thread and I know EXACTLY how you’re feeling as my last two lessons have been rubbish. Things that I’ve been doing well just didn’t work and both times I left feeling confused, pathetic and a really crap rider. My mh is normally pretty robust but for whatever reason it takes gets knocked with horses, probably because I care too much. I am not in a position to own or share and love your posts because they show me exactly what it would be like, so thank you.
If you can get an instructor and do some groundwork please try it! I’ve just had my second lesson (lungeing, long reining, back reining), it was wonderful and a welcome relief from being in the saddle. I think you’d be good at it ?.
Am supposed to be doing a Prelim dressage test next week and it’s unsettling me (given my recent track record?) to think how bad it will be, but if I don’t I’ll beat myself up for chickening out and being a gutless wimp! Aaaaggghhh.
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Oh the groundwork stuff sounds fantastic! Actually I think one of the other people at the yard was advised to do some long reining with one of hers but she didn't seem too sure about how to go about it so I could ask her if she's getting anyone to help that I could also learn from. Even if I can't actually do it with share horse it would still be interesting to learn about it.

Sorry to hear you've had a couple of tricky lessons too. My last two I also felt confused and like a crap rider, really fed up too! Good luck with the dressage test - have you done one before? I hoped to do one before the end of the year but might have to park that goal for now. I'm sure it can't go that badly (can it?!) and even if not great maybe you'll be able to use it to focus on things to work on for next time.
 
SaddlePsych'D said:
That sounds like a really tough year indeed! I'm sorry to hear about this. Puts things in a bit more perspective for me I think - another sign my resilience is so poor; compared to really big issues and difficulties, what has happened for me over the last couple of weeks is so insignificant.
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As MP said above, it is all relative. My post wasn't to say I've had it worse, but more to say sometimes things can build up and affect you (the general you, not you specifically) and that it's okay to take some time, take off the pressure and try to look for the positives. Try not to compare what others are doing, there are always people having a worse time, or a much better time!
 
SaddlePsych'D said:
Oh the groundwork stuff sounds fantastic! Actually I think one of the other people at the yard was advised to do some long reining with one of hers but she didn't seem too sure about how to go about it so I could ask her if she's getting anyone to help that I could also learn from. Even if I can't actually do it with share horse it would still be interesting to learn about it.

Sorry to hear you've had a couple of tricky lessons too. My last two I also felt confused and like a crap rider, really fed up too! Good luck with the dressage test - have you done one before? I hoped to do one before the end of the year but might have to park that goal for now. I'm sure it can't go that badly (can it?!) and even if not great maybe you'll be able to use it to focus on things to work on for next time.
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If you can get someone to show you groundwork go for it! My riding instructor teaches me, so your school might do it too. (One could say it’s an expensive lesson when you don’t even get to sit on a horse but for me it’s good value ?). I honestly think you’d really enjoy it.
I’ve done several tests (just Intros and Prelims) and have my much-treasured rosettes as proof, but the recent disaster lessons have dented my confidence a lot. And yes it can be that bad ha ha!
Moving on .... whether or not you decide to compete if you’d like copies of the three Intros A,B C and a couple of Prelims just pm me and I’ll gladly send ?
 
I spent a few years with Granny horse "just hacking in walk". "What do you do with her?" "Oh we just hack. Mostly just in walk"

In reality during that time I was schooling a horse who had all conformation faults stacked against her up to medium level dressage. I "just popped" in the school after my hack quite a bit. I also had some fun hacks because "oh we'll just have a walk on the beach... oh go on then"

You'll get a lot of improvement in your riding without even trying if you just go out for a bimble about a couple of times a week.
 
In my experience, any time spent in the saddle hugely benefits your riding. It might sound obvious but I rode my best the summers I worked at a trekking yard and was spending a couple of hours (at least) in the saddle every day. I was very rarely having lessons or riding in a school at all, but when I did, I was definitely riding the best I ever have (only time I have ever won at dressage, for example).

I find lessons quite frustrating now, because I know what my body should be doing, but it won't (and yes, I know the answer is more lessons). So, this summer, when I had the chance to ride, I spent it hacking, because it has been a stressful year and I knew it would make me feel better.

Riding and spending time with horses is hugely beneficial to my mental health, now it's not work!
 
Rumtytum said:
If you can get someone to show you groundwork go for it! My riding instructor teaches me, so your school might do it too. (One could say it’s an expensive lesson when you don’t even get to sit on a horse but for me it’s good value ?). I honestly think you’d really enjoy it.
I’ve done several tests (just Intros and Prelims) and have my much-treasured rosettes as proof, but the recent disaster lessons have dented my confidence a lot. And yes it can be that bad ha ha!
Moving on .... whether or not you decide to compete if you’d like copies of the three Intros A,B C and a couple of Prelims just pm me and I’ll gladly send ?
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Thank you that's really kind of you. I'm going to 'park' the dressage goal until I'm feeling a bit better then come back to it. It's been noted by others that share horse is perhaps not always the easiest to handle on the ground but it's a good opportunity for me to learn. There's a particularly experienced person at the yard I could chat to for some help with ground based work.

PapaverFollis said:
I spent a few years with Granny horse "just hacking in walk". "What do you do with her?" "Oh we just hack. Mostly just in walk"

In reality during that time I was schooling a horse who had all conformation faults stacked against her up to medium level dressage. I "just popped" in the school after my hack quite a bit. I also had some fun hacks because "oh we'll just have a walk on the beach... oh go on then"

You'll get a lot of improvement in your riding without even trying if you just go out for a bimble about a couple of times a week.
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We had a good bimble out today. I held this post in mind today and when my hacking companion said they didn't mind if we trotted or not, I opted to take it easy and 'just walk'. It was really, really nice. :)
 
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