Horseback riding is renowned for its benefits to our physical health, from helping to strengthen your core abdominal area to improve our balance and co-ordination, not to mention providing a great cardio workout – but did you know there are also many psychological benefits?
Horseback riding can be a great stress relief, after all when you are out in nature, just you and your horse and nothing to think about but keeping your balance and guiding your horse, everything else can just melt away.
We turned to Equi Supermarket, a good place to go when looking for horse equipment, and they gave us a few key psychological benefits to horseback riding:
- Stress relief
Stress can affect our everyday lives in a very negative way – impacting on our ability to handle daily tasks and affecting our health. Stress lowers the effectiveness of our immune system causing a negative impact on our minds and bodies.
Horseback riding takes you out of your own head and away from all of your worries and concerns as you have to focus on the here and now and concentrate on what your horse is doing and where you are going.
Interacting with horses has been proven to help boost a feeling of wellbeing and spending time out in nature is one of the simplest ways to immediately feel better about life and the world around you as you can escape your busy life for a few hours.
- Improved problem-solving
Riding a horse means you have to think fast and be alert to the environment around you at all times, after all, you are in control of a big and strong animal so your safety is reliant on your ability to problem-solve and think on your feet.
Riding requires concentration and quick reactions, for example, ducking out of the way of a branch while cantering through a wooded area, or getting control back of the horse after it gets spooked by a noise or movement in the trees.
- Better concentration
While riding a horse you have to be completely focused and concentrating on riding and what the horse is doing. It is not an activity where you can let your mind drift off into a daydream so it can really help to hone your concentration skills.
- Connecting with an animal
Horses are very sensitive to our emotions, like dogs, and it will sense if you are feeling afraid, stressed or angry. Having a connection with an animal which reacts to your own energy levels can be a psychological benefit in itself, helping you to adjust your mood and feel better.
- Improved confidence levels
Learning to ride a horse is a skill and the more you learn the more confident you will become, which can reflect in other areas of your life. Having the confidence to be around and handle and ride a big strong animal like a horse can help you to feel more confident when dealing with all kinds of other situations in life.
- Sense of responsibility
If you are also looking after the horse as well as riding it, it can give you a great sense of responsibility outside of yourself. Having to think about another creature, feeding him, grooming him and looking after him, can give you something else to focus on other than your own life and your own problems.
- Overcoming fear
Looking after and riding a large animal which could hurt you if it wanted to is a great way to overcome fears in life. If you can be brave enough to handle a horse and realise that being in the right frame of mind is as important as being physically able to hold him, then it can be a valuable lesson for overcoming fear in other areas of life.
Horses can sense fear so realising that, and being able to control that fear and see the horse react differently as a result, can be a real strength, not only allowing you to enjoy horse riding a lot more, but also helping you to face other issues in your life too.
While horseback riding has clear physical benefits and is great exercise, it also provides huge psychological benefits as well. Horse riding can help to lower stress, improve confidence and help mental focus and concentration.
There is nothing like the bond which can be created between a good rider and their horse, as these loyal sensitive animals can end up becoming a companion for life, so if you are thinking about horse riding for fun or for exercise, then don’t forget about all the other positive mental health benefits which you will gain as well. Just being outside in the fresh air, concentrating solely on your horse for a couple of hours can take your mind out of a state of worry and into relaxation, giving your soul a breather for a while.
