I love it when science catches up to what horse lovers have known forever – that they’re good for our health.
That’s a weird thing to say when horse riding is rated as one of the top ten most dangerous activities and the level of injury is second only to being hit by a car.
But that’s not a contradiction, bear with me while I explain.
First of all, it’s not necessary for horse riding to be that dangerous – it’s unusualy for someone in our community to fall off their horse. I’ve written plenty of articles about that and I’ll link to some of them below.
But here’s the thing I’m interested in today. I’ve come across some intriguing research – your horse can help you to rebuild… literally REBUILD… the brain’s grey matter – that’s what we use for thinking, feeling, using our muscles and all kinds of automatic nervous system responses AND have a significant positive impact on clinical symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Here’s the three studies that provoked my ahhaa!
A study by Harvard researchers, in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital, concluded that the changes in brain structure that they could see on MR images may underlie some of the reported improvements in feeling good from meditation. The conclusion was that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing, their brain is literally re-building grey matter while they’re meditating.
AND…
Another study by Harvard researchers (further down the same link as above) showed that the relaxation effect of meditation can have a significant impact on clinical symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
AND ALSO…
A study from the HeartMath Institute measured the physical effect of just being in the presence of a horse – their results showed peoples’ heart rates evening out, blood pressure reducing, breathing slowing. And also from my experience with horses and healing, this simple exposure to horses promotes other healing – including increasing the feel good hormones that reduce pain.
When we look at those three studies together…
We know from those Harvard reports that meditation has those positive effects on the brain and the gut and we know from the HeartMath studies that horses can trigger the same physiological responses in us as meditation does.
Then that means that research has confirmed what horse lovers have known for aeons – that being around horses is relaxing, healing experience that’s good for our soul.
If your horse is truly relaxed, the effects are magnified dramatically.
My observation of the Heartmath studies is that the photos all showed relaxed horses and what I’ve observed in the horse world generally and with students all over the world, is that horses who aren’t relaxed can still have a positive effect on people, but the effect is magnified in relaxed horses – which makes our work here particularly effective in the happiness and healing department, as well as the effectiveness in horsemanship skills.
It’s not just our horse life that benefits
I remember finding meditation very difficult in the early days of my healing journey and could only meditate in the physical presence of my teacher – until I discovered the considerably expanded mental, emotional and physical benefits of a Quiet Mind with my horses.
Something magical happens when we have a Quiet Mind and not only with our horses – life simply changes for the better and we have a way for our horse and ourselves to escalate each other into feeling better and better.
We have an incredibly special program here called Journey to Feel, that brings you all the medical benefits listed by those researchers PLUS has you feeling good, PLUS accelerates your horsemanship phenomenally in a very short space of time.
Check out the testimonials on the link further down the page, they had me crying with happiness as I read my emails.
Journey to Feel
