As riders, we all feel scared some times - no matter how experienced you are. Fear is a good thing when it’s working to keep you safe from a potential danger or threat.
But when fear happens when you’re not in immediate danger and it’s stopping you from doing what you love doing - it’s doing more harm than good.
“I get so angry with myself for being afraid to ride. It takes me so long to get the courage up to get on. Why is that????” Question from a FB group.
That type of fear is anxiety and it deals more with the future instead of what's actually happening in the present.
Struggling With Horse Riding Fear or Anxiety?
If you struggle with inappropriate riding fear or anxiety, you have probably tried to use logic and rational thinking to stop it.
Perhaps you’ve even told yourself (or been told by someone else) - “Just get over it”.
You feel frustrated, angry, embarrassed. But none of those emotions will help you overcome that inappropriate fear. And neither will logical, rational thinking.
3 Reasons Logical Thinking Doesn't Stop Horse Riding Fear or Anxiety
Here are three reasons why logical thinking doesn’t work to stop horse riding fear or anxiety:
- Fear is not logical. If it were rational, no one would be afraid of snakes, spiders, balloons, or public speaking. Humans would only feel fear when we were in actual immediate physical danger.
- Intense fear overrides logical thinking. It’s a primitive part of the brain that controls emotional responses; the amygdala and hippocampus. When triggered into fear, the brain focuses on escaping from an immediate threat.
- Fear is learned. Human babies are born with only 2 fears - falling and loud noises. Many fears are learned through experience and the behaviour of other people. As we get older, fears are developed through association. In the case of horse riding, fears become associated with negative experiences such as bad falls, injuries or even seeing someone else fall.
4 Tips To Stop Horse Riding Fear or Anxiety
So how do you stop being held hostage by inappropriate riding fear if logical thinking won’t work?
- Acknowledge how you are feeling and accept that it is simply an emotion.
- Rate the level of fear or anxiety on a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being no fear and 10 being panic). Then decide what number you would like to be feeling.
- Turn on the calming parasympathetic nervous system by focusing on your breathing and making your exhale longer than the inhale.
- Become more present and mindful by noticing 3 things you can see, 3 things you can hear, and 3 things you can feel right now.
The more you practice these steps, the more natural it will become to feel less anxious.
Stop Being Afraid To Ride Your Horse
If you’re tired of feeling anxious about horse riding, you don’t have to continue to struggle on your own. Change is possible. Help is available
When you get help, you might find answers to the reasons you feel fearful that even you haven’t been aware of up to now.
The next step is up to you. Request your free call so that you can get expert help to be free of that inappropriate anxiety once and for all.
