Worry-less riding:

Calming your

horse event anxiety

Noreen Esposito Ed.D., PMHNP-BCwww.noreenesposito.com

Presented at Eno Triangle Horsemasters (USPC) February 9, 2012

Overview

• The best riders have “mental toughness”

• The what, why and how of emotions

• Understanding worry and anxiety

• A thinking rider’s thoughts

• Tricks and tips

• Mindfulness: a way of being

Mental toughness: How the best excel under

stress• Mental toughness is:

• A characteristic that helps the best (elite) athletes to succeed.• “She has mental toughness”

• How athletes such as Olympic riders cope with the stress and pressure of competition.

• It’s multidimensional (different components)

• Where does it come from? • Inherited: 50% comes from genetics &

biological history• Learned: 50%

Today’s presentation

• Two key components of mental toughness, both associated with managing anxiety are:• Emotional awareness• Attentional control

Emotions

• Emotions come from thoughts and bodily sensations

• Thoughts including interpretations, judgments and beliefs influence our emotions and their intensity

• Thoughts elicit physical responses

• Body sensations lead to thoughts

Emotions

• Emotions have physical characteristics :• Crying (sadness & grief)• Butterflies in stomach (anxiety)• Physical urges (hugging when happy,

running when scared)

• Emotions lead to “motion”

• Emotion is thought & feeling & readiness to act

Emotional State

• An emotional state is a moment in time

• Like tides, emotions are temporary…come and go• Last a few seconds to minutes• Remembering that an emotion is temporary can make it more

tolerable

“This will pass”

Emotions

Vary in intensity from • One situation to another• One person to another

• Some people experience emotions more intensely than others• Some people seem generally calm • Some people heat up quickly and calm

down slowly

Emotional Trait

Emotional traits

Primary Emotions

• Joy

• Love

• Interest/Curiosity

• Sorrow

• Surprise

• Fear

• Disgust

• Guilt/shame

• Anger

Secondary emotions• In response to our primary emotions &

subsequent thoughts/feelings and judgments

• 2ndary emotions are a complex pattern of learned responses such as being• Angry about being angry• Angry about being sad• Anxious about feeling fear

Vulnerability to emotionPhysical stresses that affect our basic human needs for food, shelter, warmth and comfort can interfere with our ability to regulate emotion:

• Thirst, dehydration• Hunger, poor nutrition, junk food• Too much or too little sleep• Insufficient exercise• Pain, physical discomfort• Prolonged stress• Illness

Drugs/substances may have negative effects• Too much caffeine• Medications • Substances like cigarette smoke, alcohol or other drugs

Vulnerability to emotions

• Thoughts and words can also make us more vulnerable to emotions• Judgments about ourselves and about

others• Negative self talk or stories we tell

ourselves• Invalidation: discounting our emotions,

thoughts and things we do.

Validation

• Invalidation… discounting our emotions, thoughts and things we do.• Invalidation: “there’s nothing to be anxious

about, you shouldn’t feel that way” • Leads to secondary emotions…guilt,

frustration and social isolation

• Validation: “it makes sense that you might feel this way”• Leads to positive feelings of happinessy, a

sense of social connection and normalcy, allows the body to relax

Painful Emotions: Fear/Anxiety

• Fear:• A present (in-the-moment) emotion • Elicited by actual or potential danger, alarm or

apprehension of something specific• Purpose is to prepare to do battle• Ends when danger is over

• Anxiety• A future-oriented emotional & physical response• Elicited by an imagined future situation• Continues until you convince yourself otherwise.

Anxiety• Underlying emotion is fear

• Possibility of failure, danger or misfortune but not actual or real threat

• Fear can be of external or internal • Sometimes the fear is fear of the possibility of

anxiety• Physical symptoms:

• Increased heart rate• Shortness of breath,• Sweaty, cold clammy hands• chest tightness,• dizzy

• Anxiety can be State (temporary) and/or Trait

Anxiety trait

• A trait: An enduring characteristic

• Anxiety trait: Responds to most challenges or thoughts of challenge with worry.

• Predominantly worrisome thoughts about situations

Anxiety state and/or trait

What does this mean for our performance at horse (and other life) events?

Someone who has:

• Low trait anxiety(Quarterhorse) + high state anxiety (what if wolf appears horizon?) = peak performance

• High trait anxiety (Arabian) + high state anxiety (what if piece of paper (or wolf) appears on horizon) = difficult to impossible performance

Anxiety

Thus

• No physical arousal (no anxiety): inadequate performance

• Low level physical arousal: good for performance

• High level physical arousal: detrimental to performance

• If very high physical arousal, steep drop in performance, reversed ONLY by reduction in physiological arousal

All anxiety is anticipatory

Mark Twain: “I’m an old man now. I’ve lived a long and difficult life, filled with

so many misfortunes, most of which never happened.”

Horse shows do not cause anxiety

© N Esposito, 2012

Chain of thoughts and

emotions

So what to do?

Where we are• 2nd wave: Cognitive and behavioral approaches target

an athlete’s psychological and social characteristic . • At this point there is very limited research that shows the

usefulness of these now standard interventions by themselves.• Goal setting• Imagery• Self talk• Arousal increase or reduction

• Psyching up• Relaxation

• 3rd wave of interventions: A growing body of research on indicates that the incorporating MINDFULNESS with C_B can have a significant long term effects on anxiety.

Things to help worry/anxiety

• Worry time• Schedule 15-30 minutes/day.• Intentionally worry, just let worry run its course

• Things that don’t work• Trying to suppress worry • Reassure yourself or get assurance from others, won’t really help• Criticize yourself for worrying

• Relief from panic: Panic episodes that are disrupting your life deserve professional consultation and are treatable. In the interim, these may help you through an attack: At the earliest signs of panic:• Remind yourself these are harmless fight or flight symptoms• Unpleasant but normal• Unpleasant but you are safe• The 5 minute rule (adrenaline takes 5 minutes to be eliminated from you

circulation, so it takes 5 minutes for physical symptoms to lessen and leave)• Sit with the symptoms until they are gone

Other Techniques

• Progressive muscle relaxation:• When: post competition• What : progressive muscle relaxing• Goal:,

• increase awareness of muscle tension• decrease arousal post performance• Enhances positive feelings and wellbeing

• May also work with difficulty sleeping night before.

Techniques

• Cognitive restructuring• When: pre performance & post• What: reinterpret thoughts to develop

different interpretation of situation• De-emphasize the importance of

competition• Reframe interpretations, for example in

the chain of thoughts, there are many cognitions that can be interpreted differently

Techniques

• Imagery• When: Pre competition, at least a

week or more• What: see next imagery slide• Goal: increase familiarity with tasks &

gives positive feedback of imagined performance

Imagery routine

• Ability to imagine yourself successfully (or unsuccessfully) completing a act.

• Pick skill to imagine.

• Do relaxation before visualization

• Make imagery as realistic as possible• Smells, sounds,… all senses• Bring skill into focus (ie test), view from your own eyes

(be in the experience).• Try to feel the movement,, the connection between

your body and your horse”s

• Practice skill in real time

Managing emotions: visualization

• Go over the test in your mind, play it like a video, rewinding and replaying until it is the way you want it to be.

• Visualize this excellent video in your mind every night before going to sleep

• Imagine yourself smiling regardless of what happens.

Goal setting: SCAMP

• S: SPECIFIC: about your goals. How will you know if you met the goal?

• C: CONTROLLABLE: Make the goals challenging but within your control. You can’t control how a judge will score, what the weather will be. You can control your personal performance “I will hit all the marks in my ride”

• A: ATTAINABLE: work on step-by-step goals so you build your confidence and can actually succeed in meeting your goals.

• M: MEASUREABLEL Be able to check yes I did it, no I didn’t, perhaps how well you did it on a scale of 1-10…. So you can see improvement

• P: PERSONAL AND PROGRESSIVE: Devise goals that will help YOU progress based on where you now

Control what you can

• You can’t control weather, the mood of the judge, your other competition but you can control how you react to those things.

• Minimize vulnerabilities: • Get sleep, eat well, check out competition,

visit show site ahead of time,

• Find a way to think positively about challenges an adversity If it can’t be changed, accept it and find something positive about it.

Social support

• Any of the 4 major categories• Emotional support• Esteem support• Informational support• Tangible support

• Perceived support helps people feel safer and situations are less stressful. (knowing you are going to a show with supportive friends)

• Received support• Sometimes helpful if person wants it• Sometimes increases stress if person is not ready for it.

Other Anxiety Treatments

• Medications• Antidepressants• Anti-anxiety

• CBT• Long lasting effects (at least 10 years)

What to remember about anxiety &

worry• Anxiety is the physical unpleasant

feeling interconnected with worry thoughts

• Worry is a fear of uncertainty “what if”

• Worry is always focused on the future

• Worry can’t persist if you are focused on the present moment

worrywarts

MindfulnessThe goal is to experience reality as it is in the

present moment

Goal mindfulness

Increase happiness

Reduce suffering

Types of Mindfulness

• MBSR (Mindfulness based stress reduction Kabat-Zin)

• MBCT (COGNITIVE TX)

• MB-EAT eating awareness

• MBRP (relapse prevention :substance abuse recovery)

• DBT (Dialectical behavioral therapy: Lenihan)

• ACT (Acceptance commitment therapy: Hayes)

• ABBT-GAD (accept based behavr tx for GAD)

Mindfulness

• Increases emotional awareness

• Helps decrease• worry and ruminating• distractibility

Mindfulness is being who are are, not who you want to be

Mindfulness is being in the moment

Assumptions

• We are doing the very best in dealing with our emotions

• We can get better and be more skillful in dealing with emotions

• Learning emotion skills and behaviors is not just at horse events, but in all areas of our lives.

From Lenihan, 1993 DBT

Resources

• Mindfulness can be learned at any age

• Examples of readings for children• Mindfulness for children• The mindful child (Grenland)• Maclean & Maclean (Peaceful Piggy

Meditations).

Bibliography• Chang, C. H. (2009). Handbook of sports psychology. New York: Nova Science

Publishers.

• Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2006). Clinical sport psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

• Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2007). The psychology of enhancing human performance : the mindfulness-acceptance-commitment approach (MAC) : a practitioner's guide. New York: Springer Pub.

• Gucciardi, D., & Gordon, S. (2011). Mental toughness in sport : developments in theory and research. Abingdon, Oxon: New York : Routlege.

• Hamilton, A. J. (2011). Zen mind, zen horse : the science and spirituality of working with horses. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub., LLC.

• Hayes, S. C. (2011). Get out of your mind and into your life. Nwe York, NY: MJF Books.

• Karageorghis, C. I., & Terry, P. C. (2011). Inside sport psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

• Linehan, M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press.

Bibliography

• Morris, T., Spittle, M., & Watt, A. P. (2005). Imagery in sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

• Nicholls, A. R. (2009). Coping in sport : theory, methods, and related constructs. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers.

• Stevens, L. (2008). Group Resilience. Equestrian Life. Retrieved from Equestrian Life website: http://www.equestrianlife.com.au/rider-skills/group-resilience

• Savoie, J. (2003). It's not just about the ribbons : it's about enriching riding and life with innovative tools and winning strategies. North Pomfret, Vt.: Trafalgar Square Pub.

• Spradlin, S. E. (2003). Don't let your emotions run your life : how dialectical behavior therapy can put you in control. Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger.

• Thatcher, J., Jones, M. V., & Lavallee, D. (2012). Coping and emotion in sport (2nd ed.). Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge.

• Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2011). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology (5th ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.