Last week we discussed how a busy horse owner can do all their necessary horse care tasks in about a half hour on those days you’re pressed for time. If you’re like me, you don’t have an extra hour to spend on the nice extras like a bit of massage, thorough tail conditioning, or just hanging out with your horse for an hour or so every day.

When I do, I love it, but when I don’t, I know that my mare’s essentials are all taken care of, and I can focus on whatever else is demanding my time guilt-free.

Today’s post is all about how to spend a half-hour making sure your essentials are cared for, and how that relates to being the owner your horse deserves.

Here’s a basic overview:

1. Drink a glass of  water Time: 1 minute, benefit: hydration for your health and taking a brief break*

2. Do some breathing exercises: Time: 2 minutes, benefit: centers you, improves your focus, helps brain function**

3. Do some stretching: Time: 5 minutes, benefit: helps prevent injury, increases flexibility, improves comfort, increases mobility, extends your active years

4. Meditate –  Time: 5 minutes, benefit: helps ground you, increases your focus, reduces stress, increases creativity, including creative problem solving

5. Journal – Time: 10 minutes, benefit: helps gather your thoughts, reduce anxiety, offer perspective

*Repeat 4 times for 5 minutes total

** Repeat mid-day

1. Drink a glass of water

If you drink one glass of water four times a day, it can help everything from keeping your joints lubricated to keeping your heart healthier and preventing headaches.

By simply drinking a glass when you get up and one before every meal – you’ve got your four glasses.

Plan to up your intake to around eight glasses by adding the habit onto things you’re already doing like have a glass after you put your clothes in the dryer, when you head out to the barn or get back from a trail ride. And when if you’re sweating either due to the weather or physical exertion, make sure to increase your fluid intake. A good rule of thumb is to have a drink before you feel thirsty. By scheduling your water breaks, you should avoid dehydration.

2. Breathing Exercises

We’ll get into a few more specifics on breathing exercises in a later post, but it’s important to remember that when we’re stressed, anxious, or afraid, we often take a defensive posture – our ribcage collapses and our breathing becomes shallow – which limits the oxygen going to our brain and makes it harder to think logically. If this is a long-term pattern, your diaphragm can become somewhat constricted, making proper breathing more challenging. Focusing on correct breathing for a few minutes a day can familiarize you with deeper breathing and help it become more of a habit.

Two key points for maximizing your breathing are breathing through your nose (especially inhaling), and breathing into your belly rather than your chest.

Breathing through our nose helps moisturize the air before it reaches our lungs, and the hairs in our nose also help filter out foreign substances such as allergens and small particulates. Nose breathing increases the amount of oxygen you take in and can even help prevent snoring.

“Belly breathing”, also known as diaphragmatic breathing, helps expand your diaphragm and give your lungs more room to fill. It’ also triggers your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps alleviate the “fight or flight response”.

3. Stretch

Are you as limber as you were when you were in your teens? Me neither. As we age, the fibers in muscles can get smaller and we might even have fewer of those fibers. Our joints lose some of the lubricating fluid which can cause joint stiffness and discomfort, which in turn can worsen any issues we have with our strength and balance.

While pretty much any kind of movement is healthy, (although I don’t recommend bungee jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge), stretching can help with your flexibility, improve the range of motion in your hips, decrease pain, and may even help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by helping your arteries stay more elastic.

There are plenty of exercise videos online, but be sure to check with your healthcare professional before starting any new exercise routine, and remember to start with gentle stretches.

An article from Harvard Medical School suggests stretching all your major muscle groups at least two or three times a week. Each area should be stretched for a total of about 60 seconds per session – so if you’re comfortable with holding a stretch for about 15 seconds, repeat the exercise four times for a total of 60 seconds.

4. Meditate

If you’re at all like I was (for years), when someone says you should meditate, it’s likely to elicit an eye-roll.  Even if not completely opposed to the concept of meditation, many people (my former self included) think they can’t “stop thinking”, or that they’re “too busy” to meditate.

Truth is, meditation isn’t about stopping all thoughts – humans aren’t wired that way! The goal is to help your brain develop the ability to maintain your focus. Focusing on your breath is often a good way for people to start meditation because we’re always breathing. Face it, if you’re not breathing, you’re beyond the help of anything I’m writing in this article!

And the benefits of meditation make it worth giving it a try. Meditation not only helps reduce stress, it also improves your concentration, lowers your blood pressure, improves self-awareness, and studies show that it may help reduce memory loss as we age.

A very simple way to start meditating is to sit quietly and count 10 breaths. If you only make it to 3 before your mind jumps in to remind you you need to buy vinegar, no big deal, your brain is trying to be helpful, but by returning to your breath and starting your counting over again at one, you’re also helping your brain develop focus.

Not to overemphasize this, but the point of meditation is NOT to stop thinking! Your goal is to return to your breath when you find your mind wandering down aisle 7 in the grocery store trying to remember if that’s where you saw bottles of balsamic vinegar.

Don’t scold your mind for grocery shopping – no self-recriminations allowed in meditation. When you catch your brain getting lost in a train of thought, just hop off at the next station and return to your breath. You may catch yourself in 10 seconds, or it might be 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter. The point is you did notice and you did return to your breath.

Spend a few minutes and see if you can get to 10 breaths without your mind wandering. Trust me, there are some days I make it to 3, start over, get to 5, start again, and maybe make it into my second or third round of ten, only to find my mind has wandered off on its own again. It doesn’t matter how many times your mind wanders off, the goal is to notice that it has (eventually), and to gently return your attention to your breath.

Meditation has been part of my life for several years, but when I was diagnosed with ADHD last year – at the age of 64, meditation was a game-changer for me. I still have a monkey mind from time to time, but I feel less compulsion to run in a dozen directions at once. I can take a breath (or 10) and allow my mind to settle enough to pick one (or 2 or 3) things to focus on instead of 10.

5. Journal

Journaling is a great practice for nearly everyone – but it can be especially helpful for busy horsewomen (and have you ever met a horsewoman who isn’t busy??). It can help organize your thoughts and work through issues you haven’t been able to untangle.

The simple act of free writing can help lower stress and anxiety, increase creativity, improve memory, and give you a container in which to process your thoughts.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I regularly have breakthroughs when I’m journalling in the morning. I write my way through patterns of behavior that have gradually become more and more annoying, peel back the layers, and often find the source of the issue. Once I’ve uncovered that,, I can usually devise action steps to clear the original block and move forward.

I journal in the morning, some prefer the evening – but, honestly, the best time to journal is whenever works for you.  Can you set aside 5 minutes to write with your first cup of tea in the morning? Perhaps before you settle in for the night? The main thing is to start. If the time you choose initially doesn’t work, switch it around. You don’t even have to journal at the same time every day, although when you’re developing the habit, consistency will help establish it.

And this helps my horse how, exactly?

Your horse is dependent on you, especially if you keep him at home. Even if he’s boarded, he relies on you as a consistent presence in his life. If you go out to spend some time with him and you’re dealing with a headache because you’re dehydrated, or you’re stressed because there’s a problem at work, or you can’t take a deep breath to ground yourself, you’re doing him a disservice.

He deserves to have 100% of you while you’re with him – but if you’re only operating at 70%, chances are you’re not focused enough to even give him that entire 70%.

You can explain to your family or friends that you’re anxious about a project at work – they aren’t likely to tune into your tighter energy or the fact that you’re not focused. If your shoulders are tight from stress or your brain is going flat-out trying to solve a problem, the people around you may not even notice, but your horse will. He can sense when you’re even a little bit off, which then can start a stress cycle in him as well. What should have been an enjoyable time for both of you has become the opposite.

So, do your horse a favor. Spend a half-hour or so tomorrow, and take care of yourself. You’ll both feel better when you’re calm, centered, and healthy. Who knows? Maybe even your family will notice the difference!