by penny | Jul 5, 2021 | The Horsey Life
If you’ve been working all day, whether it’s at your job or business, working in your garden, or keeping up with the housework, you may find yourself pretty tired at the end of the day. And if you typically ride after work, you’re likely to be wiped out long before you put a foot in the stirrup.
I’ve been there and it’s no fun! I don’t know about you, but I want to feel calm because I’m centered and grounded, not because I’m so fatigued I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.
There are thousands of ways to revive your energy – (just type a “how to get energy” in the Google search bar. I came up with about 2,450,000,000 results (0.79 seconds). Don’t feel like scrolling through several thousand articles? You’re in luck! I’ve done some of the searching for you.
The three types of exercises I chose are quick, simple, and free, (and none of them involve heading through the Starbucks drive-through on the way to the barn!)
Breathing
You might think I talk about breathing a lot, and there’s a good reason for that. It’s because I do. Using your breath in a mindful way can help you feel energized, calm, confident, or peaceful. The value of breathing exercises can’t be overstated – it goes with us wherever we go, and it’s even free!
Why it works: Deep breathing, which is also called belly breathing or abdominal breathing, brings more oxygen into your body. According to an article by Dr. Mehmet Oz on sharecare.com, Nitric oxide is drawn into your lungs when you practice deep breathing. Nitric oxide opens up airways and blood vessels in and around your lungs. Put better breathing in, and you’ll see improvements in your energy and overall health.
The links below take you to a few different sites with breathing exercises. I usually recommend that my students and clients try out a few different exercises. Try to remember to do the exercise 2 or 3 times a day for at least a few days. That will allow you to decide if you like the exercise and if you feel like it’s helping. If you try an exercise you absolutely hate, move on to the next one. (I’m sure you’ll find something that works in the 54,600,000 results that Google pulled up for me ( in 0.65 seconds) when I searched “deep breathing for energy”.
Gaiam, a well-respected wellness site, suggests a one-minute breathing exercise that’s based on yogic principles. Very effective, and it can be done simply, easily, and quickly!
Dr. Andrew Weil is a very well-known doctor of integrative medicine. Three of his breathing exercises can be learned here.
A quick explanation of Integrative Medicine given by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “Integrated medicine (or integrative medicine as it is referred to in the United States) is practicing medicine in a way that selectively incorporates elements of complementary and alternative medicine into comprehensive treatment plans alongside solidly orthodox methods of diagnosis and treatment.
“Integrated medicine is not simply a synonym for complementary medicine. Complementary medicine refers to treatments that may be used as adjuncts to conventional treatment and are not usually taught in medical schools. Integrated medicine has a larger meaning and mission, its focus being on health and healing rather than disease and treatment. It views patients as whole people with minds and spirits as well as bodies and includes these dimensions into diagnosis and treatment. It also involves patients and doctors working to maintain health by paying attention to lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, quality of rest and sleep, and the nature of relationships.”
Integrated Health is becoming more mainstream in the United States as patients and doctors seek ways to treat the person as a whole entity, rather than dozens of specific parts. Deep breathing is good for the whole body, not just your brain, or lungs, or heart.
Move
Not the “hire a U-Haul truck, pack up all of your furniture and head across the country” sort of move, more like the “let’s go for a walk, or dance in the kitchen (or clean stalls, groom, ride, etc).
Paradoxically, we’re often dealing with pain that limits the very thing that will make us feel energized – movement.
I am not, I repeat, I am NOT a doctor or other medical professional. You need to speak with your health care provider before you embark on any new exercise program. Be ready with specific questions on what exercises would be beneficial, and which to avoid to keep you strong, keep you healthy, reduce your pain, and ramp up your energy. You can speak with your doctor or physical therapist about what exercises can actually improve your pain while they give your energy a boost.
Hydrate
I don’t know about you, but when it’s hot like it is here in Virginia at the moment, I drink a LOT of water. I have 2 quart-size water bottles as well as a 20-ounce one. They’re stainless steel and double-walled so they don’t leave damp rings on my desk as I work. They also go with me when I go to the barn, work in the garden, or take any drive that’s more than 15 minutes.
According to an article in cnet, water can make you more energized.
“Drinking more water gives you more energy to do anything from strenuous physical feats to staying awake at your desk after lunch. Many studies have shown that dehydration lowers athletic performance, making you feel sluggish and off your game. It can also cause you to feel tired or sleepy, so if you’re getting enough sleep but can’t keep your eyes open, you may need to just up your water intake.
One study suggested that being dehydrated hurts physical performance for any activity longer than thirty seconds. Even if you don’t work out for hours on end, short flights of stairs or walking around the city you live in will feel much easier if you’re hydrated.”
I tend to sweat a lot, so it’s important for me to stay hydrated. I keep track of how many bottles I’ve consumed during the day by putting colored elastic bands around my bottle – 1 for each bottle I’d like to drink during the day. So if I want to drink 4 quarts, I’ll put 2 elastic bands on the lower section of each quart-sized bottle. When I finish a quart, I just roll the elastic higher on the bottle. When all of my bands are near the top of the bottles, I know how much water I’ve had during the day.
So now you have a few things to do during the day that can help your energy levels, and also improve your overall health – helping you be the owner your horse deserves for many years to come.
Until next time, Love Your Horse, Love Your Life, Love Your Self
by penny | Jan 20, 2017 | The Horsey Life
“M” word? Mindfulness? Good one, but not quite. Well, you can’t mean that “M” word!! No, this isn’t that kind of blog. The “M” word in question is…..
Meditation
Yup – I said it. I just rolled out the woo-woo, hippie, New-Agey word. The word of saffron robes and incense and people who have nothing better to do… I can see your eye rolls from here, for heaven’s sake!!
It may (or may not) interest you to know that meditation does NOT require you to be able to sit in lotus position (thank God!), nor does it require you to be a willowy 20-someting clad in spandex with a serene expression and nary a wrinkle in sight. It doesn’t even require you be sitting on a deserted beach or standing on a majestic mountaintop! Who knew?
So, are you willing to stick with me (at least grumblingly) for a few minutes to learn a little about what meditation is and how it can help with your horse? Good. You never know – you might even surprise yourself and give it a try!
If you’re like many people (including me up until a few years ago), you are pretty certain that meditation isn’t, never has been, and never will be your thing. Why? Glad you asked – let me list the ways:
- you’re too busy
- you don’t have the time
- you can’t sit still long enough
- your mind won’t stop
- you’re too busy (trust me, I used to trot this one out frequently)
- it’s boring
- it’s too woo-woo
- and, last but not least – you’re too busy
I had all these reasons, and dozens more – but I got to the place where I was a little tired of living my life on auto pilot, never “finding” time to ride for enjoyment, sit and read a good book, or even sit and read a trashy book. I would get to the end of a day and wonder how the hell I got there. Yeah, not exactly the queen of awareness. And I started paying the price. Migraines, a big uptick in my fibromyalgia symptoms, being completely exhausted and depressed – I wasn’t living, I was existing, and it sucked.
So, I “tried” meditating. I would set my timer for 3 minutes and wait for my mind to go blank. It never did. I thought -“Wow – I can’t even get this right! It’s freaking sitting still for God’s sake and I can’t even do that! What kind of a failure am I???” (Did I mention how kind I used to be to myself? No? Well, you probably get the idea…)
Now, before I get into some of the benefits I’ve received from meditating (and I meditate anywhere from 5 – 20 minutes a day, that’s all), I want to tell you how it relates to this whole Find Yourself on a Horse thing…
In this post I spoke about how your horse is likely to react to you when you approach him with an agenda. Horses are much better partners when you’re fully present. Whether you’re “just” bringing your horse in from the field or you’re running barrels to win a kick-ass buckle, the more present you are, the better the experience will be – for both of you.
The first thing you need to be able to do to improve your level of presence is to be aware of what you’re doing. But awareness does not just happen. Let me repeat that: Awareness does not just happen. It takes work, it takes awareness… wait – if we need awareness to become aware… Yeah, the whole chicken-and-egg thing, I know. And here’s where meditation becomes a useful little tool.
Make meditation your bitch.
When I say “useful little tool”, I really mean make meditation your bitch.
Meditation isn’t just for hippies any more. It can help “normal” horse owners (does such a creature exist??) with things like remembering your dressage test, controlling your road rage, alleviating your constant stress, oh yeah, and giving you a better relationship with your horse and the key people in your life – especially yourself!
Meditation isn’t just for hippies any more.
By sitting (or standing, or walking, or lying down, or riding) in meditation, you step back from the chaos that is your mind. You detach long enough to realize that your mind is chaos, but that chaos is not you – not all of you, anyway.
Meditation helps you observe the rabbit, without getting dragged down the rabbit hole.
So if you’ve “tried” meditation and found that “it doesn’t work” (see above), you’re going at it with the wrong expectations. You see, meditation doesn’t mean your mind goes blank. It means you start to find tiny spaces between the to-do list, questions that pop up, memories of your grandmother’s plum cake – God, that was so buttery and good and …. Hey! I’m still thinking here!!! Yes. You’re a human being. We think. Get used to it – but, not so used to it that you believe that’s all there is.
Mind the Gap
Remember that tiny space between the questions and the memories of the plum cake? That’s your first opening into the world of meditation. That tiny fragment of open space allows you to realize that there is a space not occupied by thoughts. A place where you are a human being, not a human thinking or a human doing.
Mind the Gap
If the first time you meditate, you have a gap that lasts for about a millionth of a second – congratulations! That’s a great place to start. If the first time you meditate you have no gaps at all – congratulations! That’s a great place to start, too. The important thing is you started. Don’t expect miracles overnight. (I’m still not a willowy 20-something with no wrinkles and oodles of serenity).
Once you see that little chink in your thoughts the first time – notice it. Remember it. The following day, you may have 2 tiny gaps. Notice them. Remember them. As for the endless stream of thoughts? No worries – they’re not going to just go away, (because that would probably mean you’re dead, and that would suck, too…) What do you do about the thoughts, the itch, the ache in your left ankle from getting stepped on last year? Nothing. You don’t have to try to evict them from your mind. You don’t have to tally them, worry about them, or feel guilty about them. They are there – so just let them be there. (Isn’t it nice to have something you don’t have to do anything about?)
I Do It My Way
As you may imagine, there are thousands of “right” ways to meditate (explained to you in the thousands of books, apps, courses, and videos about meditation). I simply sit in a comfortable position (on a chair, not on a meditation pillow, mountain top, or beach), close my eyes, and focus on my breathing. Just noticing the breath going in and out of my body. I don’t change my breathing or try to breathe a certain way – I just breathe and notice the breath. Thoughts come up, I notice them, and then I come back to noticing my breathing. Sometimes I come back to noticing my breath within a few seconds, sometimes it’s not until the timer goes off at the end of my meditation (damn that plum cake!), but that’s fine, too. You see, one of the best things about meditation, is that there’s no wrong way to do it.
If you truly want to see benefits in your (horsey) life from meditation, commit to a week or so before you decide that A) Meditation sucks B) You suck at meditation C) I suck because I recommended you try meditation in the first place.
For those of you who want to explore meditation a little further and don’t want anything preachy or woo-woo, check out the app 10% Happier – Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. It’s available for your mobile device of choice. 10% Happier was developed by a team led by Dan Harris, an ABC News anchor who started his meditation journey after having a panic attack… on live TV. (Kind of makes forgetting your test in the last dressage show seem pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?)
The app is part instruction manual, and part humorous autobiography of how Dan found meditation to be helpful. If it turns out you love his self-deprecating humor/actual useful advice style, check out his book on Amazon. (This is an affiliate link – when all tens of millions of my readers order this book from this link, I shall retire to Tahiti and continue to write my blog from there). 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story
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Whichever path you choose, I hope you’ll give meditation a try, and that it becomes at least a small part of your daily routine. While you aren’t likely to become an Olympic-calibre rider overnight, it will help improve your relationship with your horse – and that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?
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by penny | Jan 16, 2017 | Find Yourself on a Horse, The Horsey Life
The Beagle
As a mid-life, happily married woman, I have to confess, horses add a lot to my life that I just don’t get elsewhere. They fulfill my desire for beauty, for nurturing, for connecting with another life form, and yes, even for petting something warm and fuzzy. (Although the Beagle would insist I can fulfill my entire warm fuzzy petting needs with her…)
The reasons for the depth of the connection between horses and women are myriad, but even though many of us are aware of the connection, we’d like to make it stronger, or we simply go on in our habits (which might be decades old) of interacting with horses, and therefore miss a lot of the advantages of spending time with these amazing creatures.
I started this blog to help women become more mindful in their relationships with their horses, with the important people in their lives, and, most importantly, with themselves. I’ve owned horses for 45 years, and been an internationally certified instructor for most of that time. I’ve owned and run a large boarding, training, and lesson barn; taught everything from kids on ponies to adults who were working on national rankings in the dressage arena. I’m a certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor and Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning, and I’m an avid student who has learned (and continues to learn) important life lessons from horses. I’ve picked up a fair amount of wisdom (as well as knowledge) along the way, and I’ve helped dozens of women find their way. I’d like to help you, as well.
I’ll be focusing on 10 key areas over the weeks and months to come. They are:
- Awareness
- Understanding
- Trust
- Respect
- Communication
- Confidence
- Goals
- Planning
- Balance
- Harmony
I’ll be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I hope you’ll join me on this journey and that in some small way, I’m able to help you find yourself on a horse.
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