Effectiveness of Horse Riding for Depression Treatment

Depression is a mood disorder that most often encountered around the world. There are about 20% of the population of Americans who experience depressive disorders, and as much as 30% among the population, also experience anxiety, and panic attack history (data from nmha.org). Mood disorders can not be regarded as a minor problem, considering the cases of mood disorders such as depression have a high prevalence and affects almost all levels of society, even many popular jobs not free from risk of depression. If not received considerable attention, this phenomenon will have a broad impact.

Depressive disorders tend to have characters isolate themselves, so that treatment programs will have a little challenge. On the other hand, people with high anxiety will find it difficult to sustain treatment programs, so that not a few will be found who stopped therapy program. It takes an alternative therapy that may be an option for patients with depressive disorders to get a therapy program that works for them and provide meaningful benefits. So with equestrian therapy can be used as an option to add the progress of the treatment of depressive disorders.

Horse riding can provide a different sensation for patients with depressive disorders. This trick can bring people out of their mood tends isolated in this way will bring them in different environments and open. Interacting with horses will stimulate physiological responses that differ from what has been normal. This is a very important fact because one of the main features of depressive disorder is a physiological system flat lined.

One feature of depressive disorder is loss of interest or pleasure in activities previously preferred. This is a difficult situation on depressive disorders. Stimulation needed to revive their feelings about the interests and activities prior to their liking. In this phenomenon, their brains will be relatively stagnant. And they found it difficult to take steps to get out of their bad mood.

Introducing the depressed person to ride will provide a new situation. Riding can make depressed person jerks, especially when the horse responded to the depressed person in a way that he usually does. Riding can give them encouragement, until; eventually suffering from depression will show a response. This happens because, for horses, people with depression is similar to a lifeless foal must be generated to be safe. So what exactly is the horse trying to do is turn on their own depressed self-protective mechanism. And while a depressed person may start to take action, and reaffirm the boundaries between himself and the horse, that will happen is that he has done something that was not done when he was enjoying the atmosphere of depressives. The hope, he has been awakened, and showed a normal physiological response.

If this is the anxious, the horse may have been acting even more powerful, encouraging more people and more space to attack. Why? Because people are anxious also not safe. Instead of remaining alert to their environment and acting to protect himself, his anxiety has occupied its focus, and left frozen, physiological and physical. The only way a horse can then try to move him from this situation is to put himself in a position where he must defend himself, and moves even anxiety, again interrupting flatlined pattern which was also experienced by depressed people.

And because, once again, people who have experienced anxiety of different physiological responses, and one associated with a very strong positive behaviors (eg, communicating effectively with the horse), he is much more likely to maintain therapeutic gains on depression.