Anticipatory nerves
Do you ever worry before you go to ride, before you’re even around a horse, whilst you’re still at home or whilst you’re driving the car to the yard? Do you ever worry before you compete, days and days before you compete? Are you nervous days away from riding? That anticipatory style of anxiety is common among sports people and naturally, we always have that added extra of our horse who has a mind of their own.
If you’ve ever thought about something that’s going to happen in the future, something that you’ve planned for an appointment, maybe a lesson that’s coming up or a clinic, competing or maybe you’ve scheduled a day and time to go out for a hack, and you’ve built it up (negatively), your mind might give you clear warnings of specifics that might happen. Those difficult what-ifs. Importantly, it depends what you focus on. For instance, if you’re a show jumper and you’re just a little bit concerned about having a stop, then that’s what you’re focusing on.
It’s like everything else doesn’t matter. You may experience it in a more generalised way, when you’re not really sure what’s going to happen but you’re sure it’s going to be disastrous. That feeling of being out of control, that dread that you have that can intensify, and thinking about it over and over or having it pop into our mind without us stopping it, exacerbates the anxiety and we become our own worst enemy.
How often have you felt that what you worried about, the absolute worst-case scenario that you presented yourself with doesn’t come to pass and it’s the worrying that’s far worse? I hear from so many riders that they’re okay once their bottom hits the saddle and then the nerves go away and the nerves that they feel beforehand are the ones that are far, far worse. The ones where you’re on high alert, you’re particularly uncomfortable and it’s torture.
Sometimes, it’s an anxiety about being anxious in the moment when you ride, an anxiety about the future.
This style of anxiety is a learned sensitivity because although we’ve switched on the fight or flight and no doubt your stress hormones and your adrenaline are coursing through your veins, it’s not a true fight or flight in that we haven’t responded necessarily to something real. We’ve responded to something inside our heads. There’s an imagined or recalled trigger inside our head, it’s not happening right now.
Triggers
It might be seeing your horse, seeing a venue, picking up your saddle, but it’s still not actually riding, which is the thing that you think you’re worrying about. I remember many, many years ago, more than 20 years ago, I had a boss who said that she felt as though if she didn’t worry, then she was being a bit lax.
And if she relaxed about her work, then it was almost like she’d given up and she was being a bit lazy. I think riders can feel like that as well, being on high alert becomes such a habit that we almost condition ourselves into doing it. It becomes what we do naturally.
“I’ve got a dressage test in a week’s time. I better start worrying two days before.”
Anticipatory nerves versus excitement
I’m separating these anticipatory nerves from excitedness; the feelings you might have if you’re thrilled to get out and about with your horse and go and do something or have a lesson or a clinic, or maybe you just need a bit more energy in your system because you’re going to do some jumping, or maybe you need lots and lots of energy to go and do some galloping. Those have some sort of positive for us in that we are trying to get our body into a stimulated state where we’re ready and we’re gee’d up, no pun intended.
However, when we condition ourselves to feeling anxious, we’re learning that sensitivity, it’s important to know that anything we learn, we can unlearn as well.
There are two types of this anticipatory nervousness. The first one is situational.
The second one is more chronic (i.e., it’s there for a longer duration. You may recognise this as high-functioning anxiety). In situational anticipatory anxiety, when the event is over, the nerves go away.
The chronic form is when you don’t escape the nervousness, you hop from one thing to another, to another. It’s more serious in that you are constantly anxious. And maybe, again, like my old boss who was worried if she wasn’t worrying, that might be something that we’ve got into a vicious circle about. It’s almost like if I don’t worry about it, I don’t care about it enough.
You may find that you’re absolutely exhausted because physically and mentally you are pretty exhausted. Your body’s been on this high alert for too long.
We’re designed to have a high alert, like a flash in the pan, and then for it to be over and done with.
We seem to have lost the ability to switch that mechanism off in the 21st century. We are constantly on that high alert, or maybe it’s a medium alert or a low alert, but we’re never without an alert. It’s little wonder we’re exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally; this is why there’s such a relief, that release of the energy, that frenetic kind of energy that’s not going anywhere when you are so nervous.
Physical and emotional symptoms
You might find that you’re even holding yourself differently, you’ve got muscle tension, and so it’s really good to be aware when you do feel the nerves, where is the tension? Which muscles are contracting? Which ones are over-contracting? Is it your shoulders coming up around your ears? Is it your core muscles? Is it maybe your forearm? Is it your biceps or your triceps? What is tensing up that doesn’t need to be so tense? Because just be mindful of the fact that emotions can be stored in the body and if we keep having the anticipation and the anxiety and we keep tensing those muscles long term, it may be that our unconscious mind starts to store it in those muscles and it might cause you to ache a bit. So you may find that you’ve got neck ache or back ache are really traditional ones, upper back or just between your shoulder blades, that kind of area is really common for holding the anxiety. You may also find that you can’t focus.
Lots of people complain about having brain fog, because you can’t think straight You might find that you can’t sit still, you can’t in any way feel comfortable sitting still, you’re very fidgety or that you go from one task to another task.
What we’re doing inside our head is trying to control the future and we’re trying to possibly, depending on the circumstance, mind-reading what the other person may do if there’s another person involved or mind-reading what your horse might do. So what we’re actually doing is distorting what’s going to happen or generalizing what’s going to happen or deleting all the good memories of when this thing hasn’t actually happened.
What to do
To put the record straight, we can call forth the memories when it’s all gone right and see them or feel them like a series of thumbnails.
Another thing that you can do is get rid of the tension and dissipate the energy that’s bound up within you by doing some exercise. But it has to be quite vigorous.
Of course, there’s always mindfulness that you can practice. In other words, you know, if you don’t have time to go and do some forest bathing or what have you, you could just be making yourself a cup of tea or coffee or whatever you want. And as you have your tea or coffee, just kind of stare into its depths and just notice, are there any bubbles around the outside? How hot is the cup? How heavy is the cup? Is the cup smooth or is the glaze a little bit rougher? And just notice as much detail as you can, maybe from the smell, maybe from the taste.
One of the things that’s said in NLP right from I think the very first session when we do any training is to focus on what you want to have happen. We’re not controlling the future by doing this.
We’re not predicting the future. We’re not in any way saying something will definitely happen this way. We’re just educating our mind, rewiring those networks to say this is what I actually want.
This is how we start to stop anticipatory nerves. If you’d like to know more about NLP for equestrians, click here. You might also be interested in personalised hypnotherapy.
