THE SCIENCE OF
BONDING: HEART TO HEART WITH A HORSE
Originally published in Horse Directory, March 2014
By Tom Gumbrecht
We as horsepeople are drawn to horses; that
seems obvious enough. When relating our
stories about a particular episode that illustrates the horse-human connection,
other horsepeople nod in agreement and sometimes finish our sentences, while
those who have not been so afflicted might feign interest while stealing
glances at their smartphones. That’s
just how it is. Those that understand already know; those that do not, conventional
wisdom dictated, likely never will.
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| Lola makes the author smile: Science, emotion..or both? |
Tales of the horse-human bond, and the
feelings of well-being we get from being in the company of horses, are the
stuff of novels, poems, plays, movies and countless hours of stories in the
barn aisles and tackrooms throughout the world.
They are just that: stories, anecdotal evidence. We all know this, and most of us appreciate
it. Even if not convinced, non-
horsepeople often think our views to be harmless at worst, a little quaint
perhaps and maybe even a little charming.
They are our experiences, we enjoy relating them, and they can’t be
proven or disproven. Or can they?
We recently became aware of the work being
done at the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) in Colorado which studies the heart as
more than just a pump to keep our blood flowing. Scientists there believe the heart to be the
center of not only physical, but emotional and spiritual well- being also, and
have undertaken extensive research to support their theories. It seems that electromagnetic fields
surrounding our hearts have the ability to affect other species as well. Dr. Rollin McCraty, Research Director at the
Institute of HeartMath put it this way:
“It appears that there is a type of
communication occurring between people above and beyond body language and
verbal communication. I believe we’ll
see in future research studies that we are affecting each others’ moods and
attitudes, both positively and negatively, by the electromagnetic fields we
radiate. In our work with pets and their
owners, we’ve seen that a pet owner can create what we call a heart filled
environment when practicing heart- focused techniques. The pets respond by becoming more
affectionate, more animated, and more connected with the pet owner.”
After becoming aware of the work of the IHM
in studying heart rate variability as an indicator of feelings of well- being
in humans and small animals, Dr. Ellen Kaye Gehrke, who is involved with Equine
Assisted Activities and Therapy at her Rolling Horse Ranch in California, began
exploring the phenomenon with horses. In
experiments conducted by Dr. Gehrke, following a protocol designed by IHM, studies
showed that during exercises that promoted emotional bonding between human and
horse, the beat- to- beat fluctuations in the human and horse hearts began to
synchronize, and ultimately matched one another. Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
reflects heart- brain interactions and is sensitive to changes in emotional
states. It is possible to accurately
measure HRV rhythms in both humans and horses and relate those values to those
known to reflect a positive emotional state (called a “coherent pattern” by the
researchers). That coherent pattern and the positive emotional state it
represents, are present when the heart rhythms are synchronized. Interestingly, that synchronization does not
occur with a human subject who is indifferent toward the horse, but quite
noticeably appears when subject has interest in the horse. The feeling of well
being in certain humans when in proximity of horses is thus recordable and
measurable.
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| The author with Circus.. the horse that started it all.. |
For many, these experiments, the content of
which I have only just brushed the surface of in these pages, are telling us
what we already know. I have experienced
the phenomenon of a changed emotional state by simply being in the proximity of
horses in many instances. Some years
ago, we made the decision to purchase horse property. The house we were selling was comfortable for
us physically and financially and we had invested a lot of time and money into
making it our own. Sometime during the agonizing summer of buying, selling and
moving into a much larger property than I ever expected to live in, fear crept
in.. followed by guilt. What was I doing? How could I jeopardize my family’s
well being to follow a crazy dream? The frenzied activity of that season left
little time for horses and riding. But
one day the stress got so intense that I just shut down and drove to a local
riding stable. I took a horse that I was
acquainted with and headed out on trail for a few hours. In five minutes it all
became clear; once I was in the physical presence of a horse, it all made sense
once again. Everything will be all
right. In fact, everything IS all right!
As a man of words more than a man of
science, I was amused but not totally
convinced of the value of technology finding a way to validate our experiences
which showed that being in the aura of a horse produced feelings of a positive
emotional state and general well- being.
But then I began to see the importance of having what we knew to be true
anecdotally, to now be quantifiable, repeatable and recordable by using
scientific methods:
Horses help many who have not been able to
be helped by more conventional means. We
have all seen or heard stories, or perhaps witnessed or even personally
experienced major emotional breakthroughs facilitated by horses. We marvel at the ability of our equines to
provide a safe venue in which to process our most fragile feelings. Does it matter that researchers have now
identified that the large magnetic fields surrounding the massive equine heart
might be responsible for creating that environment?
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| The author shares a quiet moment with Lola... |
It may.
We live in a world where much of the cost of therapeutic treatment is
paid for by health care insurance.
Alternative therapies have a much better chance of being funded if there
is clinical rather than anecdotal evidence that they work. The current research
may open the door for increased funding for programs that produce results for
those who need it most… or at least provide these programs with legitimacy to
those who may raise a skeptical eyebrow to unconventional therapies.
As one who works with words, I have in the
past penned the phrase “the heart of the horse and the heart of the rider beat
as one” or something similar, more than once.
It’s fascinating to think that now science supports my beliefs!
To
learn more about the science of HeartMath as it relates to horses, follow this
link:
isar.dk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Dr_Kaye_Article.pdf
Archived
articles are available at tcgequine.blogspot.com. Email the author at tcgequine@gmail.com
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us on Facebook: Tom Gumbrecht. Visit my very self-absorbed paint horse on
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