
Identify stress responses and how fight, flight, freeze, fawn, faint appear. Use paced breathing, engaging the senses, movement, journaling, and equine activities to shift toward the window of tolerance.
Choose horse-based sensory activities matched to arousal levels. Use heavy proprioceptive tasks for fight, taste for shutdown, and tactile work for flight, building a personal baseline.
Lead a body scan from toes to head to build sensation awareness, then apply progressive muscle relaxation with breathing and imagery, integrating horse-based movement for nervous system regulation.
Engage in movement-based equine therapy that promotes co-regulation and rhythm with horses. Practice mirroring expressions and breaths to build nonverbal communication and attunement for young people.
Are you a professional who works with horses and people and you want ideas for sensory integration or relaxation activities that you can incorporate into sessions with clients? Perhaps you are a horse owner who just wants to find out how to relax and connect with your horse. Whoever you are, this course can provide you with a toolkit of exercises to try.
Horses are the best purpose-made sensory apparatus in the world. They provide stimulation for all the senses. Their bodies have so many variations of temperature and texture that we cannot help but touch them. Their coat colour, physical form and movement draws the eye effortlessly. They even come with their own in-built olfactory stimulation. No one spends time around horses without noticing a few unique smells! Being on a moving horse or learning to move a horse from the ground provides some heavy-duty proprioceptive and vestibular sensory input too.
We think of sensory input as something that people with learning or processing difficulties need but actually all people need and can benefit from sensory input. Sensory processing helps with new learning. If there is a breakdown in this process, people may not respond appropriately to the information they are receiving. Many ‘behavioural problems’ actually come from a craving for sensory input. Equine assisted practitioners and horse owners can make use of these simple sensory integration activities and exercises.