Why stress is worse than you think
Stress has a negative impact on pretty much every system in the horse’s body.
Stress is something that is very hard to avoid in modern life, both for humans and horses. Recently, it has become more and more recognised just how bad chronic stress can be for our bodies and minds. But is it the same with horses? How does chronic stress affect them?
The first thing we need to realise is that stress isn’t bad by itself. In fact, it’s what kept us alive throughout history. The stress response is a natural response of the body to a perceived threat. It includes pausing the non-essential functions, like digestion and procreation, and amping up the functions needed for survival, like heartbeat and muscle oxygenation. This enables the animal to run away from danger (or fight, if the situation calls for it), and save its life. When the danger passes, the body's functions return back to normal.
The stress response is a great survival mechanism.
A lot of times we pay no attention to the horse stressing out, we assume he will just »get over it« and learn how to deal with it. We don't realise that this could have numerous negative effects on his physical health. Chronic stress can have so many negative effects on the horse's body it's hard to list all of them, but here are some of the most common ones.
Ulcers. This is a no-brainer. The connection between stomach ulcers and stress is well documented in humans and it makes sense that horses are even more prone to it, given their specific digestive anatomy. Ulcers are very, very painful and they have a negative effect both on the horse's performance as well as the quality of life.
Posture. Yes, all the hard work we do in training, trying to teach the horse how to achieve good posture, might be undone by allowing him to live a life of stress. A horse that is stressed will stand with his head high, back hollow and the muscles of his topline contracted and ready to flee. If he does this all day every day, do you really think one hour of training the good posture can fix it? Probably not.
Headaches. A lot of horses will carry tension in the poll muscles in response to chronic stress – this is especially true for the more sensitive type of horse, the worrier. Tension in the upper neck muscles in humans can often cause severe headaches. There is no reason to think headaches don't happen to horses too. Imagine having to jump fences with a migraine. It's probably not that pleasant.
The diaphragm and ribcage. When an animal is under stress, their breathing pattern changes, which will have a negative effect on the diaphragm (the main breathing muscle) in the long run. Tightness in the diaphragm means a lack of movement through the ribcage, which will limit the spine's lateral flexion. So, what we're saying is stress can actually hinder your horse's ability to properly bend. Crazy, right?
Stereotypic behaviours like cribbing are often linked to increased levels of stress.
These are only a few examples of how stress wreaks havoc on your horse's body. There are many, many others, but hopefully these four can showcase just why it's super important to minimize stress in our horses. Next week we will be looking at some stress avoiding strategies that you can implement to reduce stress in your equine companion.