Project Thinking Horse; Introduction

Horses have been unwittingly healing and looking after our mental and physical well-being since 400bc maybe earlier. It’s recently been proven that riding horses helps both our physical and mental well-being and has become a more popular form of therapy especially for returning veterans, children, and young adults than traditional therapy.

The idea for this project stems from my own experiences of growing up surrounded by horses and the amount of joy they have given me I want to be able to share those experiences through this blog.

Within the UK alone there are 847,000 horses and ponies. In 2020 it was proven that being around horse reduces your stress levels as well as improving sensory and motor skills. This means that riding horses can help people with movement difficulties as well as mental health conditions. This type of therapy is known as Hippotherapy and has been used to help people with issues ranging from ADHD and autism to cerebral palsy, language and sensory disorders and multiple sclerosis. Hippotherapy originates from the Greek medical physician Hippocrates also known as the “Father of Medicine,” he wrote about the therapeutic potential of horseback riding in 400bc.

Anxiety expert Dr. Robin Zasio says that although any animal could be used horse are unique due to being non-judgmental and unbiased as well as providing feedback and mirroring of the person emotions due to being vigilant and sensitive to movement and emotion. Horses can also offer a reference point a person that finds themselves vulnerable to certain topics. The person can align the horses experience in the moment to their own. Within this project I want to create a short documentary of 20-30minutes in length to draw comparisons to the effect blue and green space has on our mental well-being and how horses have a similar effect to that of visiting the sea of walking through a forest.