Do you ever get tired where your brain just wants to shutdown and you struggle to think anymore? Do you ever suffer mental fatigue?
Over the years I have noticed at clinics that some people suffer from mental fatigue. Over 4, 5 or 6 days they try their best to absorb and process the information coming at them at lightning speed, but towards the end of the clinic they sometimes tell me their brain can’t process anymore and they need a break. I don’t hear this a lot, but it does happen from time to time.
I don’t think this is a startling realisation. It happens to all of us at various times in life. I have heard people complain about suffering mental weariness.
However, I have never heard anybody describe their horses suffering mental fatigue. While I have heard folks at clinics complain their brain is overloaded, I have never been asked about the mental overload of their horses.
Often we are aware of a horses physical tiredness, but are oblivious to their mental state. I believe in training it is possible to induce mental fatigue into a horse.
At my clinics, a huge amount of the work is devoted to improving and refining a horse’s mental focus and connection with a rider. This is an aim in everything we do during clinic lessons. It is this focus on a horse’s focus that makes horses susceptible mental exhaustion. It is because I am devoting so much time and effort to a horses focus and directing their focus that a horses capacity to stay mentally alert and connected can be strained if we are not careful and diligent to their mental state.
During training, a horse need breaks in the work. Often we think breaks are necessary to avoid physical exhaustion. But just as important, or perhaps more so, is the necessity to have breaks to reduce the risk of mental exhaustion.
So how do you know if your horse is becoming mentally tired?
This is not an easy question to answer. The telltale signs will vary a little from horse. However, I have found a general indicator of when a horse is getting mentally tired is to beware of when your horse is finding it more difficult to be attentive to you. When I am working with a horse my aim and my expectation is that a horse’s focus on me and on the questions I ask it becomes more acute as the work progresses. It should take less work to achieve more focus and connection. But if fatigue is starting to creep in, that trend slowly and incrementally starts to reverse. As mental fatigue begins to develop there is a small deterioration in a horses ability to be attentive and follow a feel with the same sensitivity.
What should you do if you suspect your horse is getting mentally tired?
Stop. Stop what you are doing. You can quit the work for a little while or for the day. Or you can change the work to something else that a horse enjoys and requires less mental strain - like grazing on a patch of grass or chasing a ball or a lazy ride down the road. Something that removes the mental effort in your horse’s life for a short time.
We are all aware when our horses complain we are working their bodies too hard. We understand physical fitness. But in horsemanship, training is mostly about working a horse’s brain hard and we expect very little hard work from their body. Therefore, it is important we understand the importance of mental fitness and be vigilant when our horses are approaching mental tiredness. Mental fatigue hinders the progress of training and should be avoided as much as possible.
A huge thank you to Lorena Russell who last year kindly volunteered to demonstrate at a clinic how we can recognise mental exhaustion and what we should do about it. Thank you Lorena.