Horses are known to be very sensitive to human emotions and feelings and can therefore sense states of anxiety or depression in individuals.
Horses can read human emotions, too, often in uncannily accurate ways; alerting us to our sadness or nervousness, sometimes before we've even consciously registered it.
Indeed, research shows that people experience many other physiological benefits whilst interacting with horses including lower blood pressure, increased levels of beta-endorphins (neurotransmitters that serve as pain suppressors) decreased stress levels, reduced feeling of anger, hostility, tension, depression and ...
The Horse-Human Relationship in Equine-Assisted Therapy
Horses have a unique sensitivity to people's feelings. In addition, horses react to subtle changes in their environment. Therefore, they can sense a teen's emotional state, including states of depression or anxiety.
Yes, horses can sense fear and many other emotions.
It is a survival thing for them.
Two years ago, scientists found that horses recognize the difference between positive and negative emotions in whinnies—if those whinnies come from horses they know. The team even suggested that those whinnies might influence the emotions of the horses that hear them.
One study conducted in Sweden confirmed that horses sense the anxiety of their riders and experience an increased heart rate at the same time as their human companions. This may be why it is said that horses can sense fear when a new human is attempting to handle them.
Raised inner brows: Horses don't have an eyebrow like humans, but they do have an expression that raises the inner corner of the eye. When a horse raises his inner corner of the eye, it is expressing feelings of sadness or fearfulness.
Integrative Equine Therapy is an alternative anxiety therapy that harnesses the unique ability of horses to observe and read the emotions of clients allowing individuals to replace ingrained negative reactions with positive responses.
Study: Horses Can Smell Human Fear, Happiness.
“And when in a horses' presence, the human's nervous system automatically syncs up with the horse. They can sense everything that's going on in your body – your thoughts, your energy and the other most important amazing thing standing by a horse being in their presence can calm your entire body.”
The most common emotional support animals for depression are dogs and cats. Emotional support animals can be used in several different environments, including schools, airports, college campuses and at home.
A horse doesn't just grieve the death of his companion, he also mourns the loss of physical touch and comfort that his companion provided. Support your horse and reduce his feelings of loneliness through grooming. Regularly grooming your horse is one of the best ways you can offer your horse comfort.
Research shows that horses recognize and react to human emotions expressed by facial cues alone. We've all been taught that horses can readily pick up on our anxiety, anger and other emotions from our body language. Now, research from England suggests that they can read our facial expressions as well.
A horse may also be very happy to see you if they trot over to you from the pasture when they see you coming. These are two common ways that horses show they are excited and eager to see you. Horses will become very relaxed when they are in the company of someone they love and trust.
Horses become the most popular animal to use in animal therapy because they give immediate feedback to the handler or rider's actions. Horses also have the ability to mirror the feelings of the handler or rider. Horses' large and intimidating appearance forces and individual to gain trust around them.
Horses are Capable of Cross-Modal Recognition of Human Emotions. In line with our hypothesis, horses successfully discriminated between the two pictures of human faces (one expressing joy and the other expressing anger) based on their congruence with the vocalization they were hearing.
Horses Like Humans With Calm and Happy Facial Expressions.
Horses may stare at you when they want your attention. If you are distracted or out of reach, your horse may stare at you to get you to focus on them. If there's a barrier such as a fence between you and your horse, they may stare at you since they can't reach you to nudge you.
Based upon this, the study concluded that, while horses may find comfort in the presence of humans, viewing them to be “safe havens,” they don't necessarily get personally attached to just one. They even reacted the same to being separated from complete strangers as they did to their trainers.
Notice that recognition when you approach a horse; the horse reaches out its muzzle to take in your scent by sniffing you. As with other animals, extending the back of your hand is a good way to let the horse get to know and trust you, and accept your presence as a herd mate and not a predator.
Results showed that horses carried their head higher with the PTSD subjects − a behavior related with stress − but otherwise did not respond differently to PTSD subjects compared to the control individuals.