Science Friday: Horses React to Human Heart Rates, Study Finds
07. Aug, 2009 
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I am an admitted National Public Radio addict. One of the things I’ve missed most living here in Hawaii is the non-stop stream of NPR I used to get while driving. Here in Hawaii I don’t get to listen to NPR because I don’t drive very much. It took me at least a half hour to get almost anywhere in central Virginia. Here, it’s five minutes tops. There are apparently no satellites that cover this area of the North Pacific, so there’s no Sirius Satellite Radio, either. No all-day NPR for me. I can get a few minutes’ worth if I’m lucky enough to be in the car at the right time. Phooey. One of my favorite things about NPR was Ira Flatow’s Science Friday. I have learned so much from his fascinating guests and had more than a few driveway moments listening to something worth staying in the car for. For the net few weeks, I’m going to host my own little Science Friday here at Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch. I look forward to your thoughts on the subjects I plan to present. 
The first article is a real doozy, right up my alley, so to speak. As a writer whose self-assigned mission is to find all the science she can to back up the intuitively-derived methods of some of my favorite horsemanship practitioners, I get all excited and jump around when I find good stuff like the following article, # 14464, from The Horse.comby Nancy Zacks, published July 1, 2009.
Horses React to Human Heart Rates, Study Finds
An increase in a human’s heart rate affects the heart rate of the horse they are leading or riding, researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences recently reported.
Linda Keeling, PhD, and several colleagues tested ten horses and 20 riders to find out if humans nonverbally communicate fear or anxiety to horses. The researchers used heart rate as a fear indicator. In the study, conducted in an indoor arena, 20 people with varying levels of horse experience walked and rode 10 horses from Point A to Point B four times while wearing heart rate monitors. The horses also wore monitors. The researchers told participants an umbrella would open as they rode or led the horse on the fourth pass. The umbrella never opened, but heart rates in both horses and humans increased during the fourth trip between the points, when the human expected the umbrella to open. According to the study, these findings indicate that analysis of simultaneously recorded human and equine heart rates under different experimental handling or riding conditions can be a useful tool to investigate horse-human interactions.
The increase in the horses’ heart rates probably means that they are more alert and prepared to react to any potential danger. In the wild, horses are adapted to respond to other animals in their group. A startle reaction is more likely when the horse is very alert.
–L.J. Keeling
Each and every one of us knows that if you’re nervous, you may well induce the very spook you’re trying to avoid. But is it solely your heart rate that cues your horse to the fact that you are nervous? I wonder if these scientists are looking at other physical parameters to measure the horse-human interaction.
The study, “Investigating horse-human interactions: the effect of a nervous human,” was published in the July 2009 issue of The Veterinary Journal and abstracted in PubMed.
© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch and Kim Cox Carneal
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This is very interesting. I’m going to check out the links you provided. Just a side note, I have a related point that might back up this theory. I used to frequently take my previous dog to get acupuncture treatments for his arthritis. When the doc would check the pulses they use in Chinese medicine, she would always ask for me not to have any contact with my dog. Apparently if there was physical contact, my pulse could alter his. I always found this intriguing. Just wanted to share! Happy Friday.
I am reading Coherent Heart from heartmath.org. (You can download their e-book – go to “research” then “e-books”. There is research showing that the heart is much more than a pump. Heratmath shows how the heart coordinates deep coherence between heart rate, and the brain and the ANS (automatic nervous system)… and also demonstrates that the heart’s nervous system — both afferent and efferent (going out to the central nervous system brain and back from the CNS) is the major source of bioelectormagnetic field activity in the body.
So when I read that humans react to horses through their hearts — I imagine a much wider bioelectcric field in which horse and human are entraining toward coherence (or not).
This of course is completely in line with the work that Linda Kohanov does with horses teaching people how to be emotionally coherent.
I recently purchased their home computer hook-up biofeedback software to monitor/ improve heart-based coherence in myself. I started yesterday at work. Not surprisingly (at work) I had almost 80% non-coherence.
I am hoping the feedback system will help me maintain coherence and gain a deeper portal into horse spirit when I work with them.
Bonnie
Amen. I’ve long believed horses react to who we are with an exactness that can seem prescient. Great to see the science behind it, and thanks Bonnie for the book recommendation, sounds fascinating.
Jane
I stumbled upon the article when I was researching spooky horses. It’s very good! Thanks for sharing.
Michelle
I am not surprised that your acupuncture prac. asked you not to touch. Entrainment is the name of the process by which this happens. It’s the same phenom by which all the women living in the same dorm get their periods at the same time.
My first reaction when reading this story was DUH! But I guess they get kudos for actually proving a single mechanical parameter by which we connect with horses actually exists.
Bonnitta
I had to laugh a little bit when I started to read your response. I have HeartMath’s little machine, and use it all the time. I’m not at all surprised that you are reading this. A lot of TTouch practitioners use them, and it’s a major tenet of TTouch that the TTouches bring you and the recipient into heart coherence. Personally, I have found this to be true. Another reason I thought, DUH when reading the article!
I also thought of the bioelectric field and your horse drawings. I have often wondered if this is what you are depicting.
Sorry that your relative percentages are not what you want at work. I am a very anxious person, ordinarily, and it was surprise to find that heart coherence and a calm state are not necessarily positively correlated. I am anxious pretty much all the time, yet i am in the “blue” heart coherent level about 90% of the time, even at work. I guess i have more to work on than coherence.
This is fascinating, isn’t it? I really would like to hear more about how you make this work for you hen you are working with the horses atAlderlore.
literaryhorse
I can get behind Bonnitta’s recommendation, too. The first HeartMtah book by Doc Childre is awesome. It explains so much basic stuff.
Yay for science and horses.
Hi dressage rider
welcome. over time, you may find more and more information on spooky horses here. I especially recommend Tellington TTouch and their website for easing spookiness. I owe everyone a post on the body wrap (promised last week), which addresses just this issue.
Once the impending hurricane is over, I will post about it. Check it out.
Thanks for another interesting post, Kim!
As you say, it is nice to get scientific confirmation on this.
But I assume, as you do, that also other factors influence the horse – body tenseness and posture are the first that leaps to mind.
The extra info re. HeartMath was also interesting, I haven’t heard of it before.
Bonnitta
I don’t have the computer one–I just have the little pocket thingy. I carry it with me everywhere in the hopes that it will shed some light on maintaining heart-coherence in the meditative state and help me maintain it in daily life.
I’d like to earn more about the computer hookup.
Please keep us informed about what you learn with the horses.
Horseofcourse
There are so many other factors. It would be nice to get scientific confirmation of those. We already have some in the Tellington TTouch research using EEGs and congruent brainwave patterns. Now this with heart rates. What else might we confirm through science that we already know through intuition? Cool, huh?
HeartMath has a lot of fascinating things on their website, and the books are so enlightening. Check it out!
Thanks for the heads’ up about this movie. The research has certainly shown that horses and people can help each other in ways no one could have imagined. I can’t say that I understand it, I just KNOW that when people with special needs, be it autism or any number of other mental challenges, work with or ride horses, the effect is powerful and it lasts well beyond the time spent at the barn.
Anne
What movie? Are you talking about HORSE BOY?
You make an important point about the lasting effect of the interaction between horses and humans. It would be great if someone did a study on the length of time ones’ heart coherence was affected by contact with horses. Or how long horses were positively affected by contact with congruent humans with their best interests at heart.
Woah! You completely redid your blogosphere?!!! Tell us about that.
I have a group of masters students in Consciousness Studies from The Graduate Institute http://www.learn.edu/ coming for a day long presentation/ experiential workshop. I am interested in researching if heartmath “coherence” is the same as what enlightened horse people talk about as “coherence”… who knows… they may be different states.
Bonnitta
Truth is, I needed an escape from some particularly stressful financial machinations and I wanted to play for a bit. It was the middle of the night and that precluded a visit to the pool or beach, so….HTML finagling ensued, with so-so results. I should wait until I move to wordpress.org. I”m going to switch it back. I’ve not gotten good feedback, and I get a “blah” kind of feeling when I look at this.
My daughter looked at Mitchell College. I am IMPRESSED with you! I loved teaching adults, and may go back to that sometime.
I look forward to hearing about what you learn. Please share!
Kim…
http://integral-review.org/back_issues/backissue3/index.htm
scroll down to “extended works”
I was thrilled to see this study because I have always known that horses can definitely feel when their riders are nervous and before a big show it is always important to stay calm and relaxed so your horse can too. Great blog! Thanks for all the info!
http://bestfromthesaddle.wordpress.com
http://www.horseconnection.com/site/archive/story-aug07.html
Kip Mistral
We have all heard that overused quotation from Sir Winston Churchill “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” Who can argue with the thought? It is why, perhaps selfishly, we love horses so much.
But if you could see scientific data, gathered by the use of high technology, that proves how your horse feels about how good the inside of you is for the inside of him, would you be brave enough to look at the facts?
Well, that perspective is here. And Ellen Kaye Gehrke, Ph.D, a consultant and professor of international business and management, is using it as she and her research team engage in a series of scientific studies to measure the presence of emotional coherence and incoherence between horses/horses and horses/ humans. Gehrke has cold hard data that may warm your heart.
Gehrke is an intrepid explorer of the world of horses and people. Ten years ago she began adopting and training wild mustangs and ranch horses needing remediation, to be safe and fun trail horses. The patient and diplomatic handling that these horses required challenged her awareness of the complexity and delicacy of interaction between humans and horses. Gehrke later looked into the rapidly growing field of equine facilitated learning and became a member of the North American Handicapped Riders Association (NAHRA), the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association (EFMA), and the Equine Guided Education Association (EGEA). At her Rolling Horse Ranch in Ramona, California, she began including her horses as co-facilitators in her work to change the leadership and organizational skills of her business clients.
She points out that an entire Equine-Assisted Activities (EAA) industry has sprung up based on the assumed bond that horses and humans share. “The EAA field has long asserted that horses tend to mirror or reflect the human emotional experience, and claim that horses are effective partners for facilitating human healing, and achieving higher levels of personal growth and leadership development. However, there has been relatively little quantitative research demonstrating the psycho-physiological linkages that occur between the human and the animal—particularly with equines. We have all heard the statement ‘horses can sense when you are afraid.’ With this research we are beginning to understand how they can know.”
Gehrke’s research employs the practice of measuring Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the beat-to-beat changes in the heart rate. Any electrocardiogram (ECG, EKG) test administered in a doctor’s office measures the electromagnetic signal which the heart uses to send neurological information to the brain and the rest of the body on different levels. The heart has its own genius; among many actions it takes, it can cause a blood pressure wave which changes the electrical activity in the brain, and it also plays a part in balancing stress hormones. This electromagnetic energy tells the story about what is going on inside us physically and emotionally, Gehrke explains.
“HRV dynamics are particularly sensitive to changes in emotional states, and positive and negative emotions can readily be distinguished by changes in heart rhythm patterns, which are independent of heart rate. During the experience of negative emotions such as anger, frustration, anxiety, sadness or depression, heart rhythms become more erratic or disordered (or incoherent). Conversely, sustained positive emotions such as appreciation, love, or compassion are associated with a highly ordered, or coherent, pattern in the heart rhythms, and can be regarded as an indication of physical and mental health states.”
The Institute of HeartMath® in Boulder Creek, California, has developed simple-to-use tools based on the analysis of heart rhythm patterns that track coherent and incoherent heart rate variability patterns, which indicate the psycho-physiological state of the human. Gehrke had used the HeartMath stress reliever system to improve her own personal autonomic system and found the tool so compelling that she became a licensed HeartMath provider of stress management training. During the licensing program, Gehrke became familiar with other HeartMath research. She recognized that the HRV measurement might be a way
to quantitatively measure HRV synchronization between a human and a horse, so she teamed up with the HeartMath research team to determine if the bonding relationship could be measured. Since HeartMath is a recognized leader in researching the critical link among emotions, heart-brain communication, and cognitive function, it made perfect sense to work together. Gehrke already knew anecdotally and from her own experience that strong bonds can form between horses and humans. However, she wanted to explore quantitatively whether it was possible for the HRV of horses and humans to reflect that “mirroring” relationship that is so often referred to in the Equine-assisted Activities field. Thus the journey began.
In order to determine if this avenue of investigation was even worth pursuing the research, Gehrke and the HeartMath team conducted a controlled experiment to determine if any synchronization would occur when horses and humans interacted. Results were favorable–yes there was something there. “Next, we did autonomic assessments for 12 horses of all genders, sizes, breeds and ages. We found that the horses all had about the same heart rate patterns. You can see on the graphs when they’re sleeping or playing, for instance. Then we did experiments on pairs of horses. We were very curious to see that the heart rates of the horses who were inseparable friends were entrained, or aligned, with each other. This proved true the statement that horses are sentient beings…reflecting various emotional states when stressed or happy. A pair of horses that were known to be indifferent to each other had completely different and unsynchronized heart rates.”
The team also discovered that horses have similar patterns to those that humans have when they are in coherent and incoherent emotional states. The heart of a horse is five times bigger than a human so the possibility of entrainment doesn’t exist–however, results did show mutual synchronicity. Interestingly, Gehrke and HeartMath noted that horses seem to live in a more coherent state most of the time and humans tend to live in more incoherent states. This could be significant when examining the horse-human bond!
“After the first three pilot studies,” Gehrke continues, “we began to wonder if we could prove with scientific data the claim that horses reflect the inner state of the human. So we did some work with humans and horses. We measured the HRV between a horse-human pair that were very familiar with each other and then the same horse with a human it was unfamiliar with. We found that it didn’t matter whether the horses knew or didn’t know the person. The horses perceived, in the moment, coherent or incoherent human HRV and began reflecting that human HRV in their own behavior. It became apparent that the horse’s heart rate would synchronize with the human’s, although it did not appear that the human would reflect the horse’s emotional state.”
Gehrke participated in the study with her own horses. She and her horses wore 24-hour ambulatory ECG recorders so their HRV could be measured in different situations and under different conditions. The protocol followed was the same for each of the horses. During specific periods Gehrke groomed, fed, rode and just relaxed with them, and the HRV results made it clear that Ellen’s horses were responding to her different states. She had learned one of the HeartMath techniques called Heart Lock-In®, which is similar to biofeedback. The Heart Lock-In helps us to learn to sustain our focus on positive emotions such as gratitude and love, emotions which when experienced actually create positive physiological responses which can immediately be seen in readings on the equipment. When Gehrke seated herself and entered the Heart Lock-In periods separately with her horses, she focused on her love and appreciation for them. Three of her four horses immediately walked over and engaged with her. Shiloh put his nose in Gehrke’s lap and stayed with her for most of the Heart Lock-In period. The HRV patterns of the three horses that joined Gehrke during this period became more ordered.
“Our pilot studies have clearly indicated that human emotion affects the state of the horse,” she says. “Our next study will be more complex. In the first phase, three horses and 12 humans will interact variously in human/horse pairs within a 40-minute protocol and HRV data will be collected. Then, the 12 human participants will receive training which includes specific positive emotional focusing techniques. They will practice “emotional-shifting” and “coherence-building” for four weeks prior to the second data collection. It is anticipated that the second set of data will show a specific and measurable change in the humans’ HRV patterns, which will be reflected in the horses’ HRV patterns. HRV patterns that are synchronized in a horse/human pair indicate a greater psycho-physiological linkage between them. In plain English, that means a stronger bond.”
Ultimately, the work of Gehrke and her team confirmed that it would be possible to quantitatively measure the presence and level of human-equine relationships. The series of four pilot studies performed so far have opened up new possibilities to understanding the horse-human bond. Gehrke is currently researching funding to allow her to continue her work, and gives great credit to The Institute of HeartMath. “The project was my idea, but HeartMath has shown great interest in it. They have been an excellent, supportive partner in the research…they have provided the scientific support –analyzing the data and helping with research design.
“What we have seen proves that when a human is in a positive emotional state, the horse’s state becomes one of positive emotion. It can be argued that being in a positive emotional state is good for both humans and horses, and with this information, we want to help improve the relationship between our two species.”
Heart to heart, one heart at a time….
clotheshorse
delighted to see you here. I’m happy you found the information helpful.
I visited your blog and commented there. I enjoyed it very much!
kim,
well i just got the heartmath two days ago! and i just realized at work what you said in your post — i had expected the coherence to come when i was in a kind of slow,calm, placid place )i can lower my heart rate at will– but now i have learned what they “feeling-place”-state that is measuring coherence… and i’m still just beginning, but now i can hover in the “blue” range…
i’ll be loading it here at home this weekend, and playing with it much more.
i, too and interested in how this can work with the horses. i want to train myself to be coherent in the heartmath way, and see how it effects the horses. might even have to bring the laptop down to the barn with me and do some research!
b
I have quoted the work of Ellen Gherke here before but never as comprehensively as in this post. I am SO grateful for your comment and your having pointed this post out to me.