Recovering from Adrenal Fatigue: The Art of Listening to the Body

My body is smarter than the rest of me, at least when it comes to healing from adrenal fatigue. It tells me when to rest and when I have plenty of energy. The problem is that most of the time, I tend to ignore these signals from my body because I have "deadlines" and "stuff to do." This is all well and good until my batteries run out of juice and I literally crash!

The Beach and the Art of Listening to My Body
Luckily, even though I am usually quite deaf to my body's requests to rest, I spend five weeks each year in Cancun, Mexico (where I am right now). During these five weeks, I do very little work, focusing instead on recharging my batteries, relaxing, and rejuvenating.

Having recently discovered that I've run down my batteries so much that I now have adrenal fatigue, this latest trip down to Mexico has been most interesting. Adrenal fatigue occurs when we push ourselves to "keep going," no matter how tired or stressed we feel. Our bodies compensate for this by producing more adrenaline, cortisol, and other hormones so that we can keep going. The problem is, after a few years of living in overdrive, the adrenal system burns out because it is one of the most sensitive organ systems in the body. Then we have symptoms like constant tiredness, burnout, weight gain or loss, or depression.

That sounds like me to a tee. I recently started on an adrenal support supplement, Eleviv, and the results are quite interesting. Eleviv not only supports the adrenal system and other bodily systems so that I sleep more restfully and awaken more refreshed, but it also seems to enhance my body's requests for rest.

Adrenal Fatigue Recovery on the Beach
Down here I spend whole days lying on a beach chair under a palapa, reading a book or just staring at the ocean. Usually, being a very active zen cowgirl, I can't stand this level of inactivity, but having cleared my calendar and taken my Eleviv faithfully, I am beginning to "hear" the messages from my body. And I can honor those messages with very little trouble. I can sit quietly for hours at a time without feeling the need to be a human "doing" instead of a human "being."

With other people, adrenal support supplements like Eleviv tend to have the opposite effect. People who are often depressed or low-energy feel vibrant and energized, and are more willing to engage in activity instead of being inactive because of depression. It's pretty interesting how our bodies are each wired differently, and how adrenal support creates different effects in each of us.

Three Things You Can Do to Prevent Adrenal Fatigue
So there you have it. The beach report on adrenal fatigue. And in case you can't take five weeks to rejuvenate your body, don't worry. You can still alleviate the symptoms of adrenal fatigue in many ways.

1. Support your adrenal system with herbs like Eleviv.

2. Listen to your body.
If your body is sending messages that you are tired, don't override the message with artificial stimulants like caffeine. Instead, try to muddle though as best you can until you can take a break. Even a 10 minute power nap is better than slamming a few cups of coffee.

3. Regulate your schedule as much as you can.
The more you can get your body on a regular schedule, the less you will need to call on your adrenal system to go into "overdrive" to accommodate unexpected emergencies. Try to get up and go to sleep at the same time each day. Leave work at the same time each day if possible. A regular routine keeps us from overworking the adrenal system.

I hope that helps. Adrenal fatigue isn't fun, and it can take up to two years for your body to recover if you have a severe case. Lying on the beach and staring at waves for a few weeks is my recovery method of choice.

Care to join me? I'd love to show you how. Eleviv is only part of the equation ... drop me a line to learn more.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Roping on the Beach and Beginner Blisters: Ouch!

I am in Cancun, Mexico right now, practicing my roping techniques with my brand-new lariat. Beach chairs beware! Yup, that's right, I've been roping every inanimate object in sight, from beach chairs to banana peels (I kid you not). And I've got the blisters to show for it. Ouch!

But hey, I'm in Cancun for five weeks and the series of roping clinics I've been planning together with my pro-roper friends Dusty Healey and Mary Duke (of Stirrup Cup Farm) will start right when I get back to Colorado, so I want to be prepared.

I brought my lariat with me and I have been practicing for about 20 minutes a day. It's fun, and I get more than my fair share of comments, sniggers, and outright stares! Oh well, being a zen cowgirl isn't about being "normal" in any sense of the word!

Lessons of the Lariat
I'm big into learning (my hubby calls it staying out of trouble). Learning keeps my mind and body agile, both of which are important around horses. And if it's cheap learning, all the better. So what are the "lessons of the lariat" that I've learned down here in Cancun so far? Well ...

• A lariat is a cheap horse activity (when you take the horse out of the equation, of course)
• You can give yourself rope burn in all kinds of places when you first start out, especially if you are wearing a bathing suit!
• Your hand-eye coordination improves at a rate directly proportional to the number and painfulness of your rope burns
• The arm can only stand this kind of work for about 20 minutes (thus far, anyway)
• Blisters are a fact of life so get used to 'em
• There's immediate satisfaction in roping something (can you say instant gratification?)
• I'm finding a "sweet spot" on my rope, a definite place where the loop is just the right size, the rope is balanced just so, and I don't hit myself or others in the head.

All of this, of course, can be translated into some priceless life learning opportunities. Roughly translated, the lariat lessons above equal:

• Save money where you can
• Learning can be painful
• Painful learning can speed up the process
• The tortoise approach is often necessary to success
• Life sometimes sucks, be prepared for that fact
• Immediate gratification is a necessary counterpoint to tortoise-like patience
• There's a sweet spot in every part of life ... you just gotta look for it!

So who knows how these lariat life lessons will evolve as time goes on, but I've got at least four-and-a-half more weeks here on the beach in Cancun, so I'll be sure to report on my progress, if for nothing else than entertainment value.

And by the way, if any of you are wondering how the hell a zen cowgirl gets to spend five weeks on the beach in Mexico during the recession, drop me a line. I'd love to chat about it, swap stories, share secrets ... the whole nine yards.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Horse Feed and Supplements: Trusting Native Instinct

Have you ever been surprised at how your horse instinctively knows what to eat and what not to eat? I have. I've done a lot of research and study into what and how to feed my horses, and although I know a lot about horse feed, my horses know a lot more about what is healthiest for them.

Reyacita and Walker: Two Case Studies
My two younger horses, Reyacita and Walker, provide excellent case studies attesting to a horse's instinctive wisdom about horse feed and supplements. Both of these horses, brought home early this year, arrived with health issues that I immediately set about treating with supplements and nutrition. In both cases, the horses clearly "chose" which supplements and horse feeds they wanted, and rejected others.

For instance, when Walker, the quarter horse gelding I jokingly refer to as my "hot house flower," lost a lot of weight this summer due to detoxification, abscesses, and stomach ulcers, I immediately thought to put him on Eleviv, which had done wonders for me.

Eleviv is a new combination of herbs that has just come on the market that provides adrenal and kidney support. It is known for helping horses who have undergone some kind of trauma shift into a healing and relaxing mode (also called the parasympathetic nervous system). I thought it would be perfect for Walker.

Walker didn't think Eleviv was right for him at all. He spit out the little green capsules no matter how I tried to feed them. I offered them free choice from my hand ... forget it! I put it on his feed, so he carefully ate everything but the Eleviv. I tried syringing it into his mouth, which he bore, but spat out as soon as I was done. So I ended up giving no Eleviv to Walker.

However, Walker did indicate, by eating any sort of dried stalk or weed on the property, that he had a hankering for hay. I finally (duh!) got the message and started bringing him into a stall during the day for several flakes of hay. He regained almost his full weight within a few short weeks, something he could not seem to do on a full free-choice pasture. I was stunned at how much smarter he was than me when it came to his horse feed.

Reyacita's case was even more pronounced. She suffered from heaves, or COPD, so I started her on Eleviv as well. She ate the Eleviv willingly for about 3 weeks, after which her symptoms disappeared. About that time, she also started refusing to eat the Eleviv. She would leave the two capsules in her feed bucket every single time, while cleaning up every other morsel of feed. She refused to eat the Eleviv for a couple of months until the COPD symptoms returned. At that point, she gulped down the Eleviv herbal supplement again for two weeks. Once the symptoms cleared up again, she no longer wanted the herbs.

Horse Feed: Today Versus "Back Then"
When I think about how much my horses know about what they need nutritionally, I am horrified at the way I used to feed. Of course, back then I kept my horses in a general boarding facility rather than at home at liberty in pasture. Every horse got dished the same kind of feed: Equine Senior. Having no choice, my horses ate whatever they was given.

These days, I understand that my horses know more about what kind of horse feed works for them than I do, so I offer up what I think is right and let them choose. That system works much better, and there's much less chasing 'round the pasture to try to syringe some unwanted supplements down a horse's throat.

Do you have the same kinds of experiences with your horses or are my horses just smarter than the average bear?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/malinki/ / CC BY 2.0

I am Awestruck by This Level of Horse Training

Have you seen the details of the Extreme Cowboy Association's events originated by Craig Cameron? This new challenge in horse training leaves me breathless and awestruck. I used to think my horses were pretty broke and that my horse training techniques were pretty solid ... until I saw the myriad details of this challenge. If you think ranch horse versatility is challenging, just wait until you look at this deal.

What's in an Extreme Cowboy Association Event?
The variety of tasks that this horse training challenge demands is incredible. Your horse has to be able to do everything from work regular "trail" obstacles (gates, bridges, poles, and backing around obstacles) to cowboy mounted shooting, penning and sorting cows, and jumping. If you thought ranch horse versatility was difficult, imagine having to do any number of these obstacles:

Archery shooting
Backing up and down hills
Bareback riding with one or two riders
Jumping barrels or running barrels
Sorting cows
Keyhole race
Leading your horse blindfolded or across water
Rollbacks
Ponying another horse
Mounted shooting
Riding over a teeter totter
Standing up in the saddle and hitting a tennis ball
Ride through deep and shallow water

... and that's just a short section of the list! You can read the complete list here.

Extreme Cowboy Association Events: Not for Every Horse
Of course, this challenge isn't meant for every horse and rider. After all, it's called the Extreme Cowboy Association for a reason. However, even if you have no intention of competing in these events, the format provides a great roadmap and blueprint for horse training. If you can get your horse calm and broke enough to do even one-tenth of these obstacles, then your horse will be far more broke for any discipline you choose.

Many of the horse trainers I have ridden with have told me that it's not the most talented horse that usually wins at the show, but the most broke horse that wins. I agree. The most broke horse will be more consistent more often than the merely talented horse. The talented horse may have more ability, but often extreme talent is paired with an extreme personality, making the talented horse a challenge to ride.

In Pursuit of Inexpensive Horse Activities
As always, the blueprint of activities listed in the Extreme Cowboy Association event excites me because it gives me yet one more tool to add to my toolbox of inexpensive horse activities to pursue while the economy is floundering around. I don't know where your focus is this year for horse training, but my goal is to get my four horses as broke as possible so that they can easily enter any event, be it team penning and sorting, jumping, roping, cowboy mounted shooting, or plain old trail riding.

I've already gotten started with my two new activities: shooting and roping. Whether or not I decide to ever pursue cowboy mounted shooting or roping, I figure that any horse is going to be more broke, more useful, and more valuable if you can rope and shoot from his back.

I'm always looking for new ways of horse training that are inexpensive, fun, and productive. The quest continues ...

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo credit: Extreme Cowboy Association

Horse Training for Free or Cheap: Three Methods

Free and cheap are both excellent words that make me sit up and listen in this economy, especially when those words relate to horse training. I'm not the best horse trainer in the world, but I do love to school my own horses and learn more about horse training if I can.

So, it being a totally cruddy economy, I've been stretching my brain as to how to get more horse training for less money. Here are three ideas I've come up with.

#1: Auditing Lessons and Clinics
I can't claim credit for this one because my friend Karen started it, but this one is great. When I'd drive up for lessons with a local reining trainer (about 50 miles away), my buddy Karen would come along and watch the lesson. Since I went up every couple of weeks or so, Karen got to watch lessons every couple of weeks or so. And since my horse was definitely a beginner reiner, Karen learned a lot of the basic techniques "from the ground up," so to speak, that she could use on her own horse.

Now the reining trainer could have gotten testy if he wanted to, but Karen had two things going for her that kept her in his good graces. First, Karen attended a couple of his weekend clinics, which were not very expensive but did give her a "feel" for the techniques she was learning by watching.

Second, by saying she wanted to come watch me in my lesson she was able to justify her continued presence at my lessons. It works great for her, and I've since started doing that here and there with a few of my buddies. I ask permission from the trainer, and have never been told "no." I also try to give back to the trainer by recommending him or her to people I meet who are interested in their discipline.

#2: For Kids 4-H Works Great
Now you definitely can't do 4-H if you are an adult because it's for kids only, but if you have a kid interested in horse training or riding, 4-H is definitely one inexpensive and useful way to go. My neighbor just started taking her son to the local 4-H club and, because she sits with him the whole time, is learning a lot about horsemanship and horses, in general. Her son is learning tons, too.

So far the club is only doing bookwork, since it is winter, but come spring her son will get riding lessons as well. 4-H is a great part of any horse community, and if you have a local club and a kid interested in riding, I'd definitely suggest participating in this group!

#3: Have a Trainer Sit on Your Horse
This doesn't always work, but sometimes it can be an inexpensive horse training technique. I had my reining trainer sit on my jumper mare, just once, and it did wonder for her. The mare, Valentine, is a well-broke mustang but she was stiff to the left. I couldn't work out that "kink" by myself, so I had the reining trainer sit on her. In just one session, he was able to loosen up her left side and put some new gears on her.

As I said, this won't work for every horse, but sometimes having a horse trainer sit on your horse once every 6 months can advance you and your horse by leaps and bounds. In this case, it was worth spending the $45. Not every horse trainer will sit on a horse just once, but if you have a relationship with that trainer, chances are good that he or she will be willing to do so. Might be something to think about!

Do you have any ideas for free or cheap horse training? Care to share?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo credit: Free Digital Photos

Horse Health Care: Treating Horse COPD or Heaves

If you have ever seen a horse suffering from symptoms of COPD, also called heaves, then you know that the picture is not pretty. The horse can't breathe properly, respiration is high, nostrils are flared, and then there's the heave line, a sure sign of respiratory distress.

Although this used to be a horse health care condition that affected mostly older horses, today it has become common in younger performance horses or horses under stress. While it has always been assumed that COPD or horse heaves is caused by an allergy to hay, dust, mold, or other allergens, I recently discovered that this condition can also be simply a sign of stress.

Reyacita: A Case Study
Reyacita (above) is a four-year-old mustang mare I adopted about 8 months ago. She had a rattle in her chest when I brought her home, and the rattle always sounded louder when she was under stress (such as when I started her under saddle).

A few months after she came home, the rattle in her chest developed into a full-blown case of heaves, or COPD. She had difficulty breathing, and coughed deeply and constantly. She was clearly suffering.

Since this happened in late winter, I could not put her on pasture. Instead, I took her off hay and began feeding her soaked beet pulp and a senior pelleted feed. I also offered her grass hay cubes that had been soaked.

I supplemented this diet with antioxidant fruit juice, blue-green algae, enzymes, and probiotics to help heal her lungs. Within two weeks, the coughing had stopped but the rattle in her chest always reappeared when Reyacita was stressed. A prime example is when I rode her through our small town for the first time. Although she showed no other signs of stress, when we reached an intersection that had traffic, she put her head down and rattled with each breath. As soon as we turned around and headed for home, the rattle disappeared.

The Veterinarian's Diagnosis
When I consulted veterinarian Dr. Madalyn Ward about Reyacita's case, she told me that I was on the right track with the mare's diet and supplements. She asked me to find out Reyacita's horse personality type by taking the online test at Horse Harmony. Reyacita turned out to be a Metal personality type, whose typical physical weakness is the lungs, so her bout with COPD or heaves was not surprising.

Recent Changes
Once spring arrived I was able to turn Reyacita out on pasture, although I continued to syringe the mix of mangosteen juice and other supplements into her mouth daily. Her health improved to such a point that the rattle in her chest disappeared, even when she was under stress. Everything went well until she started eating hay again this fall.

I wanted to try feeding her hay again to see whether she had truly conquered her COPD or whether she was truly allergic to hay. For the first 4-5 days, she ate the hay and showed no signs of coughing. Then one day I began training all the horses for cowboy mounted shooting. This involved firing a small revolver at a pretty good distance (about 500 yards) from the horses so they could become accustomed to the noise.

None of the horses showed much alarm, they just all moved to the far end of the pen. However, Reyacita immediately developed a cough. The noise from the revolver stressed her enough that her physical weakness, her lungs, immediately showed the effects. When I discussed her situation with Dr. Ward, she pointed out that when Reyacita heard the sound of the pistol, she probably immediately flipped from the parasympathetic nervous system (the one we use in normal life conditions) to the sympathetic nervous system (used when horses are in fight-or-flight mode). Once the sympathetic nervous system kicked in, Reyacita's immune system became compromised and she started to have heaves again.

Not convinced that Reyacita's COPD symptoms were due to a hay allergy, Dr. Ward suggested I supplement the mare with Eleviv, an herbal product that supports the adrenal system and helps restore the parasympathetic nervous system. I fed Reyacita 2 capsules of Eleviv the first day but gave her no hay. The Eleviv calmed the COPD symptoms within a few minutes, and she improved more during the course of the day. On the second day, I fed her 2 more capsules of Elviv and offered her a few flakes of hay. Reyacita was able to eat the hay without any COPD symptoms. The third day was the same.

This indicates that Reyacita's COPD is the result of stress rather than a hay allergy. While many horses with COPD or heaves are assumed to have hay or dust allergies, this may or may not be the case. As with Reyacita, these horses may simply be under too much stress, and their weakest physical link may be their lungs, hence the COPD.

It would not surprise me to discover that many performance horses operate primarily off their sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system, which depresses the immune system and prevents healing. Bringing this horse back around to the parasympathetic nervous system, as I did by giving Reyacita the adrenal-supporting Eleviv, may allow these horses to not only heal but also to feel a great deal more comfortable.

If you have some experience with helping horses with COPD or heaves, please do share. You may also want to check out this informative article on heaves on Dr. Ward's website here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Horse Feed: Trivial but Useful Feeding Tips

Depending on how picky you are about feeding your horses, and if you have any "special needs" horses, doing chores can take up a lot of time. I've picked up a few tips along the way on speeding up the horse feeding process, and I'll pass them along here, just in case they are of use to any other horse folks out there.

Soaking Beet Pulp
If you feed beet pulp then you know it has to be soaked before being fed to prevent choking and other horse health hazards. It can also take a long time, especially in the winter in a cold climate. I've found that beet pulp shreds soak a lot faster then pellets, and give horses a lot more "crunch factor." They also tend to satisfy a horse's need for long-stem forage better than the pellets. For faster soaking, bring the bucket of beet pulp into the house and add hot water instead of cold. Alternatively, soak the beet pulp the night before with cold water, then top it up with warm water in the morning. A meal of warm beet pulp will help warm a shivering horse on a chilly morning.

Hauling Water
This one is silly, but true. Recently I had to put Walker, my hothouse flower gelding, in a separate pen so he could eat in peace and gain weight. The pen was miles away from water, so I had to haul water in buckets (in a little red wagon) to his pen. Water sloshed everywhere! I ended up putting a flat board or a smaller bucket on the surface of the water, which greatly reduced the sloshing. I ended up at the pen with several almost-full buckets of water instead of half-full buckets.

Supplements in a Free-Choice Environment
If you have to supplement a group of horses that eat free-choice in an open pasture or pen, one good way to offer unique supplements to each horse is to syringe it in their mouths, if possible. All of my horses are trained to accept this method. I often mix up separate syringes for each horse and feed those first before placing the buckets and hay in the pasture. Once the buckets and hay are put down, it's a merry-go-round of chase and be chased. However, by giving each horse his or her syringe-full of unique supplements, I know that they each got what they needed.

For instance, two horses get the standard horse "goo" I mix of antioxidant juice and Simplexity Health Essentials. My mare with heaves gets two capsules of Eleviv herbal supplement with the goo, which keeps symptoms of heaves at bay. Finally, my gelding gets even more supplements than that mixed with the goo. But all of it fits neatly into a syringe, and then the free-for-all feeding frenzy can begin after that!

Anyway, don't know if these tips will help, but they do help me ensure that each horse gets what they need, and chores don't take forever and a day!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo credit: Free Digital Photos