Hacking should be fun, and that comes with feeling confident and communicating to our horses that they are safe, even when faced with an unnerving situation. To improve your hacking confidence, try a little hypnotic language. Dont worry, doing this does not mean you will be in a trance! Here are some effective phrases to use:You know you can choose to be calm right now or in a few seconds time, dont you?Thats right you can just repeat this one if you forget the othersIm alright now, and now, and now, and nowHow to use itThese phrases should be said in a lower, slower voice than you would use when you usually talk.You can also try breathing deeply, breathing into your pelvis and breathing into your lower back, feeling calmer and more confident with each breath.You can also breathe in time to your horses footfall: see if you can build up to breathing in while all four hooves move, and then out again for all four feet.Why it helpsChoose just one or two of these phrases and repeat as you ride. By doing this, youre giving your conscious mind (the pre-frontal cortex) something to do and reiterating to your unconscious mind that alls well.You are also anchoring yourself in the moment, rather than being in the future. Anxiety is all about thinking the worst of the future. Being in the moment prevents you from thinking ahead. You react as you need to do, and negative anticipation is reduced.Dealing with anxiety triggersAnything can happen when youre hacking thats part of the appeal. But sometimes, this can trigger anxiety when faced with a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, or even scared.From riding along a stretch of a busy road with large traffic zipping past, passing cows or pigs or even being chased by a loose dog. How you deal with this can be the difference between going home feeling happy and confident (and the same for your horse) or not.To prepare for this, practise tuning out the sights and sounds of the distraction. Do this before you go hacking. Practise until you find it easy and can go hacking and repeat the process while actually encountering the distraction.Visualise the challengeSights:Visualise a challenge you may face, and visualise yourself as a rider. You may feel the anxiety even while visualising thats perfectly normal.Begin to make those challenges fade in your visualisation.Drain out all the colours, until they are so washed out that you can make them black and white, or even transparent.Now add a cartoon version of the spooky object instead. Ask yourself, whats happened to the anxiety?Sounds:In a similar way, transforming the sounds removes the trigger.With sounds, turn the sound down.Now add in another sound, for example your favourite music or calming sounds of the sea.Turn up the volume on the new sounds. Now, wheres the anxiety gone?Distracting thoughtsWhile hacking, its very easy to have those what if? moments. Your imagination runs wild, yet in a negative way. Fears of falling off or getting lost abound. To overcome this, we need to remove the anxious feelings. Practise off your horse and then itll be a second-nature strategy to turn to when youre riding.Do the following:Consider where the nervous feelings are in your body. Often they are in your stomach, solar plexus or chest, but they can be elsewhere too.Now, will those feelings to move to another part of your body. Were aiming to move them to somewhere silly like the big toes (who gets anxiety in their big toes?). From the toes we can wiggle it out into the air.If the feeling wont move that far, thats fine. Moving the feeling even just a few centimetres can make a noticeable change.Now consider, if that feeling had a colour, what would it be? Change the colour to any other colour.Notice what has happened to the anxiety. Giving your conscious mind something to do and changing how your mind sets up anxiety in a part of your body, breaks the habit.Related articlesFeeling the pressure? Learn to manage competition nerves *video*This is why hacking a horse in-hand will do wonders for your bond and confidenceLacking confidence and not sure why? 10 signs of high-functioning anxiety in horse ridersAm I good enough? How to build confidence and self-belief with mental performance coach Annika McGivern *video*The post Nervous out hacking? This is how hypnotic language could boost your confidence appeared first on Your Horse.