MEDITATION, MOTIVATION and TRADING

[Rande Howell 10]

What might be interesting as well are just some simple tips on anxiety/stress relief that someone could deploy immediately. Meditation is great but like any art probably takes a bit to do right and master. There must be some things/excercise/breathing one can do in the heat of the trading battle to remain calm....

 

StevenSJC

I really like Jon Kabat-Zinn's work. It comes out of mindfulness (observation of thought and belief) as opposed to mantra or visually driven meditation styles. It is also built to work with western scientific thought. Add to this is Herbert Benson's relaxation response work. Here, you would be introduced to training the brain to trigger to relaxation rather than stress. Both are reseachers from Harvard.

 

The problem I have found with generalized meditation and mindfulness training is that traders have a hard time transferring the skills in the meditation room to the trading room -- particularly when they become stressed. It's very common for a trader who has good meditation and breath training to have to go through the breath, relaxation, and inoculation training so that the skills become acclimated to the trading environment. Only then do they get access to working with their state of mind.

 

The next step is to add a module of stress inoculation to create a conditioned response to stressors as they trigger specific for trading.

Moderated Message:

Moderator: Removed promotional service mention

. But it is geared to emotionally regulate specific moments in trading (pulling the trigger, etc) that traders need to learn how to do. Check out the top two guys - there's a good chance that this will go a long ways to solving your problem. Hope this helps.

 

Good luck in your evolution as a trader.

 

Rande Howell

Edited March 9, 2011 by MadMarketScientist
Promotional Service

[Rande Howell 10]

Reading an amazon review of Herbert Benson's The Relaxation Response book, a reader commented that the original old edition had a great 15 second technique that could be used in the moment, that is no longer in the newer editions. Perhaps Rande or someone here has the book/knows it and can share it.

 

That 15 second technique is based on practicing the breathing style and the progressive relaxation until it can be produced habitually. Then he uses an exposure technique to train the brain to react to the learning. You gotta do the breathing and relaxation work first before you train them as a conditioned response. Many of us who teach this stuff have found that most folks won't do the required rote training and then expect the conditioning to kick in without effort. My protocol is to have people training to the breathing and SafePlace (relaxation) for at least two weeks before we get to conditioning the response. I can imagine that Benson got pretty frustrated with the lack of rigor that people brought to the work. And without the rigor the learning opportunity is lost and his work is marginalized. I'd probably have done the same thing.

 

Rande Howell

[Simple 10]

I see that the last poster didn't actually answer the question. Its more of an advert for himself. Did he ever answer your question about the numbers trained and successful after a measured period?

 

You can find Charles Strobel's 6 Second stress reduction technique here. Initially practice relaxation response to get to the calm state for a few weeks then when you are effective at it add CS's approach to link the calm states together in your mind. Repeat that for a few week to get it stuck before trying in anger.

 

http://www.logisens.com/PDF/resources/stress_6secondreduction.pdf

[TheNegotiator 13]

Simple,

 

How do you see this as an advert for himself? He simply says he uses a certain protocol and says he teaches certain methods. Well, guess what. He's a teacher in this field. Please keep your 'opinions' to yourself on these matters and leave it to the mods. If you have a problem, report the post.

[jogosmaniac 10]

Greetings guys. Im new to http://www.traderslaboratory.com. Nice to meet you all!

[SIUYA 11]

for those interested - stumbled across this.

 

Concentration: how to focus better