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Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. ...Margaret FullerStress management can be complicated and confusing, because there are different types of stress---acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress---each with its own characteristics, symptoms, duration and treatment approaches. This is just a brief introduction to a highly-complex and pervasive issue, which touches each of us as traders almost every moment of every trading day, as well as in the hours when we are not trading (rather, we are studying, planning, worrying or anticipating). Acute Stress Acute stress is the most common form of stress. It comes from demands and pressures of the recent past, and anticipated demands and pressures of the near future. Acute stress is thrilling and exciting in small doses, but too much is exhausting. Traders (most of whom are chronically sleep-deprived) wake up ready to attack the markets. They may do fine for a few hours, and may actually feel exhilarated, particularly if they happen to knock out a few good trades. As the day goes on, the trader becomes more and more weary, and the feeling of exhilaration tends to be replaced by fatigue, frustration or anger. The trader may start to overtrade, and be in a state of bombardment with news, media, chat rooms and every manner of information, which comes during the trading day. After a few hours, it is just too much, and the trader begins to feel overwhelmed. Over-doing on short-term stress (be it trading or any other activity) can lead to psychological distress, tension headaches, upset stomach and many other symptoms. Because it is short term, acute stress doesn't have enough time to do the extensive damage associated with long-term stress. The most common symptoms of short-term stress are:
Acute stress can crop up in anyone's life, and it is highly treatable and manageable. Episodic Acute Stress There are those, however, who suffer acute stress frequently, and whose lives are so disordered that they are studies in chaos and crisis. They're always in a rush, but always late. If something can go wrong, it does. They take on too much, have too many irons in the fire and can't organize the myriad of self-inflicted demands and pressures, which always appear to be competing for their attention. They seem perpetually in the clutches of acute stress. Such individuals may describe themselves as having "a lot of nervous energy." Always in a hurry, they tend to be abrupt, and sometimes their irritability comes across as hostility. Interpersonal relationships deteriorate rapidly when others respond with real hostility. Work becomes very stressful for such people, and they may turn to food, drugs or alcohol for what they perceive to be comfort and release. The cardiac prone, "Type A" personality described by cardiologists is similar to an extreme case of episodic acute stress. Type A individuals are excessively competitive, aggressive and impatient, with a continual sense of time urgency. These personality characteristics appear to create frequent episodes of acute stress for the Type A individual (sometimes called a "hot reactor"), who is much more likely to develop coronary heart disease than the Type B individual, who shows an opposite pattern of behavior. Another form of episodic acute stress comes from ceaseless worry. Worry Warts (I call these the "Apocalypse Now" People) see disaster around every corner and catastrophe in every situation. The world is a dangerous, unrewarding, punitive place, where something awful is always about to happen. Such individuals also tend to be hypervigilant and tense, with a high degree of anxiety and depression. The symptoms of episodic acute stress are the result of extended over arousal: persistent tension or migraine headaches, hypertension, chest pain and heart disease. Treating episodic acute stress requires intervention on a number of levels, generally requiring professional help, which may take many months. Often, lifestyle and personality issues are so ingrained and habitual with these individuals, that they see nothing wrong with the way they conduct their lives. They blame their woes on other people and external events, and are unwilling or unable to take personal responsibility for their lives or their trades. It is always about "Them" or "Those People," who are responsible for the misery and anger. Such individuals are very resistant to treatment, since they can only look outside of themselves and blame others for bad trades, bad lives, bad relationships or health issues. When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan's Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies adds to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment. ...Steven Halpern Chronic Stress While acute stress (even the stress of a winning trade or the "hope" that the trade will very shortly be profitable) can be thrilling and exciting, chronic stress is not. Chronic stress (waiting for the market to turn, waiting for a losing position to "come back," waiting and hoping for anything) can be totally debilitating. This is the grinding stress that wears people away day after day, year after year. Chronic stress destroys bodies, minds and lives. It wreaks havoc through long-term gradual attrition of the body, mind and spirit. It's the stress of the trader who is continually losing, of feeling "trapped" in a position in the markets or in an unhappy situation in the trader’s personal life. Chronic stress comes when a person never sees a way out of a miserable situation. It's the stress of unrelenting demands and pressures for seemingly interminable periods of time. With no hope, the individual gives up searching for solutions, and adopts a mind-set that, no matter what they do, there is little or no hope. The worst aspect of chronic stress is that people get used to it. They forget it's there. People are immediately aware of acute stress because it is new; they ignore chronic stress because it is old, familiar and, sometimes, almost comfortable. This is the worst of all possible situations. People keep doing what they are doing, and keep getting what they are getting --- older, more physically ill, more mentally unstable and just plain toxic. Your reaction to a specific stressor is different from anyone else's. Some people are naturally laid-back about almost everything, while others react strongly at the slightest hint of stress. Those who fall somewhere between these extremes are the most fortunate, as they are able to live life in some semblance of balance. Genetic variations may partly explain the differences. The genes that control the so-called stress response keep most people on a fairly even keel, only occasionally positioning the body for fight or flight. Overactive or underactive stress responses may stem from slight differences in these genes. Life experiences may also increase sensitivity to stress, as well. Strong stress reactions sometimes can be traced to early environmental factors. People who were exposed to extreme stress as children tend to be particularly vulnerable to stress as adults. What to do about this? I could write volumes (and likely will!); however, what follows is just a tiny taste of the massive amount of knowledge about stress and anxiety, and ways to deal with them. Since stress develops when the demands in your life exceed your ability to cope with them, it follows, then, that you can manage stress by:
Here are some helpful techniques:
This is a very brief beginning to get you started thinking about how you are recognizing and coping with your own stress. For now, this may serve to help you get in touch with ways to improve your life, and bring some sort of inner calm to what may be the greatest source of damage to you and those you love. Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. ...Chinese Proverb
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