How many of you would think doing virtual or actual trading could damage human brains psychologically, emotionally, physically, financially, mentally and ... ? Is there any scientific research on this area?
What I am doing to my brain trading can't be any worse than the damage done at the Ted Nugent / Aurosmith concert I went to back in 86. Unless of course you can "re-damage" the same cells again....... Then there was the Ratt / Bon Jovi new years concert in 89 at the Tokyo dome. That wasn't for kids... I think I knocked out floors 14-28 on the north tower in my brain on that one. Of course there are a lot of people that commit suicide in this biz but is that an acute attack of stress or brain damage?? Maybe some of both?
Yes, once you get acquainted in the scientific community that is dealing with this, you will wind up spending a few thousand dollars on reference and background materials. There are several 501 (c) (3)'s that focus on this. There is a lot of bad news out there for people in the financial industry. For a while the sports trainers gravitated to the easy money they could make off weak traders; then at some point a few military trainers came into the picture. Nowadays the financial industry is open game for psychiatrists and psychologists. In your post you left out the most knowledgeable sector regarding the brain and the "damage" potential. Your background and beliefs are demonstrated by your OP here. you can also see that this forum, psychology, so far, is roughly a void on the subject. As in trading, BS in brian science now has short legs although the same old held sway for about 400 years. When you reread your many threads that just keep popping up and all those chiding and baiting interjections that you and you buddies do, someday you may find out why and it will be a harsh lesson. It is one of the most amazing things in the world that in most all cultures there is no formal learning on how the body works. It takes quite a while to learn to listen to the internal organs of the body. You probably cannot list the body's senses, for example. Do you know how the ones you can think of work and connect? No you do not. Getting, informed, as you state, about the brain is still an untouched subject for you. What would trading be like if a person knew how he worked? physically or mentally???? If I didn't know how you worked, how could I check you out to determine where your wiring is fouled up? There are lots of reasons why different people here can't put two and two together. If the psychology forum ever got upgraded or some serious threads were moderated, a lot of information could be, at least, put on the table. A trader friend of mine, Las Vegas and San Francisco based, wrote a book about his trading. It is out of print and sells for three times its original cost, if you can get it. He is a Marine sharpshooter and guarded the US embasy in Japan. Being multiligual and a poker player at high stakes tables, he also calls the college football line in Vegas. He trades a lot of capital and turns down much more. We always talk when we get a chance. He is usually a panelist along with the top US traders at conferences. What is the most interesting parts of our conversations or similar conversations with anyone I am tight with?? The conversation is based on the fact that the timing of trades we do is so very similar. AND the conversation is NOT on trading; trading is a fact acompli for each of us. It doesn't have anything to do with Tad James, etc, either. That would just be an aspect of the many inside jokes here in ET. You will pass up yet another opportunity with your words, words, words, mantra. Too bad for you and too bad that the psychology forum can't get any threads off the ground. Did you ever wonder why the Trading forum doesn't work either???
Jack, are you trying to say that because of all your years of trading and mental abuse, you can no longer get a "Mister Happy"?
Not trying to say anything. Many people in ET should skip reading my posts and put me on ignore. You read and do not understand what I suggest and then come up with the best comment you are able. That is just the way it is for a lot of ET people. I do not have an axe to grind and I just let people say what they are able. You happen to have posted enough times so that a lot of people can put you in a slot regarding mostly any aspect of you they wish to consider. I do have a lot of very successful trading years under my belt and I have worked intensively with others to get it all on paper one way or another as IP and TS. As you note, there is a lot of abuse from others that is headed my way. Here you are an example of a person who is taking the time to offer some more. It is the way you chose to present your character to others for their evaluation. You have also stated how well you trade by the verbal abuse you hand out to me on how you percieve I trade. My trading is real and it is done by many others as well in the same and similar ways. There are many like you who spend time proving to your satisfaction that what we do cannot be done. In logic there is a name for this category of pursuit. People do not, ordinarily, use their minds to go down this road. A different and , perhaps, more productive route mk ay be available to them. It is closed to you at this point by your prior choices. Too bad for you but you do make an example worth not replicating by those who still have the choice. If this thead picks up, intellectually, I will provide substantive references for each of my comments, all of whch are founded upon proven research and expert agreement. Should there be any disagreement I will report that out too.
Boredom damages brain. Using your brain improves it. (Until a point where stress deteriorates the whole body.)
I think the entire sphere of "mastering yourself to master trading" directly involves mastering stress and thus eliminating the potential damages to the body and mind. No, this is not easy and probably only accessible to few. This is also why I think the success of a trader cannot be measured solely on his financial results...
"Scientists link computer games to brain damage " http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2093389,00.htm "Latest research has found that children who play computer games could be causing long-term brain damage. Scientists working at Tohoku University in Japan have discovered that computer games only stimulate those parts of the brain that are devoted to vision and movement, and do not aid the development of other important areas of the brain. The researchers are particularly concerned that by spending many hours playing games some children will not develop their frontal lobes -- which play a crucial role in controlling behaviour, and in developing memory, emotion and learning. In contract, tasks such as arithmetic will stimulate brain activity in the frontal lobe, which is thought to continue developing until adulthood. Professor Ryuta Kawashima, who led the team who carried out the research, told The Observer that the discovery was highly important. "There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children -- who play computer games -- that we have never seen before," he said. "The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic." Kawashima believes that children must be encouraged to practice basic mathematics, as well as learning reading and writing which also boost the frontal lobe. He is convinced that children who play video games excessively will not develop their frontal lobes and will consequently be more prone to violent acts, as they will be less able to control their behaviour. Kawashima's study looked at the brain activity of hundreds of students playing a Nintendo game, and compared it to other students who were carrying out basic arithmetic. It found that much more brain activity was needed to solve the simple mathematic tasks than was used to play the computer games, and that activity in the frontal lobe was particularly pronounced."
Doesn't Kawashima realize that kids go to school to learn basic math, reading and writing? It's not like they are playing video games at school all day. Plus they do homework when they get home from school. Then they play video games to balance the size of their frontal lobes so they won't look like Frankenstein when they grow up.