-- As if trading wasn't already a financial strain. Women are high maintenance . -- I'm surprised no one is in the same boat as me. I dont want to drink, digest, snort, inhale, smoke, or inject any drug. Maybe playing some music at night will help me sleep. Stop trading is not really an option. Trading is like being a fighter pilot in some ways. To stay sharp, you need to practice, and practice some more. I could reduce size, that would help. cm69
-- LOL Last Sunday I stayed up all night, until late afternoon on Monday. When I woke up, I automatically assumed that I slept all through the night and the time was around 5-6am. I went down stairs, cooked breakfast, went back up stairs, took a shower, got dressed looking real nice, then got in my car and headed to starbucks to get my usual latte. Little did I know that the time was actually 10:00PM, they had just closed. I was not too happy. cm69
cash - you need to relax bro!! There's good suggestions here - put on smaller positions, stop daytrading and go find some women. The market isn't going anywhere, and trust me on this one - when you are trading by yourself or even with a couple guys, you are going to miss seeing those 18 yr girls walking all around you. It didn't really hit me till I graduated and then I realized that I wasn't going to see handfuls of gorgeous girls every single day.... man, that sucked.
<b>cm69</b>, you need to trade small enough size so that it absolutely does not hurt if you lose any trade or not. Please don't mistake that for not caring about cumulative results... but what you are describing is a fast track to burnt out and done. Can you imagine living exactly like this (or worse) for the next two years? Three years? Five years? Many aspiring traders do just that, until their lives literally crumble around them. Slow down, get small, forget about pressing results too soon. You are suffering from a severe (yes, severe) case of performance anxiety. By your own admission and multi-threads here attesting to such, you do not yet have the skill set as a trader to alleve anxiety & stress. Slow down, get small and relax. Failure to heed everyone's advice will lead to absolute failure in this profession, much sooner than later! Really hope this helps Austin
I've been in a similar situation though not due to trading addiction......someone mentioned melatonin earlier, it can be found in the vitamin section in any supermarket. I believe its for helping reset your body clock so that you can consistently go to bed at the same time...it doesnt knock you out but you will notice that it's easier to sleep, I take it all the time. Also, if you can get a hold on ambien then try it....I'm also a student and If I have something important to do the following day and can't risk not sleeping then ambien knocks you the hell out, and it's never really made me feel like shit in the morning. It has the risk of being habit forming so it might not be a good idea to take it on a regular basis.
Yeah it does bring back memories. I remember not being able to fall asleep just because I was too excited to go into the office and trade. I also remember having no problems getting up on 3-4 hours of sleep to trade. And that required at least a 15-25 min walk to get to the office or time on the train. Now if I'm too tired or I wanna sleep more I do not even wake up to stumble 3 steps toward my trading station.
yeah u got that right, always mumblin' in bed about stocks, trades. too funny. now i take a nap amost every afternoon, i avoid all the mid-session churn and am refreshed for the close. boy, i could sleep 12 hours straight now.
The problem isn't really the fact that I have no life or that I'm a "gambler", but that i'm not consistently profitable. If 60% of my traders were winners and not losers, I'd sleep fine. And because I'm aware of this unpleasant fact, it irritates me, so I make it my duty to try and become profitable. I still enjoy trading just as much today as I did as I placed my 1st trade. NO MATTER what size i'm trading, i make it my responsibility to track my positions as close as possible. I could just buy and forget, but to me, that would probably be worse. Its almost like everytime I check my position, it's like a drug fix. I just feel better when I'm "on top of things". cm69