Trade smarter not harder

Dear Traders,

How many times have you had a negative feeling because a trade is running against you? Did you start sweating at the time? Were you hoping that your trade would reverse - even for a pip of a profit?

Odds are that these first signs of anxiety, point toward you being stressed and therefore indicate that you need to trade less. Confused? Let me clarify. In trading, working harder doesn't necessarily mean you will earn more money. In fact, the more trading hours you work - the less profitable you will be. Why? Because longer hours mean higher stress levels and the higher those levels, the more mistakes you'll make. The goal is to trade relaxed not stressed, so that you stack the probabilities and odds in your favor. In this sense, you need to learn how to trade smarter not harder.

Symptoms of trading stressed

Watch out for any of these symptoms when you are trading and if you notice you have one or more - take a break immediately.

• Palpitations
• Sweating
• Nail biting
• Breathing difficulty
• Tense muscles
• Trembling hands
• Loss of appetite or overeating
• Loss of sleep
• Restless sleep
• Overreacting
• Depression
• Urge to drink alcohol.

Remember, the more stressed you are, the more trading mistakes and errors you will make. Dormant fear of failure may awaken and you will certainly miss good opportunities through making illogical trading decisions. Paralyzed by analysis, you may sit and watch a trade go against you. And when you do act, it may be too late. One loss becomes another loss and so on. In short, being stressed is anti successful trading.

However, stress in small amounts can be beneficial because it may heighten your performance when you most need it. In that sense, you should try to make stress work for you and not against you. Try to push the boundaries of your comfort zone - slowly widening it, so you feel more comfortable in a stressful environment.

5 tips for relaxed trading

Because the mental and physical states correlate, feeling relaxed puts you in the ideal trading zone. You should try to get into this state-of-mind before you even start your trading day.

Deep breathing

Shallow breathing (or chest breathing) causes a constriction of the chest and lung tissue over time, decreasing oxygen flow and delivery to your tissues. We suggest you practice using deep, rhythmic breathing to expand your diaphragm muscle, because breathing through your diaphragm will:

• help relieve tension during the trading day
• give your brain more oxygen to perform with.

Listening to binaural beats

When signals of two different frequencies (sounds) are presented - one to each ear - the brain detects phase differences between these signals. This fluctuating rhythm or binaural beat is beneficial to human mind and focus. If you want these beats, you can find it for FREE here or you can search for it on YouTube. Have in mind, that you need a good noise cancelling headphones.

Set realistic expectations

Always base your trading on realistic expectations and don't let trading sins or your ego, direct how you trade.

Lower your risk

Trading with low risk risk gives you peace-of-mind and lets you focus on pips rather than money. If something unexpected happens, this simple precaution will save your account and your physical/mental health.

Be inspired

Being inspired gives you energy and drive, which are crucial to enjoying what you do. The more you enjoy what you are doing, the less stressed you will be doing it. As a first step, why not check-out these inspirational movies.

You can watch this video for an overview of ways to relax or get some tips on how to trade smarter.

How do you cope with the stress? Have you used any of the above-mentioned techniques to trade smarter? Feel free to comment below.

Cheers and good trading,

Nenad and Chris