Healthy habits for successful day traders
As traders go through the education process, we are often overwhelmed with all the forms of analysis to learn, including scores of indicators and entry/exit systems. Usually, it’s later in developing the trading lifestyle that discipline becomes more of a focus. Trading discipline is a complex concept that overlaps with many facets of a person’s life. Sun Tzu says that discipline is “enforced through consistent application of reward and punishment,” in other words, this reads as though discipline is highly correlated to what traders call risk and reward.
One of the areas of trading discipline that’s easy to overlook is the vital role that physical health plays in successful day traders’ lives. Yes, many of us were taught as children to brush our teeth each night and then in the morning; however, it is not until we begin to mature and experience life as adults that we really start to understand the importance of taking care of our teeth. What taught me the value of dental hygiene better than anything was having an awful toothache.
4 ways to improve your daily trading routine
I will now propose ways to incorporate healthy living into your daily trading routine to enhance a healthy lifestyle, both physically and in your trading.
Get your sleep!
Okay, we all know the value of a good night’s rest. Waking up well-slept helps to ensure that we feel fresh and vibrant throughout the day. However, studies have also shown that people who average 6-7 hours of sleep each night tend to live the healthiest. Meanwhile, those who sleep less have a significantly greater chance of developing health problems and live a shorter lifespan.
When it comes to trading, I cannot tell you how many times over the years I met unsuccessful traders who failed to sleep appropriately; the number is vast. Meanwhile, I don’t remember any specific cases of knowing a successful trader who had poor rest habits.
These concepts are not rocket science; insufficient rest decreases all bodily functions, including a tremendous effect on the brain, resulting in reduced decision-making abilities. Combine that with the lack of patience and other side effects of inadequate rest, and you are begging for trouble when you trade with too little sleep.
The best traders I know tend to implement many mechanical aspects, and this one is imperative when it comes to a personal schedule. Not only is it essential to get enough sleep, but also to appropriately schedule your sleep. Traders cannot wake up and immediately run to the charts and expect to begin trading profitably. Instead, healthy trading habits and routines include preparing yourself for the day.
In short, it is essential to schedule your rest time and include ample time for sleep and preparation for your day. In doing so, you have a genuine chance of living longer and trading better; what’s not to like?
Plan your diet
It probably cannot be overstated the importance of diet and nutrition toward a healthy lifestyle. We know that particular foods generate vibrant living; meanwhile, others will erode the quality of life and may even shorten our lifespan while increasing the chances of diseases.
These benefits alone are worth considering for any person. However, to traders, there are additional reasons why a proper diet is essential for our success. Furthermore, one will find that health is systemic; one action must support and sustain other activities. Take, for example, the previous idea of sleeping well; you probably know that your diet selections will significantly contribute to how you sleep. Not only your choice of foods but when you decide to eat is of significant importance as well.
Being the good traders you are, I will depend on you to research this and apply it to your own life circumstances. However, when you eat the wrong thing at the wrong time of night, you can ensure that you will not sleep to your potential. However, in reverse, eating the right foods at the best times will increase your likelihood of sleeping better.
Furthermore, when you begin to absorb and implement these ideas, you can help your body support your trading with all the nutrition choices you make. For example, if you wake up and trade in the mornings, as most of us probably do, then your breakfast choice is of critical importance. Questions to consider will be whether your first meal choice gives you the nutrients you need to make sound decisions for the day. Next, will your breakfast choice cause any undesired biological effects?
Trust me on this one
This crucial idea is one I learned from observation. I worked in an office setting where we were too busy to go out for lunch; the company was successful and would order in every day, usually the most unhealthy foods. The result is that profitability decreased significantly in the afternoons. Over time, the reason became apparent that everyone was eating the wrong things at lunch; our energy was given to the digestive process, leaving us more tired to conduct business in the afternoon.
The simple response is to choose foods that will complement your physical and mental lifestyle and determine not only the strategic times to eat but precise menu selections that will give you the most excellent chance of success throughout your trading day. Then, if need be, you can indulge after the workday is complete, but with plenty of time before bed, so your food doesn’t interrupt your sleep.
Exercise your mind and body
Exercise is another topic that doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. However, the reality is that trading lends itself to a very sedentary lifestyle. I recall gaining the most weight of my life, it was winter in a northern city, and my vocation was trading. There hardly seemed anything to do but sit behind a desk every waking moment; however, this became significantly unhealthy. Not only did it affect my weight, but carrying extra weight also affected my trading as I suffered from more significant fatigue and less energy.
One company I worked for realized that workers were gaining weight and living unhealthily in our sedentary lifestyle. This company brought in a consultant who gave an engaging lecture about healthy living. It is remarkable that with as little as fifteen minutes of exercise a day, how much potential there is to increase the quality and longevity of life.
One measure we can take as traders is to get a standing desk. I’ll trust you to look up the beneficial effects of such a work setup, but I assure you that not only does standing behind a desk ensure a healthier approach to screen monitoring, but it also keeps me much more alert.
Secondly, I have found convenient ways to incorporate exercise into my trading routine. For example, I keep exercise equipment near my desk, and when I enter a trade, to combat the tension, I start working out while watching the results unfold. Regardless of the trade outcome, I am a winner because I am ensuring a healthier body. Furthermore, when I choose to sit at my desk, I utilize the stair climber machine to take about ten steps every time I stand up for any reason or return to my seat. So every time I get up and sit down, that totals twenty steps I’m climbing. If I make this trip ten times a day, that becomes two hundred steps I’ve climbed!
Clean up your habits!
Having good trading habits is a key to long-term success in our field. As traders, it is equally vital that we master all other habits as well. Having been in the professional trading industry for 15+ years, I’ve either seen or heard of most everything. Traders tend to develop specific habits; it becomes part of countering our profession’s stress, anxiety, and overall uncertainty.
I’ve seen habits become addictions, whether substances that are put into the body, including foods, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and energy drinks. I’ve also seen traders resort to gambling or sexual exploits to counter the high risk and demanding lifestyle our vocation demands. The problem is that these habits become harmful additions both to our trading results with other relationships, and to our physical, mental, and emotional health.
Yes, it is hard to clean up habits. However, my audience today is people who are willing to take on challenges. Undoubtedly, we have been told how unlikely it is to succeed at trading and that we may lose everything for many of us. Yet, for each of us, there is a drive to better ourselves and our living conditions. We are willing to climb the mountain and encounter anything to endure the process.
Accordingly, if we have the attributes to be successful at trading, I suggest that we can accomplish clean and safe habits, including sleep, diet, and exercise. These healthy habits are crucial to having a successful trading mentality.
Mental health
Without being mentally healthy, we can hardly expect to be successful at most anything. We may produce fair results, but they are only possible to enjoy with a clear and balanced mind. Therefore, it’s essential to take care of our minds in addition to our account balances.
This works differently for each trader. However, one commonality we all have is education—not necessarily in the formal respect, but in the way we stretch our minds, allowing ourselves to grow and pushing ourselves to think, explore, and generate new ideas. Without continued education, our brains can become stagnant. To trade effectively, we need healthy, active, and energetic minds.
So what can you do to improve your mental health? This will depend on what connects with you. Some traders may find it practical to utilize a series of meditations to help clear the clutter and intellectual toxins from the brain. For others, it may help to read more, including some serious topics such as politics and economics, balanced with lighter subjects like sports, biographies, or gardening.
Regardless of what works best for you, as part of your trading edge, don’t neglect your mental health. The brain is imperative to every function of life, including your trading, so any investment that you make into a healthy mind will be sure to benefit your trading.
Physical health
What good is earning profit from trading if a lack of physical health means you can’t enjoy it? First of all, I must recognize and be sensitive to the fact that not all of us can determine every facet of our physical health. Some are born with or develop hindrances to health that are unavoidable. However, for those who can take reasonable steps to safeguard their health, they have a great responsibility to manage their bodies with even greater priority than their trading accounts.
There’s another aspect I think we can all agree with—that mental health, physical health, and trading health all overlap. When we get used to following healthy practices, we tend to be more beneficial in whatever we do. For example, a healthy body leads to healthy thinking, which helps with productive trading.
Furthermore, as traders, we can build up incredible physical tension, and when we exercise, we release these toxins. This is why one trader I know plans to employ a yoga regimen this new year. Perhaps yoga may not be for all of us, but any of us can take steps to ensure better physical fitness. A good trader will do well to develop physical health habits, and there is no better time than the new year to incorporate these strategies into their lifestyle.
Trading health
Okay, this is the one you were all expecting. Several elements of trading health are worthy of exploration. But first, we should consider our habits and disciplines. I don’t believe any trader can maintain long-term stability without a refined set of rules to govern their trading behavior.
To be your best, your rules must come under periodic scrutiny so you can detect how to better your situation and improve your methods. For some, this is risk-based. How do you manage risk? Do you risk too much with too little reward? If your risk habits tend to be problematic, then you will know what to target with your New Year’s resolutions. Others may need to consider the timeframe they trade, knowing that they may outperform in some periods while underperforming in others. Do your rules factor this in?
Some traders tend to overtrade, which most often leads to losses. Has your plan adapted to eliminate this behavior? These are just a few examples of disciplines to consider to improve your trading this new year.
Other matters are relevant to your trading methodology and systems. For example, you’ll know which markets gave you the best and worst opportunities in the past. And when you consider this, you’ll determine how to utilize your best markets in the new year. You can choose either to eliminate those underperforming instruments or, alternatively, to trade them better. Again, you’ll know which systems and indicators worked for you or not, and how to maximize on your observations from the previous year, which will help determine your future goals.
Relational health
I intentionally saved this one for last, as it is so relevant to trading. First, I can guarantee that you’ll trade better when you have stable relationships surrounding you. I can’t begin to tell you the many examples I’ve observed of good traders who turn into bad traders when going through the dissolution of a romantic relationship. A variety of relationships affect us in all sorts of ways, but maintaining healthy relationships will help your trading because they will create balanced interactions around you.
Furthermore, as a market engineer, I’ve heard it said not to trade in a closet, meaning alone or in the dark. No matter who we are, we sometimes need a community around us to keep our minds stimulated and healthy (think back to earlier in this article). We need people who will “push back” when we break our trading rules and discipline, which we also addressed earlier in this publication.
A trading community enables us to engage with others who know our trade and who can impart wisdom to us. At the same time, with a trading community, we can receive the satisfaction of helping others.
Finally, when it comes to relationships, it’s good to have a supportive infrastructure around you. Maybe you’ve been trading but need an extra push to go to the next level. You’ve heard it said that it’s easier to make money when you have money. This is so true. Trading with too small an account creates limitations for traders.
On the other hand, it is important to remember that more money means greater losses can accrue. However, to reach your goals, it may be time to go ahead and receive the benefits that trader funding can offer you. These advantages are not limited to monetary assets. While these alone offer you great incentives, a community of support and a structure of accountability around you can make a critical difference in finding and maintaining your goals and disciplines.
This article is necessarily limited, and many considerations are not addressed here, including subcategories within the broader categories that this publication engages. Please feel free to discuss it with our trading community and even “push back” if necessary on what you read here. Let’s work together to make it the best year yet. Until next time, trade well!
