Staying sane trading from home

there’s one widespread solution to your problem: alcohol! :slight_smile:
if you don’t loke this one then take: jogging or sports in general. works.

I’ve Been trading for a few years now full time from home. At first I really struggled with the lack of human interaction and lack of peers that understood my trading world. During the trading session I find twitter helpful to find people and interaction that is relevant to trading. During the session I take a few breaks to just walk around and get some blood flowing. Step outside and get some air. Use alerts with email or text on your smart phone to still be able to manage if you step away from the desk for a few minutes.

Don’t cheap out on technology. Put a couple extra TV’s around the house and get a tablet and good smart phone so you’re not glued to your trade desk. A couple extra video cards in your computer doesn’t hurt either so you can set up a screen with major quotes and charts you can see when not in your office. It helps me to gain the patience to let the trade setup come to you.

After the session it’s very important to do something you enjoy that’s totally unrelated to trading. Get your head out of that space so you can relax and rest for the next days action. I treat it like a reward for the hard work of executing my trading plan. I like to break a sweat doing some thing that takes physical effort or do a creative project that requires concentration to get my head out of the trading. I do things like or fishing, motorcycle riding, wood working, yard work, go for a beer with my pals or hang out with my spouse.

Great advice.

I did two years inside the trading cave without really talking to anyone before I broke mentally.
Today, I keep myself from going mental by going to the gym and doing part-time studies at my local university. Oh, golf and drinking are also fantastic social activities, [I]especially[/I] when done simultaneously.
It sounds bizarre to say, but consider a part-time job. There’s a few full-time traders I know who chose to keep working in their pre-trading fields. One’s a DJ, the other’s a drywaller(I know… why would you keep doing[I] that[/I] job, right?).

TL;DR. Get a couple of hobbies; preferably ones that involve talking to other people once in a while.

Take a break and do something you enjoy, also it’s essential that you get your daily exercise and don’t sit in front of the computer all day.

Great replies from everybody, and here is my own story,
For a short period of time I went insane, didn’t know that I should diversify my activities more between trading and gaming.
I’m an introvert and so I have a few friends, and that contributed a big part for me to go into Forex.

I used my trading cave to escape the outside world and vice versa, even if I did go out and try to make friends I would have zero common interests with them, and that’s why I came here, because I know everyone at least shares one common interest :wink:


Escape your caves! Xena will chase you out and get your back to fitness!!

Happy trading…

Hi May i suggest not using any indicators - use Price action and chart analyze. When Price/market change its sentiment, from steady to volatile or grinding or made a contraction - there’s no indicator in the World who Can fit changing market inviroments - not to say that somebody doesent make money that way - just my advice :wink:
Kind regard
Lars

There are many types of indicators.

If you had a particular setup of candles in a price action system, you could write an indicator that alerts you of that formation. If price hits a certain number, you could have your platform alert you. That is an indicator. An indicator of that sort frees you from sitting in front of the computer all day hoping to see the exact trigger, and an indicator of that sort never misses that signal unless you are a bad programmer.

Just because someone uses an indicator doesn’t mean it’s the type you obviously disapprove of.

I see what you mean, and as i write in my first comment, i dont say that indicators doesent work - but the indicator only alert you that the price is in a certain level - or take the average of whats happened. For me its difficult to understand how a indicator can adapt different market enviroments - from steady to choppy - triangle formation etc

good for you dude,

“we’re never gonna survive, unless
We get a little crazy
No we’re never gonna survive, unless
We are a little crazy”

[video]YouTube

Haha You have to be a little crazy to want to stare at pulses of green and red electrodes on a screen for hours on end…

hey doc, do you happen to know if it affects you the same when the pulses come from [B]blue[/B] and [B]red[/B] electrodes or whatever

I don’t know man. The blue and red set-up never tickled me crazy as much as the green and red ones. When I show my set-up to friends, they can’t believe I stare at these charts day in and day out. To each its own I guess…Nevertheless, we’re a special bunch and not many people can do what we do, and I don’t care it’s making me a a bit koo koo for cocoa puffs :wink:

Who can not love this pretty thing…


OOoo looky there…nice little set-up emerging on the Kiwi Dollar

I Have also been trading from home for around 2 years now. The best advice I can give you is find hobbies. Hobbies that get you outdoors/out of the house. For me that’s Fishing 2-3 times a week. I have also joined a local sailing club so I go out for a sail with a group every sunday.

I have this problem at the moment.
What I find normally makes up a good day, is if you can meet someone for lunch, or have a hobby that you can do during the day to break up the hours spent alone at home in front of a screen.

I go wakeboarding, so this is a great way to get out of the house, get some exercise, and sometimes friends will join me during lunch hours.
Besides that, I will arrange to meet friends for lunch, or make appointments during the day.

I also like to go out for breakfast to a nearby cafe or something and do some analysis from there. I can read the news and check out the charts, ready to take my positions.

However there’s just some days where I have absolutely nothing else to do and it can be boring, but then you can always watch a movie or read babypips, etc.

Hope that helps.

I do not understand the boredom part of this thread, I have no problem staying entertained and very busy while I trade, there is always something to do, read, or study. What I found to work is first a lot of discipline in all phases of your life. ALL PHASES…of course you need this to trade properly…but in order to survive this trade and truly become successful you need to apply discipline to every aspect of your life.

I live by a scheldule in all areas of my life and this is the only way for me to trade from home and be successful. I literally schedule everything daily, weekly, and monthly. I am a free spirit and this took awhile to get used to but I also applied one of the other aspects of trading to this schelduling. ALWAYS BE FLEXIBLE!

ON TOP OF ALL THIS ONCE PUERTO RICO MADE TRADING TAX FREE FOR RESIDENTS, I MOVED MYSELF TO THE BEACH AND NOW HAVE A PLAYGROUND IN MY BACK YARD AND A WONDERFUL VIEW TO ALWAYS USE TO CALM MYSELF WHILE IN THE HEAT OF THE BATTLE.

You have got to take your method and adabt it to the markets, in order to do this you got to learn how the market ebbs and flows on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. It is impossible to trade all the sessions, so you got to find the one that works for you the best and stick to that one. You can always dip into and out of the other ones when the action is there, or your trading a pair that moves in that session, but my suggestion is to find your session and just as important find your currency pair that you trade and become one with it. And while I am at it, stay away from the eur/usd if you can, thats where all the dumb money lives and trades.

I have found that there are more steps to finding this balance than I care to type with this message, but remember this is a journey…this is a war not a battle…what are your goals with trading…what are you trying to accomplish…what is your trading plan…the trading plan in itself should get you away from the computer at certain times of the day and week. Find the times when your rules tell you that you cannot trade. Examples…days before FOMC…before and after Nonfarm Payroll…learn to take that time and find all the things in life that you love and go and enjoy it.

Learn to trade with confidence and trust…learn to put on a trade and set your stop-loss and know your target and then let it do what it does. If you don’t learn to do this or if your not doing this then find a way and a method to allow you to do this. Otherwise you might be gambling. Find a method to win big and lose small. Set the trade, manage your risk with stop-losses, and go enjoy your life.

I could go on and on and on and on. Put the puzzle together one step at a time. Learn a process to gather your info efficiently, do the work, execute your trade, and then go do what you love.

For me I do not trade for a living so I have to work all the time, I do it so I can do whatever I want whenever I decide to. Trade for 6 weeks and then take 2 weeks off. Believe me all the opportunities will still be there when you get back and you will not miss anything while your gone.

Find your balance guys…and at first you will be completely out of balance…that is the beauty of it…if you love trading as I do, fully engaging in the trading process is like being in heaven. So spend some time in heaven, but too much of a good thing is bad, so find somemore of your heavens that the trading allows you to enjoy.

Hope this helps someone out there. Remember this is a process and it has to be flexible. So keep working at it and tweaking it and sooner or later you will find the SWEET ZONE!!!

I am still in a learning phase and an intraday trader.

What I think is that one should keep on working to fine tune your trading methods and once you are able to have a stable income, then you can concentrate on other activities also. During the week days, I am busy with my trading and also go to the local market to buy goods. On weekends I stay away from charts, trading, etc. and do other physical activity around the house like cleaning up, maintenance works, etc or visit friends and relatives. My pets give me company as I look and feed them which is away from any forms of trading.

I am still in a learning phase and an intraday trader.

What I think is that one should keep on working to fine tune your trading methods and once you are able to have a stable income, then you can concentrate on other activities also. During the week days, I am busy with my trading and also go to the local market to buy goods. On weekends I stay away from charts, trading, etc. and do other physical activity around the house like cleaning up, maintenance works, etc or visit friends and relatives. My pets give me company as I look and feed them which is away from any forms of trading.

:5:

we can use an hour to analysis it. we can make it in free time. we do not need follow it all time. we can make many money with an hour a day.