Trading with Anxiety

Trading anxiety and anxiety provoked by personal issues are generally different and the approach to deal with them is different. I firmly believe that one can train oneself to deal with trading anxiety, but personal issues-anxiety, so to speak, can only be resolved by resolving said issues.

I try not to trade when I’m too anxious about personal issues because there’s no way I can focus on trading during those times.

This is exactly why im failing. If I quit trading, It will never change. My house is like a vacuum cleaner 24/7 outside my house. Right now, Im wearing earplugs, and still hear it.

Really, I cant even take it anymore, cant escape it, even if I go to the basement, I cant get away from it.

Im to the point, I need to hit the lotto or something to move TODAY… I want Out of here TODAY.

The noise is destroying my life, my happiness, my momentum, my relationship with my entire family.

I cant even explain it, because Noone will understand. I cant even be in the same room when people eat chips or chew gum, my hearing is that sensitive, but yet I have this environmental noise 24/7 that is destroying Me. I got 2 hours of sleep today, I just cant take it anymore. Ever cry over noise?

You want to talk anxiety? Mix in Power shutoff, water shutoff, Internet shutoff notices, and car repo around the corner,… I wish i had $20,000 to move, pay 1 year rent in advance, and live happy for once in the last 14 years. Ive said, Im confident, If i didnt live where Im living, Id be a Millionaire RIGHTNOW.

Ive went as far as buying a book, to try to save myself from this destruction thinking, " Power of Positive thinking" should be here in 2 days. *shruggs, Im trying really hard folks, I want change, but I see it now where in sight. Im dyin inside from all this.

Forex is my ONLY way out. Everyday I pray a bag of money falls on my lap, Everyday I practice good karma, I dont do bad, but the wave never comes my way, and its frustrating.

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You can’t imagine how feel I for you. I am so sorry you have such difficulties. I can understand at least some of them, I think, because I’ve gone through similar times. All I can say is: don’t ever give up. Just don’t give up. I know that more often than not you’ll want to, but don’t. Keep pushing and pushing and don’t give up. I sincerely hope things will get better for you soon.

Anxiety is another byproduct of the human emotion because of which the intellectual caliber diminishes and person is left only with failures.

That feelling will never go away entirely. But it will get better. You have to trade your way through it, execute your plan and force yourself not to have an opinion about the trade.

anxiety while trading is really easy to solve. just dont watch your trades. dont babysit them.

once you initiated the position go away forthe time you expect it towork. few hours days whatever. checkout other pairs, dont watch your trade.

i know damn well what your talking about and what your problem is. i remember aswell in past when trades go intoour direction then they swing back and your tempted to take profits half of what it was just a few hours or days before.

after all were trading money and not just bits and bites. i remmeber once profit of 50k diminished over night to ****ty 12k and i closed the positions only to see a day later that it went back and surpassed the 50k to 75k, few days later it was already at 110k and i bit my damn ass off why i closed. so watching, babysitting your trades doesonly harm to you seeing it goes up then down again etc, these fluctuations are what most people simply cant cope with so take the advice i can give you on how to solve this: simply do not watch your trades untill you have enough experience and seen enough to emotionless watch profits diminish just to wait out the time till they come back again.

never make any decitions while watching the price. you know the action by hard, you watched it for days/weeks/months/years so you dont really need to glue yourself infront of the screen to watch +5 pips -5pips to make a decition. decitions are beeing made away from the screen away from the action away from the “anxiety” while watching tv or talking to your kids or whatever. never makea decition of when toclose a trade while you are watching the ups and downs, it makes you nervous it makes you nuts trust me.

when your not sure about a trade simply go away from the screen, do something else for 15 minutes a hour or two and then you can make a calm and reliable decition. once you did that decition stick to it! the only 2 ways out of a trade should be that either you get stopped out on stop loss or you take profits on TP nothing inbetween. <- thats one big thing about money management people love to forget/skip!

pushing “buy” or “sell” is the last step in a long decition making process and not the first. keep that in mind, so once you did that action of buying/selling you made all decitions… theyre made… now its to late to change your mind, keep that in mind!

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I, personally, get even more anxious when I don’t watch my trades. The uncertainty about what is going on just makes it a lot worse.

Frankly, trading with personal emotions is not possible, never and ever! So, when you are unable to control of your emotions just close your trading chart and take a short break!

I do agree with your opinion! Trading plan is very important here; without a proper trading plan, it’s very hard to stay here for a long time! By the way, pro traders can deal with Anxiety and Emotions so smartly.

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Many people have moments like that, and it’s all because we’re human and not robots. We are prone to have emotions, but one should try to move them back when we’re trading.

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these different state of mind is simply something we learn to deal with, o if only i could put it into words really, I dont think there is a book out there that could stimulate all emotions like this forex market, and at some point staring at my hotforex account fluctuating can bring half a dozen emotions in less than 5 minutes lol. but we learn to deal with it leave with it and at some pointhonestly simply love it.

For me, they could come from rational causes and irrational ones.


The rational causes come down to these two things:

  1. Preparations before a Trade, e.g. Capital, Knowledge, Skills, Timeframe Selection, Strategy Selection, Back testing & Forward testing, Journaling, Mood, Environment, etc.;

Never be satisfied with your preparations. Be vigilant about fine tuning them. Always ask one self, “How could I make them more effective and efficient? What did I learn from previous trades? What should I maintain? What should I avoid?”

  1. Mindset during and after a Trade, i.e. Have a Casino Mindset.

The Casino Mindset has been discussed many times by trading coaches in books, workshops, seminars for so long. But it seems some traders just don’t really put it to heart; including me for years. In my case, I just couldn’t accept even a single lose. Looking for the holy grail system was one of my toxic habits in the early days. I’m sure many of you had the same struggling too in some point in your trading journeys.

Now, during a trade when I have doubts and second thoughts I always remind myself to stick to the Plan. And every time I lose in a single trade, first, I appreciate myself for sticking to the Plan. And then, I tell myself to let it go and only focus on the aggregate number of trades, instead of mourning on that one loss or those string of losses.

For you who’re not familiar with Casino Mindset, I suggest you to watch this YouTube vlog by Adam Khoo on the subject: Trade Like a Casino for Consistent Profits by Adam Khoo.
His elaboration on the matter should be able to enlighten you to certain extent.

The key points of the Mindset are only two: (1) Manage and focus only on your Risks, the rests will take care of themselves, including profits; and (2) Only measure your trading success on the basis of large samples of trades, and hence don’t cry a river over your losses. Key Success Metrics for Trading are only: ‘Winning Ratio’ and ‘Reward to Risk Ratio’. Good-enough performances of those two on your Strategy are more than enough to make you financially independent if you’re patience and consistence enough.


If you believe you already take care of those two but they still don’t help with your nervousness or anxiety, the root cause may be from within yourself. Something irrational may be the culprit.
Things that’re already within your subconscious minds for years may block you to perform rationally. It could be due to past traumas. It could be limiting beliefs received from parents, teachers, and others, or even bad experiences. If that’s the case, no trading psychological books or articles could help you. Seek consultation from experts. Be it Psychiatrists or Coaches with expertise in alternative treatments like NLP, EFT, Hypnotherapy, Meditation, etc.


Also, there’s always a possibility that certain medical conditions are the causes. Some illnesses in nerve system, hormonal system, and digestion system are known to be able to contribute to the anxiety issue. You know what to do if that’s the case.


So, those are the possibilities why traders feeling anxious, IMO. It could be a single factor or multiple ones for each trader. There’s no single Panacea for all kinds of issues. Only you and the professional helps of your choice that could properly diagnose and treat you on that.

Cheers…

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Hi jessetaylor

I used to suffer from this alot. Then I realised that I was too invested in any one particular trade - I hadnt accepted the possibility that the trade might lose, and I was focussed on the potential profit rather than the potential loss.

I found the only way to get over anxiety was to trust in my trading plan in the long term, accept the probability, not to get too attached to the outcome, and to work on my emotions. When I traded from a position of fear or greed, I would get anxious!

Its not easy but it can be done!

Having the back tested strategy will surely increase your chances of you being less anxious. Because you know as long as you stick to your system, you know you will make money in the long run. Only you know what is right and what you should be doing and therefore have a less anxiety. Without trading rules you are just gambling.

Although one can’t completely avoid emotions but yeah it is better to take a break when you are getting anxious about trades.

Yes, these emotions are a big problem for traders, especially for the newbies. Gradually one understands how to avoid them, practice is what makes you handle it well.

Its okay to be anxious. It happens with every beginner. Honestly it happens with me also . However I am able to control myself most of the times.

Agreed. During these times it is better to introspect, relax and then come back in trading with a calm mind.

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Buddy, it takes time to learn! Not an easy process!

I agree. If one is anxious to the point where it totally clouds their judgement though it turns into a problem.