Traders are constantly battling with emotions while trading in the stock market or the Cryptocurrency market. Most traders tend to neglect these emotions, believing that their decision-making and thought process is one hundred percent based on logic. However, negligence of emotions could only affect your trading journey negatively. No matter how logical you are or even if you have ice in your veins instead of blood, if you trade in the stock market, you must learn how to deal with your emotions. Many believe that meditation can help traders in their battle with emotions. In this article, we go in-depth about how meditation can teach traders how to deal with positive and negative feelings.
What is considered to be meditation?
Aside from prejudices against meditation for trading, many people have problems with meditation because they don’t know how to do it. This is why many seek guided reflection and meditation coaches, known as gurus. This section will offer a guided meditation routine and strategies for planning your personalized meditation routine for trading.
Guided meditation for trading
There is no need to panic if you do not know how to meditate alone; our primary goal is to avoid panic mode. The first thing you must do without worrying about meditation is choose the right time. The number of times you meditate during the day depends on your trading strategies, budget, and need for meditation based on your personality and how stable your emotions are.
Don’t lose the morning opportunity
What is the first thing that one is expected to do as a trader upon waking up? Most traders check the market before even getting out of bed. What can you comprehend from such behaviour? A sense of urgency that, along with the advantages, can later cause anxiety and fear. Remember to avoid checking the market before doing your morning meditation.
Based on various experiences, it is even better to eat breakfast before starting your meditation. Your breakfast must include a hot beverage or a refreshing cold drink. After your breakfast is over, you can begin your meditation. Remember that the place you choose to meditate should be in a different room where you work. Choose another room; it doesn’t matter if you do it in the kitchen.
Now, you can start meditating. The process begins with 5 minutes of breathing technique exercises, which can help you enter a state of calmness. In the mornings, using Sama Vritti(Equal breathing) is better. After 5 minutes of breathing, you can start listening to calm music for several minutes; this part depends on the time you can afford to spend on meditation. Simply use YouTube to create a playlist of soothing music. You can choose soothing sounds like raindrops or jungle sounds based on your preferences. I listen to Tchaikovsky’s sentimental waltz, but you can choose a rock song for this part.
Now, it is time to practice chants! After 10 minutes, you have entered a state of calmness, which is an excellent opportunity for repeat chants that can help you reduce stress while trading. One of the chants is I’m ready. You must repeat this chant to be prepared for anything in the market. Prices surge down to rock bottom? Well, I’m prepared for it and acknowledge it as a recurrent happening in the market. Another helpful chant is today is my chance, but chance for what? Learning? Losing money or gaining profit? The answer is all of them. These chants will help you overcome negative feelings and start your trading day with a clear mind.
Meditate as you like
Some people find guided meditation time-consuming and tedious. They are not wrong because meditation is supposed to help you feel better and less stressed, so if you think guided meditation doesn’t help, you do get discouraged.
Meditation is not just sitting and doing yoga
Find the activity that you like and turn it into your meditation. It can be anything that you want. For example, if punching heavy bags helps clear your mind, you should do it before you start checking the market. It can be reading a short article or story. Even the morning coffee can be considered a meditation routine. It all depends on your interests and lifestyle.
Use AI to make a Meditation routine for yourself
If you need help copying others or want a unique routine, just ask AI to help you. For instance, this is the prompt I gave to the LLM model: I’m a 24-year-old trader. I want to create a morning meditation routine to help with my trades. I like folklore, music, martial arts and English Literature. I only have 20 minutes before I start trading. This is the answer: Creating a morning meditation routine incorporating your interests can enhance your focus and calmness before trading. Here’s a suggested 20-minute routine:
Morning Meditation Routine (20 Minutes)
- Preparation (2 minutes)
- Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed.
- Sit comfortably on a chair or the floor with a cushion.
- Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to center yourself.
- Folklore Music (5 minutes)
- Play a calming piece of folklore music. This can help set a peaceful atmosphere.
- Focus on the sounds and let them wash over you, allowing any tension to melt away.
- Mindful Breathing (5 minutes)
- Shift your focus to your breath. Inhale deeply through your nose, hold for a moment, and exhale slowly through your mouth.
- Count your breaths if it helps you maintain focus (e.g., inhale for four counts, hold for 4, exhale for 6).
- Martial Arts Visualization (5 minutes)
- Visualize a martial arts practice. Imagine yourself performing a series of movements or forms.
- Focus on the precision and control of each movement, allowing this imagery to ground you and build confidence.
- Reflection on English Literature (3 minutes)
- Think of a favourite quote or passage from English literature that inspires you.
- Reflect on its meaning and how it can apply to your trading mindset, such as patience, resilience, or clarity.
- Closing (1 minute)
- Gradually bring your awareness back to the present.
- Take a few more deep breaths, and when you’re ready, open your eyes.
- Take a moment to set an intention for your trading day.
Tips:
- Consistency is key. Try to follow this routine daily to build a habit.
- Adjust the timing of each segment as needed to fit your preferences.
- Consider journaling briefly after your meditation to capture any insights or feelings.
This routine combines your interests and can help you cultivate a focused and calm mindset for your trading activities.
As you can see, LLM will give you a complete and detailed answer. However, you can still adjust the given routine based on your other preferences.
How Meditation can help Traders with handling positive feelings
After reading the headline, you might wonder why I need to learn to handle my positive feelings. By positive emotions, we mean those generally considered positive by people but may have a disastrous impact on your trading. Feelings such as euphoric sensation, hope, and gratification.
Euphoric sensation
Have you seen Wolf of Wall Street? The remarkable performance by Dicaprio could give you a general understanding of the euphoric sensation. For example, in the scene in which he is working in a small firm, he suddenly starts calling customers and persuading them in a manner that shocks all the other employees. His facial expression can be regarded as what we call a euphoric sensation. Basically, a euphoric sensation is the smirk smile you have after gaining profit consecutively from trading different assets or currencies. Now, based on our reference to Wolf of Wall Street, you can guess the destructive power of this sensation.
At the beginning of your trading journey, you make a little profit, and then you feel something happening that you cannot explain but feels good. Some people think it is in their stomachs; others compare it to a sugar rush. As you already know, after a sugar rush, you are burnt out and need more sugar! Let us see how meditation can help traders overcome this sensation with different strategies.
Hodlers and Euphoric sensation
Some traders try to avoid euphoric sensation by choosing to hodl their assets. Little do they know that they will also experience this sensation in Hodl’s strategy. For instance, if you decide to hodl a particular stock, you may check your portfolio daily to analyze loss and gain. After a while, you get used to making a profit without trading different assets. When the time comes for you to stop the hodl, you resist selling the stock you have been holding for a long time. This resistance is due to the euphoric sensation you have been getting from the hodl strategy. Meditation can aid you in making a more reasonable decision based on facts and real market situations.
Meditation for Day Trading
We all have experienced crazy days in the stock market. There are days you can’t lose, and gaining profit is more manageable than usual. With a day trading strategy, you must close all of your positions before the market is closed. When the euphoric sensation hits you, and to be honest, it hits day trading harder than other strategies, you find it harder to close your position. Meditating before starting your day will ensure clarity when making logical trading decisions.
Futures Trading
The euphoric sensation can be futile for futures trading as you can lose everything you have in the blink of an eye. When under the euphoric influence, traders may take much higher risks than usual, hence choosing higher leverage. Taking higher risks is easier when you are allegedly happy with your actions. Nevertheless, it is crucial never to forget risk management regardless of your feelings, and to do that, you can meditate so you can get rid of harmful emotions.
Impact of hope on traders
Traders cannot survive in the market without hope. Hope is the essential quality every trader needs, regardless of the trading strategy one may use. But can you identify hope from false hope? One is critical for you as a trader, and the latter can end your trading journey. Meditation can help you identify genuine needed hope from false hope.
Hodlers and Hope
It is not an overstatement to say that having false hope when holding can destroy your portfolio. Let me share my own experience of how having false hope can go wrong. As a fundamental analyst, I love projects that promise. Spending hours and hours reading white papers was a fun activity for me. I didn’t have much experience then, but I could sense it when a project had potential. Unfortunately, more is required than just the potential for a project or a stock to grow. I knew the principles but wasn’t thinking clearly, so I decided to hodl stock because of its potential. Ultimately, I had to sell the stock with a 45% loss! After experiencing such a substantial financial loss, meditation does not seem like such a silly idea.
How Meditation can help Traders with handling negative feelings
The most critical impact of meditation is definitely in dealing with negative feelings. Let’s see how negative emotions like anger, disappointment, and frustration can impact your trading strategy and how meditation can easily undo the impact of these feelings.
Anger in trading
Don’t start a new position when you are angry. It is easier to make bolder decisions when you are angry. The source of anger can be personal matters, and I cannot offer any solution. But sometimes, you are angry with the market, usually after a loss. You feel that the market is trying to hurt you. It will only hurt you when you think it hurts you, so you decide to trade with Haste without considering risk and budget management. You are only thinking about getting back at the market. This problem is entirely psychological and may require professional help. Still, in the meantime, you can keep it under control by meditating every day before checking the market.
Disappointment in trading
Some days, you wake up so tired and disappointed that you must force yourself to check the market. Dealing with disappointment and frustration is one of the most complex challenges a trader could face. The most crucial point here is to avoid blaming yourself for loss. Remember that this does not mean that you shouldn’t take responsibility for your loss.
