A New Trading Brain
By Denise Shull   
September 21, 2011

Most of us have heard that we only use 15% of our brains - the rest is "junk". Most of us have also heard that the brain is a "triune" system with emotions being an older, outdated and less-useful system. And surely in this day and age of neuron-this and neuron-that, all of us have heard of neurons (as a result of the now out-dated "neuron doctrine").

Well what if you KNEW that each one of these widely believed ideas about how you think is now proving to be incorrect? What if we do indeed use all of our brain, what if emotions are not only old they are the foundation of everything, what if neurons and synapses (and by extension) neural networks only do a part of the work? What would this mean to how you look at your own thinking and by extension your own processes? What would it mean to all of the popular psychology (and many of the research designs) you hear about?

It is the same change the world went through when everyone believed the world was flat. The bad news is change is required, the good news is the new view explains a LOT about why it is so hard to follow standard trading psychology and why so many traders of all stripes have meltdown days, moments or months.

Begin with literally rethinking your own thinking. Think about how to systematically integrate your senses, feelings and emotions into both a risk management strategy and a market-read strategy. For example, tired or angry or annoyed - that is a risk management signal to NOT trade. Have "that" feeling that something is about to happen or is done for - even if it didn't meet your target - that signal can very well be unconscious pattern recognition but you have to practice identifying what that feels like on a physical basis.

Doing so will put you in the groove that your brain is really working in.

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