How meditation may help you become a better sports trader

When I have discovered the magic and amazing versatility of transformational meditation, it blew me away: There is no doubt it can help you to become a better sports trader and indeed improve all aspects of your life.

There are just two caveats:

(1) you need to do it correctly so you can feel the immediate and transformational shift in your mental and physical state.

(2) you need to stick with it in order to reap the results.

There is no such thing as a free meal if you choose mastery of your game

I discovered the almost instant impact transformational meditation has on the brains of even inexperienced meditators when I worked with a group of professional traders who all had issues in regulating their emotional states, which resulted in huge temporary draw downs in their trading accounts. The traders in the group I was coaching all knew each other and between our weekly group consultations, would speak to each other daily – unwittingly re-enforcing their limitations to one another. The traders were aware that this was not a good thing, alas they were unable to break the habit. This went on for two months – perhaps even longer. Something drastic was needed to break the pattern.

I devised a short series of meditations for these guys, each meditation was only five minutes long. The traders were asked to begin using the basic brain harmonizing meditation every day in the morning before they started trading. Within two weeks all traders reported feeling calmer and somehow more in control. Since those early day’s things have moved on quite a bit: I now teach a special form of transformational meditation to all my clients and have started an on-line meditation academy which helps busy traders and investors to maintain the habit. So, how does meditation create changes faster and more reliably than any other method?

The main reason why meditation is so powerful is that it teaches your body and mind to move out of its three dimensional energy into a higher energy state. The results, if you do it correctly are immediate: You emerge from meditation a different person from the one who started it. This palpable shift creates a huge motivational momentum for the linear mind to do it again.

The Newtonian model of doing things has been superseded by the quantum model:

When you want to change an unwanted trading behaviour you can work hard, using your linear mind to make the changes but this method, based on the old Newtonian model of changing three dimensional matter with three dimensional matter is cumbersome, laborious and rather exhausting. Transformational meditation by contrast, works at the source of your creation which is the non-physical. All your creations begin as thought forms and feelings in the subconscious mind: Your thoughts and emotions run mostly on auto-pilot. 95% of what you do is automatic and repeats day after day. You are not consciously aware of this unconscious process, hence you believe that you are at the mercy of your thoughts and feelings.

This giant illusion sets you up for failure and makes change so difficult:

If you were to learn to observe your subconscious thoughts and feelings before they turn into an emotion that causes a reactionary behaviour you would give yourself an immense advantage. The linear mind has approximately three seconds in which you have a choice – to yield to an old behaviour – or to choose a new one. Once a program kicks in it becomes extremely hard to change.

Transformational meditation teaches your brain to access your thoughts and emotions before the three seconds are over

Now you have a choice to change your thoughts or emotions, with experience you will go deeper and deeper into the meditative experience while also remaining awake during the experience. Magical things can happen in this state. I have often witnessed amazing images of worlds I cannot describe because they are other worldly, yet very real. I have been given information which I was able to verify later. Not by looking for validation of the information, but by accidently coming across it and connecting the dots …When you learn to meditate your entire neurological operating system is upgraded over time.

Gradually you will move out of survival oriented thinking into creative, visionary thinking. You are moving closer to the creative source and aligning with it. Your body and mind are conduits for creation, alas in order to take full advantage of this you have to train your mind to live in the present and the future, and to disconnect from the past.

Neuroscience has shown repeatedly that the moment you begin to meditate your brain begins to make new neural pathways

You are learning new things. Yet, this new learning – unless repeated the next day, will be lost within hours. Regular meditation builds new neural connections, thus rejuvenating your brain and making you more intelligent. Transformational meditation is a form of meditation which re-trains your mind to think, feel and operate in new ways. You move from being a victim of circumstance to being the conscious creator of your circumstances. Once you get into the habit of regular meditation, the practice is immensely enjoyable, almost addictive and it has the power to transform your entire life way beyond improving your trading.

An introduction to the basic psychology of gambling; maintaining, altering and safeguarding behaviour

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Key Terms:

Conditioning: a behavioural process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predicable in a given environment or situation as a result of reinforcement – being a stimulus or reward for desired behaviour

Operant conditioning: changing behaviour by the use of reinforcement which is usually given following a desired response

Reinforcement: The reward for engaging in specific behaviour(s). This can also provide future motivation for engaging in repeated behaviour

Extinction: the disappearance of a previously learned behaviour when the behaviour is no longer reinforced through a stimulus or reward

The appeal and draw of the gamble

Wagering on sporting events follows the structure of a variable-ratio (VR) schedule of ‘partial reinforcement’, which becomes embedded through what is called; ‘instrumental conditioning’. In layman terms, this type of reinforcement follows a schedule wherein a reinforcer (the act of winning) is provided following a pre-determined average number of responses (theoretical loss). For example, the reinforcement schedule could deliver the reinforcer (winning a bet) after the 2nd, 4th or 10th action. Interestingly, reinforcers delivered on the 5th schedule have been shown to be the most effective when maintaining or attempting to sustain future behaviours. In many respects, it is this sense of unpredictability that ignites and preserves the humanistic tendency to venture towards undertaking risky behaviours.

How do we know? Historical research on rats and pigeons and ecological validity  

B.F. Skinner’s approach (1979), cited in Toates (2014) to reinforcement was underpinned by the theory of ‘operant conditioning’. Using ‘the Skinner box’ (see figure 1), Skinner observed rats and pigeons learning to manipulate their environment by pressing a lever or pecking a key, in order to receive a food reward for what was the ‘desired’ behaviour – utilising the techniques of ‘positive reinforcement’.

Figure 1: the skinner box:

1. The rat is placed in the box
2. Behaviour is shaped in order that the subject gets closer to the bar pad to receive food
3. Eventually the subject learns that by pressing the bar they will receive a food reward
4. Food becomes the reinforcer for behaviour

Applying ‘extinction’, involved the removal of the reinforcer (food), which initially increased the key/lever pressing before the behaviour declined (see figure 2). In relation to betting, this could explain why people who have just lost a wager immediately engage in the act of gambling again in a sometimes frantic and uncomposed attempt to win their money back.

Figure 2: a visual representation of behaviour change after a stimulus or reward has been withdrawn

Although such an experiment would be highly unethical to subject humans to the conditions of a Skinner box, behaviourist techniques have high ecological validity when applied to gambling research. For example, like the conditioning techniques used on the rats and pigeons in Skinners original research, humans have also been shown to stay consistent whilst gambling long after the reward and thus reinforcement of winning has ceased.

 Can all people be effectively conditioned or are some more susceptible or resilient?

 A decisive question that arises is whether individual differences in conditionability can help explain why some individuals develop gambling problems and others don’t. Individuals who easily learn associations between previously neutral stimuli and positive stimuli may be more likely to develop gambling problems than others. Also, individuals who have difficulties learning associations between previously neutral stimuli and negative stimuli may be more likely to develop gambling problems because they fail to associate gambling with the negative feelings associated with losing.

 Individual Vs Bookmaker strategies for safeguarding problematic behaviour

Bookmaker ‘limit’ setting is extremely unpopular with professional gamblers and syndicates and doesn’t appear to safeguard high intensity (high-risk) players. So what works for both sides? Emphasis could instead be placed on offering game management tools that assist players in decisions about how much they want to spend gambling. Such management tools could also give players information and analysis about their actual gambling behaviour and advise them based on their personal gambling patterns. Research conducted by Auer, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013) has revealed that, ‘voluntary’ limit setting had a positive and statistically significant effect on high intensity gamblers as opposed to mandatory limit setting. More specifically, the analysis showed that (in general) gaming intense players specifically changed their behaviour after they limited themselves with respect to both time and money spent. Strategies for effectively modifying behaviour:

1. Setting voluntary limits before commencing gambling
2. Setting mandatory limits if behaviour becomes a problem
3. Online gambling providers sending appropriate player management messages onscreen

Conclusion

The VR schedule of reinforcement which underpins gambling can sometimes result in behaviours that can become deep routed or in psychological terms; ‘hard to extinguish’. This is why  high intensity individual placing the wager may continue to return and enter back into the cycle of sustained gambling behaviour long after the reward(s) have been collected. An effective 3-point strategy that has been shown to safeguard against high intensity players’ behaviour is for bookmakers to enable players to set voluntary rather than mandatory limits, whilst also sending appropriate feedback messages to inhibit extended gambling sessions.