Janice Dorn, MD, PhD
Neuropsychological Trading Coach
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D., has been a full-time futures trader since 1994. Doctor Janice holds an M.D. in psychiatry and is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in general psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. She holds a Ph.D. in brain anatomy. A graduate of Coach University, she is a pioneer market psychiatrist and financial neurobehaviorist. Doctor Janice has written over 500 articles on the financial markets and coached over 600 traders worldwide. She is the Global Risk Strategist for Ingenieux Wealth Management Group, Sydney, Australia.
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It's not stress that kills us; it is our reaction to it…Hans Selye
Try to imagine this: There is a huge dartboard on the wall. On that dartboard is the name of every disease ever described in medical literature. You blindfold yourself and throw a dart at the dart board. Assuming it lands on the dart board, it hits one or more diseases. It doesn't matter where on the dart board your dart lands. If it hits a disease, you are assured that this disease is either caused by stress, related to stress, made worse by stress or—if you get it—you are going to feel stress.
Stress is the greatest killer of our culture, and it is here to stay. In fact, it is increasing daily. Stress in traders and investors, particularly in the markets we have been in since October 2007, is reaching maximal levels. Never in the history of my fourteen years in the market have I had more requests from people wanting to know how to manage the physical and emotional symptoms they are experiencing. Not a day goes by when someone does not ask me to help with "stress." There is a very large and profitable cottage industry that has formed in response to the ever-increasing need of the population worldwide to find something to reduce the pressures they are feeling from daily life. Additionally, prescriptions for mood-altering medications are on the rise. It is now estimated that one in every two or three people in the United States today is taking some kind of psychotropic drug, primarily for anxiety and depression-related symptoms.
As a very brief biological background, there are two major considerations fundamental to a discussion of stress:
(1) Complex adaptive systems, including the financial markets and the human body, are continually striving to maintain themselves in a steady state. In simple terms, this steady state is called homeostasis. Homeostasis is maintained through a process of allostasis, or balancing of the multiple components that make up the complex system. At its core, allostasis is a function of the brain that regulates and coordinates balances in the entire body, including alterations in the brain chemistry that produce behavioral alterations or full-blown mental illness.
(2) A stressor is anything that disrupts this balance, and causes the allostatic mechanisms to activate in an attempt to restore harmony. This activation is controlled by a small part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the hormone powerhouse of the brain. It receives hormonal messages from the entire body and reacts to these messages by sending out regulatory hormones to keep the checks-and-balances system of the body intact.
I will discuss more specifics of this at another time, but—for now—it is important that you appreciate that your brain is the master gland that interprets, processes, regulates and attempts to balance stressors. It does this primarily through what are called psychoneuroendocrine mechanisms. Very simply, stress is about the brain and its hormonal interaction with the body and itself.
It is important to understand that some degree of stress is important for health. Tiny shocks to the system serve to prime and strengthen it. Without stress, we would not have a mechanism for testing and resetting our immune systems to help protect us against disease. We receive these tiny shocks every day, and often do not notice them or are able to deal with them quickly because we have experienced them before or they are not enough of an allostatic load to cause the brain to go into hormonal overdrive. In this way, stress is a lot like the porridge in the fairytale called "Goldilocks." If it's not too cold and not too hot, it's just right. Our bodies react best when the stress is of this nature—just right, or in balance.
Unfortunately, the majority of the time, stress is really too hot or too cold, and our bodies go into overload in an attempt to correct what we perceive to be happening. The brain pours out massive amounts of hormones that increase hormones from the adrenal and other target endocrine glands. We get into what I call the "adrenal bathtub." In this condition, our bodies are flooded with adrenal hormones called adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol. It is these hormones, allowed to remain at elevated levels, that set off a vicious chain reaction in the body. No system is spared, and the effects are seen on the heart, the lungs, the skin, the brain, the bones, the muscles and the nervous system. The more we deny that we are in this state of hormonal overproduction and hyperarousal, the worst the symptoms become. In other words, stress becomes a vicious cycle that feeds on itself.
In the next few Trading Wisdoms, I will continue this discussion of stress, giving you more specific examples of how and why you may be experiencing it, and techniques for dealing effectively with it.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment…Marcus Aurelius
Until Next Time,
Good Trading and Brain On!
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.
janice@thetradingdoctor.com
P.S.—Take a sneak peek at my new book, Personal Responsibility: The Power of You, published in January, 2008, at www.personalresponsibilitybook.com .
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