Pace Yourself

During ongoing activities, such as day trading, you have to learn how to pace yourself. This means alternating between times of intense activity with times of greatly decreased activity, times that require very little of your attention. These "rest periods" should take place when you do not have to quickly react to sudden market moves. This is hard advice to follow for some traders—paranoid, obsessive, compulsive, impatient, greedy, selfish et al. They just won't give themselves a break. I've seen selfish traders try to compete on the theory that if they stop, they'll give someone else an opportunity to gain on them. But you can't go all out every minute of every day. Have you ever wondered why in school there was a 10 minute break between classes? Even the greatest professional athletes pace themselves during games or races, gathering their strengths for when they'll most need it. You, also, have to find a pace of trading that fits your personality.