Cryto, bitcoin, NASA, Candy Crush are all foreign words to me, and I will probably be the last person to ask when it comes to the future of currency. However, I know many people who are very much submerge in these worlds. Candy crush and NASA not included. Most of my clients that I worked with don’t have 9-5 jobs, they don’t have a fixed start and end time, they work tirelessly whenever and wherever they are needed. They hire me as a personal trainer because they are on a time crunch and they are uninterested in the fitness world, but they know they need exercise and movement to feel good in their body and have long term health longevity.

Trading markets is one of the highest stress environments that has welcomed more and more young graduates into the business and since the Crypto boom, it has even intrigued the younger generation to get involved. We have people as young as 20-something-year-olds who are willing to take up loans and wanting to play with the big boys.

There are ample cases of high income, successful traders managing large amounts of money suffering heart attacks and strokes at a young age of 30-40 years old. Studies have already shown that traders around the world are increasingly suffering from cardio-vascular ailments and poor psychological health, the 24-6-365 Crypto market has dramatically turned up the pressure on traders and will lead to a worsening of the statistics.

The root of the problem is the very nature of trading, trading requires long hours behind the desk and sometimes staying up ungodly hours of the day.

Long hours behind the desk means you are sitting, you are fidgety like you are anxious, and you need to think a lot and sometimes some people pick up smoking to calm their nerves. Which sometimes leads to chain smoking because of the stressful nature of trading and you are beginning to enjoy the high from smoking too.

Solution: your environment is what you create it to be, and I am not just talking about mindset. I am talking about your physical environment. It may sound silly but when you are mentally and emotionally stressed, the last thing you need to be in is a physically stressful environment. For example, the first thing you see when you get off your chair is a messy room, laundry is all over the floor and a stack of bills that is just sitting on the table and you are hungry. The last thing you want to do is to clean up so what do you do? You order another box of pizza because it is easy. But DON’T.

Change up your environment:

Make your home office/ work space, a space of serenity, bring in your favorite aromatherapy or candle, make it as zen and as airy as much as you can. Put a few of your favorite things together and open the windows for some fresh air to get in. I personally like to see clean walls that doesn’t have any drawers or cabinets just for me to stare at while I am thinking.

The airier the space feel, the less cramped up you feel in the room. No matter how stressed you are in any situation, take a second away from the screen for a second and feel; ahhhhhhh. Take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out.

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Set up a fail-proof corner!

I always tell my clients to have a mat, a resistance band and a block in the same room which leads me to my next solution.

Just get up and move.

When you are in a high-strung environment, the last thing you want to do is to get up and just shake it off. But do it. Even it wasn’t for trading, do it for the sake of your mental escape. There are only soo much we can do in a stressful environment, and when we are all up in our emotions, we are angry, our minds are running 10,0000 miles per hour. Sometimes you just need to walk away from the situation for a second, think about it, let it sit, then come back to it.

If we want to get into the specific, get up from your desk every 45 minutes to move and shake off any tension in the body. Set a timer in your phone and move. Shake it off for even a minute. Just one minute.

To do list: Invest in some home equipment’s for stretching.

Stripes, blocks, yoga mats

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Water Bottle

Most of my clients who isn’t even in trading do not drink enough water even on the daily basis. I love getting water bottle with little words of inspiration on it to keep me on my toes so I remember to drink my water whenever and wherever I am.

Food Delivery

If you live in the city you are definitely expose to a ton of food delivery options especially when the pandemic has forced us to stay indoors and food deliveries are our only escape to the outside world.

Traders don’t have time to cook, so to eat healthy is even harder than eating regularly. Do yourself a favor and order weekly meals to ensure that you are getting good nutrition in on the daily which also help you to have 1 less thing to worry about when you are stressing over the market.  

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Sleep

I’m going to say it even though all my clients are always fighting with me about it. ‘I can’t sleep! The market will be open in a couple of hours! I have to stay up!’

I know it is hard to keep a schedule. When the market is closed, you got to go to bed too even if it is 11 am in the morning. When we do not have sufficient sleep, you start to be unable to think straight, you get hungrier faster, you begin to crave food that you don’t normally eat not because you are genuinely hungry but because the body is making the extra effort to keep the body up when all it really wants is to go to sleep.

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And then you must be thinking, why do I need to care?

All of these things seem to be extra work and I don’t really care about how I look. True. But I’m sure you do care about how you feel. What if I told you one day after doing just some of these things that I’ve said you will wake up stronger, happier, more agile, more efficient than you already are right now? Wouldn’t you want to give any of my advice a try?

The problem with our society these days isn’t their age, the problem is what these individuals should be doing at their age but don’t because they are too caught up behind the desk.

The volatility in markets, especially the extreme volatility of Crypto markets creates significant emotional and physical stress as well as creating situations where an individual will spend extended periods sitting in that high stress environment.

The high stress environment makes traders prone to bad habits like smoking, drinking and substance abuse, which exacerbate the damaging effects on health.

And if we can try a little everyday to create healthier habits step by step, little by little. Non-drastic, nothing unnecessary, you will see the difference in yourself even if its just for 3 weeks.

The sedentary nature of the life can lead to obesity and diabetes which may not be directly related to trading but these are all facts that traders tend to do such as sitting for long hours, not eating regularly, not sleeping regularly and substance abuse which all increase your chances of coronary heart diseases.

Hit me up @bernsthehotnerd

Or Send me a message at bernice_chen@hotmail.com

For any personal training and gym lifestyle enquries! xx