Published in TradersWorld Magazine

"You sit down comfortably, don the electrical headgear, flip a switch, close your eyes and sink into a state of what seems like deep relaxation. A half hour later, as you turn off the machine, you feel extremely alert and lucid.

Your brain is now functioning more effectively than it was before. Your memory, both your ability to memorize new information and to recall information you have already learned, has increased dramatically. Your ability to focus and to solve problems has expanded. The speed with which your brain cells pass messages among themselves has increased. In fact, many of your brain cells have actually grown. A microscopic examination would show that the brain cells have developed more dendrites, the branching filaments that carry messages from one cell to another, and more synapses, the junctures between the brain cells across which impulses are transmitted. You are more intelligent than you were a half hour before. Such devices now exist and are being used by increasing numbers of people." So begins Michael Hutchison's high tech mind training book, Megabrain.

Startling New Brain Research

Scientists have learned more about the brain in the last two decades than in all previous history, and the implications of the latest research are clear: the human brain is far more powerful, with the potential for immensely greater intelligence and peak performance than was ever before imagined. Many scientists believe the brain that tiny 3 1/2 pounds of neural jelly composed of 100 billion or so neurons, each single neuron an information specialist of unimaginable efficiency, conceivably capable of carrying on several million conversations at the same time, is our last frontier -- the most mysterious and complex structure in the universe.

As brain scientists debunked the previously held assumptions that the brain's operations were much like the nervous system (beyond conscious control), and that every imaginable mental state was the result of electrical and chemical activity, we now know that we can definitely 'learn' to produce the various brainwaves completely at will and change them. In effect, we can alter and control our own minds. The implications were almost beyond belief as scientists discovered that through Biofeedback and Brainwave training we can learn to trigger such specific brain states as problem solving, memory recall, heightened physical and emotional abilities, as well as certain brainwave states that alter such "involuntary" mechanisms as blood pressure, heart rate, immune system etc. The applications of this line of brain research for Trader performance have been nothing short of profound.

Behavioral Psychology Meets Online Trading

The recent boom in online trading with the advent of the personal computer, has presented science with an unprecedented opportunity for Behavioral Scientists to research and analyze the influence and consequences of mental, emotional and physical behavior on financial decisions, investing and trading. Interestingly, this particular area of interest has generated so much attention it recently became known as Behavioral Finance.

Behavioral Finance is now beginning to see in Trader's performance the effects of the newest generation of high tech Mind Training, which Olympic athletes and other elite achievers have relied on to expand their performance for years. Today's traders are the newest breed of worldclass peak performer -Trading Athletes.

Even more appealing, newcomers to online trading are also discovering that this new Mind Training can help level the trading playing field dramatically, comparatively with seasoned Traders, since it is generally accepted that trading is 80% mental and 20% method. Brett Steenbarger, PhD Professor of Behavioral Science at SUNY and also a veteran Trader, makes an important distinction about mind training in his June 2006 paper titled, Trading as a Performance Sport , "Most trading psychology texts emphasize such techniques as positive thinking and visualizations. These can be helpful, to be sure. But to transform oneself as a trader, it is necessary to transform one's state of consciousness. Traders lose when their mind states interfere with their natural processing of market data".


High tech Mind Training can actually teach a Trader to "transform" his mind state and thereby dramatically improve his trading performance. Mind Training works by plugging people and showing them their brain's activity LIVE, using Biofeedback to accurately identify each "losing" trading behavior, habit, and even unhelpful subconsciously held conditioned beliefs. Following this, state of the art Brainwave Entrainment machines guide the Trader to create the various brainwave states (states of consciousness) specific to achieving whatever necessary "winning" trading behaviors are indicted. The overall goal of a full-day of plugged-in Mind Training is to enable mastery of powerful mental peak performance skills that a Trader can take home at the end of the day and use forever. These skills are neither difficult nor time consuming to learn or use, and the process is anything but boring!



High Tech Brainwave Training

Biofeedback with Brainwave training works directly to correct the various specific "deadly trading behaviors" at the root of the poor trading performance. For example, when Behavioral Finance research ascertained the leading reasons why new traders fail at an alarmingly high rate, Biofeedback with Brainwave training was the "A" Game for overcoming these five self-saboteurs easily and quickly: Unrealistic Expectations, Lack of Patience, Lack of Self Discipline, High Risk Aversion and Poor Training (the other most important reason being Undercapitalization, which mind training can help indirectly). High tech Mind Training is helpful in mastering such specific mental skills as:

- Trading with far less stress, with authentic confidence and mental ease.
- Sticking to trading system with effortless discipline.
- Achieving freedom from the emotional win/lose roller coaster.
- Achieving states of prolonged mental sharpness and heightened states of physical calm during trading
- Revealing and deprogramming a trader's own individual subconscious self-saboteurs
- Overcoming ego-centric conditioning.
- Overcoming fear of risk, failure, doubt, hesitation, and the most overriding of all human fears - loss.

What is High Tech Mind Training Like?

Traders of all levels begin by simply experiencing firsthand how their thoughts, self limiting behaviors and habits powerfully affect their trading performance moment to moment.

Within minutes Traders learn the ease of achieving optimal trading brainwave states completely at will, as a Live Biofeedback display (below) helps them realize precisely when they are in the elusive "Peak Performance Trading Zone", what it feels like, and why it is so critical to their trading in terms of increased profits and capital preservation but just as importantly,stress-free trading performance.

Creating Specific Brainwave States for Achieving Trading Goals

As the above brainwave biofeedback spectrograph shows, real-time Biofeedback (body) and Neurofeedback (brain) monitoring is as instructional as it is compelling. Here we see Alpha brainwaves generated in 6 minutes using a Brainwave Entrainment Mind Machine in a training session. Predominant brain electrical activity in the 10 Hertz range, tells a Trader when alpha brainwaves are being created, the optimal brainwave state for superlearning, "in the zone trading", among other things. Each brainwave state: Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma has its own corresponding mind-state with characteristics and abilities which are uniquely suited to various specific mind training goals such as accelerated learning, behavior modification, problem solving, memory enhancement, restorative sleep etc. For example, assessing risk/reward trading parameters is best achieved in Beta brainwave states whereas other elements of a trade's execution are best achieved in Alpha brainwave states. Professional Mind Training gives a Trader the learned ability to optimize his trading performance by simply optimizing his brain function suited to the task at hand.

This is Your Brain in "The Trading Zone"

The display above shows brain signals translated into colorful real-time spectral analysis of alpha brainwaves; this kind of live feedback gives the Trader the ability to instantly gage, practice and expand mental skills. The brain's activity can also be translated into musical tones, to hear one's self 'think'. Brainwave display print outs are helpful to record progress and they even make great art nouveau as one Stocks Trader, who has his framed above his trade station, notes "It gives totally new life to the words 'mental landscape'! "

Mind Training Pays Lasting Dividends

Trader, Rick Smith of Forex Advisor (www.forex-advisor.com), who has made mind training an integral part of his trading and Trader Training, humorously calls Biofeedback and Brainwave Entrainment, "training wheels for the mind." He adds, "Basically you only need it until you can balance your mind-states yourself. Then it's like riding a bike, you never forget how." Rick did his initial mind training eight years ago but periodically, whenever he wants to achieve some new goal to take him to his next level of excellence, he enjoys a day of 'plugged-in' training. One of those levels of excellence included trading Live in the equivalent of an online fishbowl every day for an entire year before a worldwide audience of Traders; during that year he generated a 197% return that was characterized by trading consistency, no big drawdowns, disciplined money management and freedom from stress - all the hallmarks of a mentally well-trained Trader.

Professional Mind Training is neither hard nor costly and for after training support there are also biofeedback monitors and personal mind machines designed for home use. Mastered mind skills never leave you, which is valuable for achieving any other self improvement goal in the future. With the initial experienced guidance of a Professional Mind Trainer, the aid of state of the art Mind Machines and the fascinating Biofeedback and Neurofeedback of one's own brain's activity, Traders can master the powerful brainwave states and mental skills that can take them directly to their current trading performance goals and keep them growing as accomplished Traders for life.

Patricia Chamberlin's track record as a Professional Mind Trainer for top Traders, gold medal Athletes, award winning Celebrities and countless others confirms her ability to enable ordinary people to excel in extraordinary ways.

Patricia has had a wide range of mind training experience in her 25 year career - Human Potential Author, Keynote Speaker, TV and Radio Host, Internationally Syndicated Columnist, and she has had a PBS feature filmed about her brainwave training work. She founded MindPower Mind Training for Peak Performance in 1990. She has also been a successful online Trader in her own right for 6 years.