✴️ How to do the job right
Around 2-3 hours in the afternoon you feel tired, your brain is not working as actively as in the morning and you want to take a nap. Is that normal? More than normal. All of us to more or less conscious age were taught to sleep at night and stay awake all day. But it's not the best habit for our mental health and it's certainly not how our ancestors used to sleep.
People in the pre-industrial era, when there was no electricity yet, would go to sleep around 8pm, then at around 2am wake up for a couple of hours, do some creative work, go visit neighbors and then go back to sleep until morning.
A similar story happens during the day. The fact is that our brain prefers to fall asleep and wake up more often than once a day. From 2pm to 4pm is the so-called "Nap Zone", a time period ideal for daytime naps. It is known that the ancient Romans in the first century BC liked to nap in the afternoon, such breaks they called Meridiari, then they began to call them Sexta (sixth hour, according to their time measurement), well, and the word Sexta over time transformed into Siesta.
Many studies show the positive effects of a short nap during the day. Concentration improves, attentiveness improves, you can do more things.
Moving on. The following interesting keys are given to us by a 30-year study of people who are outstanding in their fields - musicians, athletes, writers, etc.
Number 1: it is only possible to perform at peak performance for about an hour without rest. This is worth taking note of for scalpers who follow the market intensively. If you have traded for an hour, take a break.
Number 2: people who have achieved great results in their fields practice/train about 4 hours a day on average. Increasing the workload time only leads to burnout and injury (in the case of athletes). Therefore, it makes little sense to trade more than 4 hours a day. And of course, the most effective period is from morning until lunchtime. If you have any business that requires extreme attention and concentration it is better to do it in the morning.
If we summarize all of the above, then:
• We do the most important thing in the morning
• It is possible to work hard, at the limit of your capabilities without resting for only about an hour, feel free to take small breaks
• It is pointless to practice trading/sports for more than 4 hours a day
• Between 14 and 16 hours it would be good to allocate 15-20 minutes for a short nap
An important note, if you have entered the flow you do not need to stop through force. If, for example, you are happily testing a new system until one o'clock in the morning, this is a good sign.
✴️ How to rest properly
The best way to relax is something involving physical and mental activity, with deep immersion in the process. For example: rock climbing, painting, golf. The goal is to completely disconnect and not think about work/trading, etc.
Of course, if you are wildly tired then sleep, watch TV series, play video games when it's simply not physical strength. And perhaps you should focus more on athletics If you want to play a sport.
As for vacation in general, scientists agree that it should ideally be about one week every three months. Hard work or trading without weekends and vacations will only lead to health problems. You can't make all the money you want anyway. So, health is wealth.
✴️ Conclusion
It is understandable that not everyone can apply the above tips. But if this post made you at least think about the importance of rest and breaks in work and trading, then this post was written for a reason. I myself thought for a long time that it was cool and great to be busy all the time, even sometimes I felt guilty during weekends or vacations when I didn't do anything, but as it turned out, there is nothing to feel guilty about without rest and breaks, productivity is simply impossible.
Keep in mind the market will be here tomorrow. And if you feel that you want to take a break from trading for a day/week/month then go ahead. Nothing bad will happen, even on the contrary during this time you will surely come up with new, cool ideas on how to improve your trading.