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Exercise and trading

Regular physical activity improves stress tolerance, sleep, and attention, which are the three inputs most directly connected to execution quality.

The claim here is modest and well supported: exercise improves sleep quality, reduces baseline stress reactivity, and supports attention. Those three feed straight into how you handle a drawdown and whether you can sit still through a quiet session.

Timing has a practical use too. Movement is one of the fastest ways to clear an adrenaline-dump, which is why a short walk after a bad trade outperforms sitting at the desk trying to feel better.

None of this improves your edge. It improves the reliability with which you execute the edge you have, which for most traders is the larger of the two gaps.

Related: recovery-days, stress-response, adrenaline-dump, sleep-debt

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

An equity curve and its drawdownAn account balance rising over a year, falling from a peak to a trough, then climbing back to the old peak.ACCOUNT EQUITY$20k$12k$8k024681012TIME (MONTHS)PEAK $16,000TROUGH $12,000DRAWDOWN−25%RECOVERY
Equity curve and drawdown. An account balance plotted month by month. The fall from the $16,000 peak to the $12,000 trough is a 25% drawdown, and the shaded area lasts until the balance climbs back to the old peak.
The spread of outcomes behind an expectancyA histogram of forty trades: a tall block of small losses on the left, a low spread of larger wins on the right, and a line marking the average outcome.NUMBER OF TRADES051024 LOSSES, AVG −$20016 WINS, AVG +$600EXPECTANCY +$120−$400−$200$0+$200+$400+$600+$800PROFIT OR LOSS PER TRADEexpectancy = (40% × $600) − (60% × $200) = +$120 per trade
Expectancy: the average trade. Forty trades sorted by outcome: 24 small losses and 16 larger wins. Weighting each side by how often it happens gives the average result per trade, marked here by the dashed line at +$120.

Educational only, not advice. Spotted an error? Post in Site Feedback.