Posted on

Casualty of Going Cashless: Empty Donation Boxes at the Cashier Counters

image

I do not usually go to fast food joints or coffee shops. If possible I always prefer brewing my own coffee and cooking my own meals. Doing this for years not just because of the health factor but also for the sake of avoiding long line ups. During my trip going from Canada to Hong Kong, however, I spent some time strolling in the airports while waiting for all kinds of things. I found a very interesting but sad phenomenon has emerged.

Those donation boxes that sit at the front of these cashier counters at McDonald’s, Starbucks, Tim Horton, etc. are all pretty much empty.

I actually popped the question to a few cashiers to see if my observation is correct.

Well, it turns out, the little amount of coins in many of these donation boxes were the collection for over a week.

My casual observations tell me that eight to nine people out of ten lining up at Subway used credit card, bank card and even cell phone to pay for their food. I actually counted the numbers while waiting for my flight. That’s about 50 people over a 45 minute sampling. The remaining ones who paid with cash have not put their changes into the donation box.

Well, Canada chose to do away with its pennies (1 cent coins) probably contributed to the problem too.

I wonder what the charitable organizations can do to counter this situation.

Posted on

Time to Slack Off 2017

image

As a follow up to my Time to Slack Off series, I like to report my results and what I think going forward I will do with my trading. Many doors opened this year for which I am very grateful for and that I get to try out different ideas in such a short period of time is both exciting and exhausting. It is time for me to reflect and plan for the coming year.

Transformation of My Trading

I have achieved my trading goal for myself and for my clients as a money manager back in early October already. Due to serious pile up of all kinds of tasks, I did not get the time to write about it until now. This year is fundamentally different from the years of trading I have done due to the drastic changes of my trading goals and the new responsibility of managing a completely different kind of funds.

Many readers who follow me for years know that I used to trade through the complete US market open hours. I did take breaks during lunch but I tended to squeeze as much profit from the market as possible back then. Last two years my personal trading goals have changed to a more moderate approach for which I am driving for consistent returns with much reduced stress and effort. That took a lot of work outside of trading to further improve my mechanical trading models. More importantly, I came up with an even better trading framework for handling the current trading environment.

Hence I spent a lot less time in front of the screen and more time outside of it. I now usually sit at the screen to watch the open but I can choose not to because my mechanical models would take care of the orders anyway. Even though I have open positions by 11 am (Eastern Time) I can walk away since the positions are managed automatically. In my opinion, the performance is actually better based on the relatively shorter amount of time spent in front of the screen.

My Experiment on Running a Different Type of Fund

Last year I started to manage in a small scale funds that demand stable return in low-teens percentage with a time window of 3 years (or more) of lock-in period. As oppose to classic fundamental based fund managers who bet on fairy-tale information, or those big swingers with so-called macro view that ignores the market dynamics, my approach is to day trade with mechanical strategies that I know are rock solid concepts working consistently over the past 20 years. By controlling the leverage, I make it possible to produce consistent returns without the so-called volatility swings with those funds that have overnight risk. It is a great idea that worked out very well.

In comparison, the responsibility as a money manager managing client accounts, my objective is often maximizing the return with risk precisely defined. I can assure you that it is not an easy task. Although I have been doing my part for years, it is still challenging as the financial markets evolve rapidly.

The Birth of a Private Fund

Inevitably, after the success of the experiment, I am being asked to reconsider my position to run a fund among close friends and families. It is not even going to be the size of a tiny hedge fund. It is just money that a few close friends can spare for speculation purpose (something I called burnable). Since I am so restrictive on the amount of money they should put into the pool relative to what they have and that I am imposing the same 3 to 5 years lock-in period, I am glad that they choose to keep their individual commitment small. Now that the word is out, I have requests from friends everywhere asking me to do the the same.

This is, kind of, completely deviating from my original plan. My original intention was to run this private fund with just my own money and possibly some from my partner. Once the first year return is booked, I will try to convert the individual accounts that I manage for my long term clients into the same pool so that I can streamline the whole operation. That is a longshot though, because my clients really dislike publicity of any kind. Still, I hope to convert them to believe in my new hands off approach.

Anyhow, I planned to launch this no later than February next year. Just the explanation of the risk involved in my kind of trading can take hours to each individual interested in this. It will keep me very busy until then.

Mix and Match of Trading Signals

So what does all these developments have to do with daytradingbias.com? After all I tagged this post with it.

Well, part of the trading models I developed for my private fund will also be made available at daytradingbias.com thru real-time trading assistant and other means. I have looked into many other ways to delivery the signals. The viable ones will be added one by one.

For those interested in managing their own accounts with a subset of signals picked from the set, documentation / a complete course will be made available so that they can adapt the strategies to create a trading plan that fits their risk tolerance. This is what I am planning so far but I do not know if the plan will change again down the road.

On the Road Again

I am heading to Asia as mentioned in my post back in October coming weekend. Once I have internet access there I will continue to post. I will get the chance to meet with many people from the financial industry there. If anything interesting comes up, I will definitely write about them.

 

Past Time to Slack Off Posts

Time to Slack Off 2014

Time to Slack Off 2013

Time to Slack Off 2012

Posted on

The Single Most Effective Way to Weight Loss

image

I have seen so many people having this problem with overweight that I always wonder why they are having such a hard time in cutting down the fat from their bodies. There are even TV shows with people signing up there to be coached by nutritionist, exercise coach, etc. to drop their weight to a healthier level. It is amusing to see such phenomenon happening in China as well with their younger generation showing exactly the same type of obesity issues. Seriously, in my not so humble opinion, all these fancy diets and exercise regimes we see out there are not really attacking the problem directly, hence the difficulty in getting the overweight crowd back in shape.

Disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional. What I write here is my personal opinion. Seek medical advice from your doctor if you plan to do anything affecting your health.

What’s Underneath the Overweight Symptom Matters

For some people their overweight issue is actually a medical condition like hypothyroidism. If the underlying medical condition is not treated, doing all kinds of healthy routines will not get the person far. The worst part is that the process of such healthy regimes also destroy the person’s determination over time as the ineffectiveness is usually blamed on the person as oppose to the experts who are offering the advices.

Once the medical condition is put under control, or that you are relatively healthy in the first place, the next step is easy. It helps to do exercise but not everyone can afford to do that due to various reasons. The way to weight loss is always eating less food. To be specific, eating less food that induces weight gain and bloating is the key to control our weight. The concept is so simple but it is very hard to do if you listen to the weight loss meme out there. After all, controlling our craving is hard.

Really?

Trick Your Brain with Healthy Filler

It is well known that in any weight loss regime, using some type of filler food is always the key component. When people are eating junk food, they put excessive fat, sugar and carbohydrates into their bodies. Healthy fillers like broccoli and cauliflower when cooked without sauce or a lot of seasoning can keep us feeling full. Hence eating them as replacement to potato chips, fries, noodles, rice and pasta of course will drop your weight fast.

The goal with eating filler food is to get your body used to a lower calorie diet without giving yourself a hard time feeling very hungry. Once your body has reduced weight, it will automatically demand lower calories as a result. In other words, using filler food is to trick our brain to stop craving for food.

But there is a problem with these healthier alternatives. They just take too much time to prepare. They are also unhealthy when prepared in advance. Fast food and microwave meals exist for a reason. They are way more convenience when you feel hungry and need a fix quickly.

If there is a healthy filler that does not require so much work, everyone can enjoy a healthier life.

Is there anything like that out there?

Yes!

The Cheapest Solution to Weight Loss

I like to introduce you to konjac noodles, your new best friend in weight control.

The root of the konjac plant is used to make this bouncy tasteless noodle in many countries in Asia. The Japanese name for the konjac jelly is Konnyaku. The noodle is also known as shirataki noodles. They are transparent in color. The noodles are just shredded version of the jelly blocks.

image

You can buy these noodles from Asia supermarkets at very low price. Interestingly, Asians mainly eat this food in their hotpots which is one of the most unhealthy way to consume food.

These instantly edible noodles have several very interesting properties. First, they are extremely low in calories, making them a good candidate as a filler food. At less than 10 calories per 100 gram of konnyaku noodles, you cannot get any food doing the same.

Second, this noodle contains no sugar, sodium (salt) and fat. This property tells you that the konnyaku noodle is an acceptable filler.

Third, this noodle has about 2% fibre and 1% protein by weight. With the healthy nutrients, you know they are healthy filler.

If it is so good for weight control, why is no one talking about it?

Actually, the weight loss industry and the health food industry know about this for a long time. The weight loss industry has been selling supplement tablets mixed with konjac powder for decades. The health food industry also catches up with organic konjac powder to mix with your own cooking.

But they are not going to tell you the best way to really benefit from eating konjac is to get the instant version at a low price.

There is Always a Catch

Even if someone learned about Konjac and ventured to buy whole bunch of these konnyaku noodles hoping to start their weight loss regime, that person will likely drop the idea after opening the first package. That’s the catch.

Konjac products themselves are odourless just like any other jelly making ingredients. The original konjac powder, however, when being used in the cooking process, produces a smell that is not very pleasant. It is consistent with other jelly making ingredients too.

But for a normal person who has never experienced that, you can imagine what the person thinks when they first open a package of konnyaku noodle. Many people simply assume the food went foul. When they open up the second package, they will probably give up the whole idea.

To pre-process the konnyaku noodle, you just need to rinse the noodle in water for several minutes. You can also just rinse it once and then leave them in water for several minutes. The smell from the konjac water will be completely removed. You can either eat the noodle right after because it is fully cooked. You can also store the noodle in the refrigerator for a week.

Hence, if you hate the smell, pre-made a whole batch of konnyaku noodle in the frig so that you can use it anytime you want to eat.

Just in case you cannot get the straight up noodles and instead getting what you see below, don’t panic.

image

This is a fancy version of the konnyaku noodle. They are small bunch of noodles tied in an open knot that you can easily untie. They are made this way for people putting them into hotpots.

Eat It Anyway You Like

There are many ways to enjoy konjac noodle. Simplest way is to eat it cold with a little bit of soya sauce, cold noodle sauce or fish broth. That’s very traditional Japanese style.

Another traditional way to eat konnyaku noodle is mix it into seaweed salad.

In many Asian countries, they throw the konnyau noodle into their hotpots.

Unlike pasta or rice, the konnyaku noodles do not absorb flavour very well. You see everywhere on the internet said it does but that is not true. It is just another misinformation spread by the internet copycats. To make the noodles absorbing just a little of the flavour, it takes several hours of soaking in the sauce or broth. An alternative solution is, of course, to thicken the sauce but that also means you are eating a lot more calories as a result.

Another difference between konnyaku noodles and pasta is that pasta are chewy and soft while konnyaku noodles are bouncy. For some people this difference in texture can take some time to get used to. If you can stopping thinking of konnyaku noodles being a replacement of your pasta and accept it as it is, you will adapt to the experience much more quickly.

For diet purpose, you can use it to replace your pasta or your bowl of rice in your regular meal. You can also prepare the noodle in a light sauce or salad dressing so that you can snack on it instead of your usual unhealthy snacks or expensive diet snacks.

Healthier Life Can Be Easy

The beauty of using konnyaku noodle is that there is really no change to your overall eating habit. Just replace everything you are eating that is unhealthy with the noodle will do the job. And the preparation time and effort is next to none. Once your weight is dropping, your body will make the adjustment necessary for you. i.e. you will likely crave for less food.

Now you know the secret to weight loss and it is not something difficult to do. Take control of your weight today!

p.s. I have recommended this to many people and have seen great results from them all. There is really no point for me to repeat myself again and again. Hence writing this piece to save myself the trouble.

Posted on

Busy Schedule Ahead

It has been weeks of chaos so far in the development front on deploying my trading models. Unforeseen troubles in live trading of the models forced us to twist our code to handle all kinds of issues like sudden disconnect from brokerage server. Unlike co-location server based solutions, we have now proven retail level client side automation has many issues that cannot be taken care of easily.

Nonetheless, I am still going to push forward with these projects to see how much we can accomplish. In the meantime, I am busy writing up the documentation / instructions on trading these strategies effectively.

While all these things are happening, coming two weeks we are setting up a new remote data centre. This is not our first attempt though. Some of the premium members may remember that the first try was a complete disaster. Once the remote data centre is up and running, I will phase out the current one in Toronto.

Adding to all that, I am also going to hit the road again later this year due to an interesting development that I may work on a special project involving a number of trading firms and financial institutions in Asia. I am not sure what my exact travel plan will be at this point. For those of you in Asia, I will get in touch.

Have a nice weekend all!

Posted on

Steve Maxwell: How to Exercise

This is a clip from a long interview of Steve Maxwell at the YouTube channel London Real. As an expert in training all kinds of athletes, his wisdom on exercise is very interesting. I agree with him that we should not over do exercise if our goal is to stay fit only.

You can find more video on Steve Maxwell online.

Posted on

My Journey to Fully Automate My Trading: AI vs. KISS

Thinker

The latest round of buzz about AI (Artificial Intelligence), particularly the new meme Machine Learning, has triggered many talks on its applications in trading and investing. It is very interesting how it suddenly becomes the latest holy grail in trading. Is it really that much better? Not necessary.

What AI is Good at

AI is very good at picking up patterns from large amount of data based on the framework we have provided them. It also gives AI the advantage to find patterns that human often miss since we are born to identify visual anomalies only. In other words, AI can assist us to uncover useful information from large amount of data. From the game of chess or online games, to industrial design of cars and equipment, AI helps us resolve many difficult problems in much faster and efficient manner comparing to human based discovery approach.

When I use the word “pattern” above, it is not limited to visual or statistics based patterns. It can be patterns of rules that govern a dynamic system. For example, the machine learning process may discover that certain set of rules are failing to produce the expected results, and that they all belongs to the same category of underlying patterns in the data.

By applying this meta logical pattern on the rules, AI can develop new rules itself. This is the technological direction, namely self reprogramming and self refinement, that Elon Musk is so worried about. Think about an AI based program deployed to defend a country that has built-in self management rules to improve itself. What if one day the system produced a new rule that it is better to launch all the missiles to guarantee winning a war, or chose to delete a rule that emphasize on minimizing the casualties of civilians?

AI in Trading

AI has been applied to trading ever since it was introduced many years ago. The earlier approaches are mainly developed to capture patterns in price and related financial data (e.g. PE ratio) to make forecast on individual stock and markets. Later on we have seen successful trading models built for short term trading on indices using patterns recognized from large amount of data including price patterns and market breadth data. The concept behind the development of these models, however, are still very human centric. We were using AI to discover patterns and then we apply the patterns in our trading. In short, we decide what discoveries made by the computer are applied in our trading.

The latest round of AI application in trading, however, is taking on a different direction. Many professional traders and trading firms are now testing fully automated trading models that are managing themselves. What I mean is that human factor is reduced down to the initial feeding of data into the computer with an overall theme specification and subsequent risk management only. In short, we are teaching the computer to trade by themselves instead of teaching human to do the job because we prefer traders to have little or no emotion at all for better performance.

The advantage of these new approach to AI based trading does not stop there. Models will continue to evolve on their own, either in live or simulation environment (which human still have control). This helps proprietary trading firms tremendously with much better control over the consistency in performance.

Context Matters

It is obvious that AI is best fit for trading in short term environment as the amount of data to be processed can be too much for human to analyze. It is also clear that the AI models that self manage can pick up subtle changes in the data much faster than human can. This ability to teach itself to adapt to a changing environment can be a double-edged sword though.

For a changing environment, say, a news driven shock to the markets, can be very short term. Given enough historical examples feed to the AI systems, they will figure out a way to handle these situations. The catch is, however, that certain longer term environment change never repeats themselves, yet they produced all the major characteristic changes that affect the markets for years. As there is never enough historical data on these situations, AI cannot really learn from them nor can they incorporate safety measures to safe guard themselves properly when such tide turning events happen in the future.

In other words, the adaptive AI based trading systems are doing exactly opposite of what many classic (and successful) trading models do. Instead of exploiting one specific bias to extract profit from the market with money management strategies to protect the profits like the classic trading models, the new self learning AI systems keep tuning themselves to outsmart the markets. This approach is not that different from what we called routine re-optimization of deployed trading models. Since we do not know if the set of parameters we use on a trading model would perform best in the future, by optimizing the models based on a subset of the historical data, usually the most recent part, on a regular basis, it gives us a way to tune the model to better fit the current trading environment. The self learning AI systems basically does that themselves.

Human Factor Still Key to Success

Hence, it is important more than ever that the trainer / designer of an AI system to understand the various potential drivers in a market. There are things the AI system would never be able to learn or to adapt to. There are things the AI system should never adapt to. The boundaries necessary to make the AI system safe to trade have to be provided by human.

Seriously, everyone can train their generic AI toolbox to deploy trading models to trade real money. In fact, I am sure every model deployed has a pretty darn good historical performance. But, it is not how good a system perform that matters. As the old saying goes, “If you avoid the losers, the winners take care of themselves”. It is how the system react to adverse situations and not losing too much money in the process that really counts. Only those designers who are well aware of defensive money management principles would do this correctly right from the beginning.

The bottom line is clear – it is still the person behind the machine based trader that matters most.

KISS Still Shines

“Keep It Simple, Stupid!” believe it or not, still holds true even in this heavily bots populated trading environment.

As I explained many times over the years, with more bots trading, the markets evolved into something much more predictable in a very sarcastic sense. Yes, older style of trading no longer produces good performance. And yes again, many trading methods are neutralized by the existence of bots. However, new patterns emerges from the very existence of these bots because they all behave in a very similar way. AI systems are no different. Given the technology are all based on similar toolbox, and that the obvious patterns are picked up by the AI systems one way or another, it is likely the AI systems will all behaviour similarly and go after very similar biases identified by them. In aggregation, they produce consistent footprints just like any other market participants.

So it is not necessary to stay at the forefront of technology or employing the latest trading gadget to make money in the markets. It is your overall approach to the market that matters. KISS still shines in the current trading environment. I know many size traders still focus on a few simple trading setups to make their living. The existence of these smarter AI bots changes the characteristics of many markets in the smallest timeframes only.

A Common Misconception About Day Trading Models

Lots of people spend all their time to discover or fine tuning a strategy so that it trades so many times to give them stellar performance like 300% or even 500% return per year. That may work but it is also dangerous to put all money on such models.

As I explained before in last instalment of this series, it is much better to emulate a good day trader who has multiple trading setups for which each one offers its own independent risk reward profile. It is the combination of these trading setups that produce a balanced approach to trading. With the right combination of these strategies, you get the same spectacular performance with much lower risk of complete melt down in performance like the single strategy approach.

Here is also the main concern with AI based bot traders. Unless you have a way to dissect the trading approach, you do not know the risk profile of each individual decision made by the system. You just know, as a whole, the machine trader you have on hand somehow perform great on the historical data. But we know they their were trained on those data, of course they would perform well on those data. You cannot throw a evolved model back in time to see if they would do well by the same reason.

If you train an AI system with certain part of the historical data, keeping the model not adaptive, it is then just the same old machine assisted discovery method. If you let the system retrain itself from time to time with new data, it is similar to the re-optimization mentioned above with the drawback of not able to gauge the historical performance. I think you get the point – machine learning is not perfect.

Summary

AI based bot traders are sexy for many reasons but they are far from perfect. If you know nothing about the underlying data and its characteristics, using AI to speed up your research is definitely the future as we are going to amass a lot more data going forward. However, it is not going to do you any good if you are an amateur in trading hoping that you can simply train the machine to do the job for you. Your have to be a good trainer (not necessary good trader) to make your trading bot a good trader.

At this point, it should be quite clear where I stand on the subject. I use AI to assist my research. I also use AI based models to warn me of potential changes in the market dynamics. I like the technology as it saves me time on data mining and other tasks in research. But I do not deploy trading models that are based on AI only. I prefer the KISS approach because I need the transparency and consistency with the models so that they are much easier to manage. It is a matter of personal preference. Maybe I have paranoia on AI just like Musk.

Posted on

3 Weeks of No Exercise and Sleep Deprivation

Last few weeks I have to travel far frequently to take care of things in remote areas. My daily routine was totally disrupted. Cannot exercise when there was not even enough time to sleep. Now that things settled down, I learn some important effects on my health that is very useful.

First, when I finally get to do my daily exercise routine, strength in my legs is not affected much. Feels awkward for about a minute and then things just go back to normal. My guess is that I have to walk a lot over the past few weeks, my legs still got enough exercise to stay in shape.

Then problem started to show when I did my ab exercises. I was able to do what I usually do but with difficulties at the end.

Finally, pull ups and other upper body exercises became so difficult that I am not able to do half of what I did 3 weeks ago. This sucks big time.

A good lesson learned – better planning necessary to stay in shape no matter what.

And the question of striking a balance between enough sleep and exercise – if we have very limited amount of time left for both, what to do?

Posted on

Sleeping is a Skill

young man resting in a sofa _ Horizontal

My late girlfriend used to stay awake most of the nights doing all kinds of things. When she became so tired she would sleep for just couple of hours and start the next day all energized. Those who do not know her would think that she must have slept well the night before. Little did she know that not able to sleep is both potential cause and symptom of having endocrine related illnesses, cancer included. We tried so many things to help her overcome the struggle to get better sleep. She eventually learned how to sleep well (most of the time) and it was a great triumph in helping her to stay healthy for a long period of time.

Many People Unlearned How to Sleep

When we are babies, we acquired the sleeping skill naturally since we can do absolutely nothing else. Over our life time, however, many people may have unlearned the skill because of many reasons. The most common one is having a lifestyle that keeps irregular sleeping schedule. Another is stress related anxiety that keeps the brain busy hence not able to sleep well or to fall asleep. Once the original sleeping pattern we learned from childhood is disrupted, many people can no longer find a way to get to sleep well anymore.

The trouble gets worse as many people try to improve their sleep through the use of alcohol and medications.

Drinking to get oneself to sleep works in the beginning but it will escalate to heavy drinking quickly if your not one of those lucky persons who are born with extremely low alcohol tolerance. Heavy drinking cannot get one to sleep. All it does is making you black out for couple of hours and the aftershock will make you wake up yet not able to sleep again.

Using medications also “works” if you consider turning into a zombie is actually sleeping. These drugs usually just turn off your senses (in greatly simplified terms) for specific amount of time. It helps people who desperately needing some sleep. The problem, however, is that such form of sleep is not a real sleep that our bodies need. Many of these sleeping pills have so many side-effects that they are now blamed for causing all kinds of illnesses themselves. One of common side-effects is that you cannot stop taking the drug or you will have very bad withdrawal symptoms including not able to sleep at all. Another side effect is that you will have serious memory loss after prolonged usage of such drugs.

Enough Sleep is Necessary for Longevity

During sleep our bodies repair itself. This is especially important for our brain to function properly. Only certain stage of sleep where our brain can go into its daily cleansing routine. Thus, people whose work is heavily analytical (e.g. trading) would have their performance degraded badly if they do not have enough sleep. I mentioned a hack to deal with lack of sleep by inducing sleep like behaviour in our brain.

When we are sick, it often reduces our ability to sleep well due to the ailments the illness is causing. But then the lack of enough sleep would induce further weaknesses with our immune system. So, it is just way too easy to go into the spiral down effect in terms of our health once you failed to keep your sleeping quality up.

If we have to choose between enough sleep and having enough exercise, my take is that enough sleep is always more important, given that you do in general have enough exercise most of the time. Remember, it is very easy to maintain or improve your overall health by integrating exercise into your daily lives. Going to the gym is completely overrated if you do not have the luxury due to a very hectic schedule.

Just like any other life decisions, be aware of the long term implications of depriving yourself of sleep so that you can schedule sleep just like you schedule exercise into your daily activities. This approach to sleep will go a long way in improving your quality of life.

Learning How to Sleep for the First Time

For those of you who are already in trouble on getting to sleep, there are countless number of approaches out there to help you to fall asleep.

One very consistently successful approach is to keep a bed time routine so that you can ease your mind into a stage that you know you have to go to sleep in certain amount of time. Many people simply wait until they seriously need to sleep as they cannot even keep their eyes open and then they go to bed. That’s exactly how one unlearn sleeping in the first place. The way we learned to sleep as a baby is that we are trained to be in an immobile position first, having the comfort on a bed or being hold onto a secure position and then we fall asleep.

So go search on youtube or whatever about sleeping routines. Many famous gurus like Tim Ferriss have videos on their sleeping routines all explained. There is no need for me to duplicate the effort here. Just watch some of them and see if you can create your own routine so that you can sleep better.

Many people who tried various strategies to get better sleep often give up when they do not see results the first few days. Somehow all these methods just seems not working for them. What they do not understand is that they are likely already unlearned how to sleep. It is like you are bed ridden for months and try to walk again. It can take days or even weeks to gain the sleeping skill back.

One great example illustrating the point is the switching of sleep schedule for those who have no problem sleeping in the first place. It takes usually 3 to 4 days to reprogram our minds to the new schedule, even if it is just 2 to 3 hours off from the original one. For those people who have trouble going to sleep in the first place, there is no real switching to a new schedule at all because they just cannot tell if there is a schedule change.

In short, it is important to have patience in training yourself to get to sleep. Do everything you have learned to improve your sleep and tough it out like you are training yourself with a rigorous exercise regime. Any improvement you get with your ability to sleep better will benefit yourself for the rest of your life. It’s worth it.

Tools to Assist Our Sleep

One recurring pattern I see with people whose health is extremely compromised is that they cannot sleep unless there is strong heat generated around them for couple of hours. For example, those people who are going through cancer treatments often feel coldness when they try to sleep. But that in turn makes it very difficult for them to sleep well as it feels so cold that they wake up from shivering. And it is not that they are not dressed properly or that they do not have blankets to keep them warm. It is the fact that they cannot generate enough heat themselves from inside their bodies.

Using regular heat fan or turning up the heat in the room does not help because they have the negative effect of drying up the air we breath in which can wake us up from dry throat.

The better solutions I found help a lot in this situation are heating equipment that target our bodies directly.

First, there are the heating blankets that cover on top of us. Those ones help but not very effective because the real coldness actually happens on the back of our bodies. In Chinese medicine point of view, when our heart lung functions are weak, the first sign is coldness radiating from our back directly behind the centre of our torso. Hence, putting the heating blankets underneath us work better. However, these heating blankets suffer the same issue as the regular heat fan for which they dry up the air nearby.

And then there is the bed warmer systems that are either water based or air based. These systems pump the warmed water or air into tubes that form a mesh, usually in the form of a mattress cover. These systems provide consistent warmth without the drawback like the blankets. I have recommended these systems to a number of people who have trouble sleeping and they did wonders for these people.

Finally, there is the biomat method which is based on something totally different from the other products mentioned above. There are a number of companies making these mats with far-infrared that help the person using them to generate heat within themselves. By far, I found these mats work the best and the improvement in sleep quality (and overall health) for many people has been amazing.

Supplements to Assist Our Sleep

Another approach to helping one sleep is the use of medications. As I explained earlier, the prescription stuff are not likely a good idea if you do not want long term side effects to get you eventually. However, there are many natural supplements out there that can help us. As long as the supplement is made with quality raw materials and no toxic fillers, you can safely use them without the side effects associated with the prescription drugs.

Remember that these supplements can assist us to get to sleep or improving the overall quality of sleep (I will explain later the difference), they cannot make you sleep. Sleeping is a function of our minds. If you have lost the skill to sleep, you have to train yourself to get it back.

One common supplement to help us sleep better is Melatonin. Many people tried using it and the results are totally mixed. After reading this article up to this point, you should know the reason. Melatonin can help only if you still know how to go into sleep. It promotes sleepiness, not knocking you out like the sleeping pills. Another aspect of using melatonin is that you cannot use too much of it. Many people buy the maximum dose ones hoping they work better. Well, it does not work that way. Too much melatonin in our system can lead to “after shock” where you are more awake several hours later if you are not asleep by then.

In Chinese medicine, there are at least 5 to 6 types of herbal medicine that promotes better sleep. There are also 3 to 4 types of herbs that putting us at ease to get us to sleep. All of them has to be used in moderation and has to have breaks if they are used for prolong period of time. For example, many of these herbs should be used at most for 2 weeks time and then one has to stop taking them for a week. Or, you can go with taking them 5 days a week and stop using them during weekends. It is not because of toxicity of the herbs that you need to take these “medicine holidays” like those chemo drugs. The need to take breaks is because of the build up of natural resistance of these substance. Continuous usage will lead to your body no longer reacting to the supplements with the desired effects.

So, it is alright to try out various herbal supplements to see which one works for you. Just remember that you should take breaks from using them so that their effectiveness on you can be maintained.

Falling Asleep is a Skill, Staying Asleep is Something Else

Out of the many sleeping issues, from Chinese medicine point of view, the one that actually stop people from having a good night of sleep is actually the ability to stay asleep. Yep, failing asleep can be trained but if you wake up some 5 minutes later because of your body is telling you that you must wake up you will be stuck with another night of no sleep until the sun rise.

To help us staying asleep, the environment plays an important role. Usually, people who are too deprived from sleep would crash to sleep for many hours from time to time. But that is not enough to repair the damage that has been done to their bodies. When they feel better after these black out type of sleep, they would return to the same problem of not able to stay asleep. That can often be resolved by making the sleeping environment more sleep friendly.

One very common practice nowadays is putting a TV in the bedroom facing the bed. And for some others, the dresser with a huge mirror facing the bed again. These objects, together with many shiny items, are your worst enemies in keeping you in sleep. In Chinese astrology, there are other bad implications with the arrangement but the most basic issue of not having a good night of sleep is now confirmed by Western research that we human indeed detect the reflections from these objects and react to them while we are sleeping. Hence, the disruption of our sleep by these objects in the night is a reality.

It is easy to resolve this problem. Just cover them with dark non-reflecting cloth materials when we are getting ready to go to sleep. If possible keep the room in absolute darkness. Using very deem night light only if it is necessary. Since everyone has a different tolerance level of light reflection while sleeping, it takes experiment to figure out your comfort level. Personally I can sleep in broad day light with no problem at all while I know some friends who need total darkness in a room to stay in sleep.

There are many factors affecting our sleeping environment like the room temperature, humidity, sound and smell. By controlling these four factors, one can create a “sleep mode” where one feel safe to sleep just like they are experiencing the comfort feeling when they are babies. I know someone who must use certain kind of aromatic smell at night to get to sleep and stay in sleep as well. There are many others who need certain kind of sound as a background noise to keep them sleeping because of their sensitivity in hearing other sound.

There are several Chinese herbs that are prescribed to patients to reduce the sensitivity of their senses while asleep which in turn improve the sleep quality a lot. I have not seen supplements made from these herbal ingredients yet. If I see that being offered in the supplement market, I will mention that in future post.

Better Mood, Better Health, Better Life

Take your time to figure out what you need to get yourself to sleep and keep yourself sleeping. Make this a project, a goal, for yourself. If there is something rewarding that is very much achievable, I guess sleeping is one of them.

I don’t think I need to talk about the many benefits of better sleep. After all, you are reading this article all the way up to this point. What I like to say is that better sleep leads to better mood and better health. And that goes a long way in improving your life and likely the ones around you.

Posted on

Better Time Management, Back to Content Curation and the Big Secret Projects

golden egg

Over the past several weeks, I have reorganized many things that I do into tasks delegated to either my team or contracted outside companies. The goal is to further reduce the amount of time I spend on managing the websites and day to day responsibilities in running these sites and services. I think I have achieve the milestone of taking back my time finally where I can focus more on what I deem most important going forward.

Part of this saved time will allow me to restart the content curation for Essence of Trading. Many of you enjoy the videos and product reviews I did in the past. They are precious resources of all traders and especially true for beginner traders. Now that I have some time on hand, I will be able to add new content and finding ways to better organize the site for future expansion. I am doing this also because of its practical purpose. Seriously, I don’t think I can ever write enough on the subject of trading and managing one’s trading business. Having the site dedicated to providing useful information for traders makes it much easier for me to point the aspiring traders to a centralized resource.

Here is the first new video for a long time.

This gets me thinking. Maybe the academia links I used to provide in the Daytradingbias user forum should be moved here too. After all, those are very valuable trading related research too. Will see what I am going to do with this soon.

Many readers and friends have been asking why there has been nearly no new posts on DaytradingBias but mainly the monthly newsletter and special updates. Well, I am not lazy and let the site goes autonomous. What happened is something quite interesting that has taken a life on its own.

I was writing a whole set of articles on trading Emini / SPY and forex some two years ago. And things were going very well. They were written with focus around two main themes – fully mechanical trading models based on a framework and long term consistency in trading performance. One way or another, as the work keep expanding, the articles turned into two organized projects that is way beyond just articles to be published on the site.

Part of this project is now in experiment for live trading which formed the foundation of my re-organized trading service for my clients. This firm focuses on providing long term stable return that is built on short term consistency in trading performance. I am very excited with the potential.

These two projects are still under development. Most likely I will release them in some form of training course or webinar. Lots of work still before I can release them but I know they will change the landscape in trading training forever.

Posted on

Soy Sauce: It Can Be the Reason You are Bloated

image

Many people use soy sauce in their cooking and at the dining table without thinking much about it. It is so common in Asian cuisines that it is assumed to be safe for everything. Well, it is not.

Soy sauce is a fermented product. We know very well from Chinese medical point of view that a person with any form of injury or internal inflammation should avoid fermented food at least until after the wound is closed up or that the inflammation is gone. However, many people would not notice that they are eating fermented food when they prepare their food with soy sauce. That’s one of the reasons why it takes so long for some people to recover from a simple shoulder injury (or post exercise stiffness) even if they cautiously avoiding food that is known to keep the inflammation staying longer. The most common form of reactions to soy sauce due to internal inflammation is bloating.

There is also this growing issue of soy sauce allergy. There are more and more cases of allergy reactions to soy sauce that were unnoticed before. Only until after some people actually go for allergy testing due to allergy reactions to other allergens like gluten that they discover that they are allergy to soy sauce as well. If you do have such problems, try switching to organic non-GMO soy sauce to see if the problem goes away. Many people I talked to actually have no allergy reactions since they switched.

Dining out at a non-Asian restaurant no longer guarantee that you are safe from soy sauce. Many Western restaurants prepare their food with a hint of soy sauce to improve the favour. So telling your server at the restaurant that you don’t want your food prepared with soy sauce can often help. One classic way to reduce the soy influence on our bodies is drinking green tea. If you find you are very bloated several hours after dining out at a Chinese restaurant, and that drinking green tea right after can bring you back to normal, you know you need to avoid or reduce soy sauce in your diet.

Finally, just try using simple sea salt or going fancy with Himalayan pink salt instead of using soy sauce for favouring. If you have never tried that, you will discover a whole new dimension of taste from the original ingredients that were masked out by soy sauce.

Seriously, putting soy sauce on everything is kind of boring, isn’t it?

Picture Source: Wikimedia.org