Several years ago I taught in a nursery for children with special needs, including autism, visual impairments and global delays. Sadly, a lot of the conditions we encountered were due to child abuse, whether on purpose (sexual/physical/emotional etc) or because parents themselves had special needs and couldn't look after themselves, let alone another human being. The things we saw and had to deal with on a daily basis were pretty horrific and so we were shown a strategy for dealing with it.
The one that I found most effective for me, is a worry box. We had a box by the door. It was just an empty box that was covered in coloured paper. The basic idea behind it was, when you came into work you put all your worries into the box, you made a mental note that you were leaving all your worries from home in the box and take out your work worries. Then at the end of the day you do the reverse, you leave all your worries from work in the box and take back out your home worries. This means you never get over-stressed by dealing with too much at the same time.
I did actually have a box at home which I used for the same thing but I don't need it any more, I am so well trained in the technique, but I DO make a note to leave worries at the door as I enter and leave buildings.
Whilst I am not comparing child abuse to taking a bad beat at poker, I do use the same technique when I am playing poker to limit the impact of beats and tilt.
If I do take a beat that is likely to affect me, I say to myself ‘that's poker' and that is often enough to remind me it is not important in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes if it is particularly bad or come after a string of beats, I may type ‘that's poker' into the chat box. This is nearly always enough of a trigger to calm me almost instantly. If it is not, I know I will always walk away just for 5 minutes.
I can't help you find your trigger to calm you and move on, but what I can say is if you can find your own, it will certainly help improve your game and that should improve your profits (by reducing losses).
Incidentally, there is a great book that has nothing to do with poker that you could read to improve your mental game. It is called S.U.M.O. by Paul McGee that you can get on Amazon for about $10. It stands for ‘Shut Up, Move On' and I would wholly recommend it.
It could just make the difference between being a winning or losing player.
If not you, who? If not now, when?
