After rereading The life cycle of a poker player, a post by Brandon Adams made in the fall of 2008, I began considering the possibility that poker may indeed have long term effects on my cognitive abilities due to the inevitable stress as result of inevitable swings. Studies have shown that during times of stress the body releases hormones, mainly adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol, which can decrease the size of the hippocampus over time. A major role of the hippocampus is in memory, and studies have shown that its not unusual for people with chronic stress to report forgetfulness and difficulty learning. Personally, i feel that my short term memory and ability to learn new information has gotten worse since starting poker. On the other hand, my ability to reason and use logic to problem solve has increased. Obv, everyone is different, but i would like to know if anyone has experienced this trend or any kind of changes in cognitive function since playing poker.

I think it can damage a persons personality negatively for sure, dunno about brain function however.

I grew up with a natural trend towards critical thinking as an after-the-fact process. Poker has made me think more actively about things as they happen. I've also had the logic and reasoning bumps.

My short-term memory has not changed much... it's always been plagued by weak spots. My stress level and misc. forgetfulness has been high ever since I learned to play, but there are external factors that discount poker as a primary cause (although it's not entirely out of the question). I know I've convincingly lied to myself in the past, so I'm interested to hear some other experiences, as it may cause me to reevaluate this possible link.

Re: stanski's thought, getting your personality damaged or altered in the direction of aggression or anger can substantially impact the level of stress in your life.

mmm, maybe.

but using proper bankroll management, players should be able to alleviate a lot of the stress involved. when i have a healthy roll, im rarely stressed while playing. only on the worst few downswings of the year do i get very stressed.

secondly, players have to realize the elevated levels of stress involved with playing for a living, and take active steps to alleviate it. i exercise a lot, which helps. i also get a few professional hour long massages every month. these help a lot. and eating healthy diets will indirectly help, as it will keep you feeling good for longer at the tables.

theres probably more things you can do that im not thinking about at the moment. but how much stress you live with on a daily basis is largely up to each person. (oh, you could also take yoga meditation classes or something...these would no doubt help with stress.)

oh, and get plenty of sex.

Perhaps, but it also has a positive effect on your brain, i.e. analytical skills, dealing with incomplete information, ...

I began playing at micro limits and experienced a lot of stress at that moment, because I thought shortminded and not on the earnings of long terms.

It's very important when u have stress to take a day off or sometimes a week depending on the grade of stress.

How to prevent stress: Is to become spiritual then it's easy to accept the bad beats.

There are many lifestyles that can combine with poker that will succeed, some have an enourmous ego and excel in willpower to win, thus the universe will give. (law of attraction)

Some accept the facts of poker and use their brain to statistically count out every aspect of the game and little use negative emotions to associate with bad beats.
So their mind gets clearer, and accept easier the facts.

Gratefullness and using positive empowerments when things go well in poker is a form of giving a good feel mode, that prevents stress.

I am mastering these technics and everytime I get a bad beat I remember the times I gave bad beats and when I was gratefull for it.

I have programmed myself to only become negative when I make a mistake, I use all my negative emotions the reduce the neurons in my brains to choose the same dumb decisions I made the last time.

Poker is all about experiencing situations, and creating new neuronnetworks to be implemented in new/old situations.

I am now playing 50-100 at pokerstars under the name godlove1986. You wanna see me play come and look I am only for 2 weeks (30 hours) there from this moment and won over 400 dollars already.

I don't have any friends yet I am gonna add you guys all on this thread.

bye

After playing poker for many years I somehow understand roadrage better. It's pretty similar to tilt.

This made me lol. I never had problems with roadrage, but through poker and tilt, I've learned to manage my emotions when something goes wrong in real life.

The oldest people who've played poker (Doyle, et al) don't seem to have any short term memory problems outside of the ordinary for their age groups.

Someone just posted a story about Doyle putting his holecards in his pocket by accident. But you could expect that kind of senile behavior from anybody his age, non-poker players included.

I guess poker could indirectly damage your brain, because some players who try to cope with the stress resort to drugs and alcohol, which directly damages your brain.

Judging by the things written in the chat box of most major sites, with special emphasis on the items in caps locks, one can clearly observe brain damage in some poker players.

There's certainly a correlation between playing poker and brain damage. Whether or not this indicates causality is a separate matter entirely. Further observation of the users 'URMOM420', 'CrackIzGood', and 'THATSMYWIFE87' are required.

Anything involving major swings of money can change the brain chemistry, for sure. It could be stock trading, betting horses, playing poker, etc.

There is a good horse betting joke that may help expain. It goes something like this:

"I knew a guy who lost everything betting horses. He lost his job. He lost his car. And he lost his family and friends. He lost all of his money....every single dollar. Then he made mental bets and lost his mind".

I dont think poker is the issue here in this relation, more so than the way we all handle stress period. While I will bitch about a hand, in general I don't let it bother me, perhaps behing Buddhist helps w/ dealing w/ stress in general but I think it's how we handle stress.