you being awful hard on dustin. great thing about doctors you can go to 3 different ones , and get 3 different opinions.

There should be some sort of stress indicator we might use to gauge stress. A reminder to be cautious.
Maybe a wrist watch that beeps when some combination of body functions indicates high stress levels.
i dunno what the indications are, if they exist.. blood pressure? heart rate... probably need more than those to pinpoint stress and nothing else.

iirc, mood rings didn't work all that well.

He seems pretty sure he had a "vasal spasm" (which I assume is aasospasm) induced heart attack at the age of 23 that made him quit his dream of being a professional golfer, but I guess he could have been lying about that for the last 10 years.

Thinking back, whenever I started smashing stuff against the wall, it was a pretty good indicator that I was stressed.

So many players feel stress I'm starting to think stress evokes some kinda pleasure.. Maybe it releases endorphins.

yup.. i sure can guess good..

wiki again..
The term "endorphin rush" has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress,[2] supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins that prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals are released.

endorphins are like a natural form of morphine .. poker junkies..

i can definitly believe this.. after playing for a long time (like goin hard for a few months and multi tabling) your brain feels like its turning into mush.. don't even try to deny this.

Lol, I played 500 sngs today in just over 6 hours and my brain feels just fine

http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/i...od-for-you.php

+1

Grinding online affects different people differently. Some can take the long hours, the losses/beats in stride, and are very much able to manage their social lives.
Others get all stressed out.

Those "others" who do get stressed out are different individuals, and are affected differently by the stress.
Stress produces chemicals... You got your adrenalin .. call that an upper. Then there's endorphins.. call that a downer. It's actually a cocktail of several things. I haven't studied it but I'd guess there might be a hundred known things in this recipe.

Endorphins are not some lightweight pain killer. They can allow you to ignore a broken bone or a gunshot... instantly.. so you can get to a place of safety instead of just sitting there, rolled up in a ball, crying like a baby while you die.

Alcohol affects people differently. Not everyone likes the feeling, some stop after a few drinks, while others become alcoholics. Same might be true for stress. Some love it and want more of it, and some hate it.

Dusty obviously needs to play more to reduce stress since he's special: "The part of the brain that makes you irritable or moody was significantly less active while concentrating than it was while resting."

His line about online poker not being available previously somehow makes it bad reminds me of the people who assume natural=good. Cyanide is natural.

There are studies that show excessive gaming can lead to depression etc. but excessive anything often leads to problems. Practice moderation and we should be fine.

He disappeared from playing on American Card Room in January... Have been wondering why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphins

Pretty sure most ppl who multi table auto pilot thru most decisions , browse 2p2 , listen to music , skype/aim while playing , watch porn and dont rly pay attention to their bad beats . So its rly not very stressful imo

causation vs correlation

Cliffs:
1) Forms supersonic brainloop
2) Crushes pokers multitable en masse videogame champ
3) Millions $$$$$$$$$
4) ?????????
5) Works on shortgame with Dr. Amen
6) Stroke before 50, bad father.

Leatherass gonna Leatherass....

Unreadable BS blog post

Gambling also releases the same chemicals as when you do coke

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/11...brain-1230344/

thread i started 6mo ago in strat forum about the same

I wonder how many, and what sorts, of our bad behaviors are perpetuated and encouraged by the human body's ability to self-medicate.

MrHickey.. anything change since then?

Anyone know if this guy moved his blog? the link takes you to go daddy now.

Id like to recover the "This is my Brain on Poker" post.

appreciate any help, thanks

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blog...brain-on-poker

you can still read it here if you want to.
Btw its been mentioned plenty in this Thread before, but actually my main Point would be, how can the doctor even say it was Poker if he didnt do a scan before he even started playing Poker?Like you need a starting Point somewhere.
Its basically just an assumption.The stroke thing is almost certainly just made up imo, maybe this "doc" told him that.
Anyway, I wouldnt totally disregard the possibilty, but as with most things Id say you have to be vulnerable in the first place to be affected.
What I wanna say with that, there are Millions of People smoking Pot, most of them are doing fine, but some of them fall into a drug induced psychosis.

just my 2cents.

It might cause stress over a period of time but if he claims it can cause strokes before the age of 50 then he needs to actually provide some evidence rather than plucking this claim out from thin air.

I love avocados!

My assessment was similar.

Also came across as a shameless plug for the clinic.

Thanks for the link.

While stress is an important factor in health outcomes, much more emphasis would be placed on stress-control dynamics. You don't always have to reduce stress in someone's job if you can increase how much control they have. Poker can be pretty bad on the control scale obv, but that's mediated by how much you let variance impact you.

The rest of the article, just terrible obv. Stoner in 'too anxious to spend time with my daughter' shocker.

The most tilting thing for me is the way 'mind' and 'brain' are used interchangeably.

[x] the brain is the organ of the mind
[ ] it's appropriate to keep saying that problems arise because stressors keep 'damaging my brain'.

Glad to see that Jared Tendler rewired his brain though, at least this is a big plus.

Biggest risk factor from multitabling is probably gonna be just sitting all day. Sitting in general just absolutely terrible for your health.