How many of you have taken a pause while trading and how did it work for you? Pause can be due to any reason. Big Losses, confusion or too much profit.
Or are you a compulsive trader who is addicted to markets and want to trade everyday?
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I did, wouldn’t say it impacted me a lot in my life. Break was not for the losses but not sure if its the right word, kind of became addicted to the excitement that stock market provides. Also, started emotional decisions take over rational ones.
Taking a break helped in knowing that overtrading or trading continuously does not work. It has been 2 years i do not regularly trade and majorly focused on investments. Not a big change but i think im calmer than i would have been if it was not for a break
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Yes, the Bull Rally thought me never to go against the trend no matter how high the price goes! Bear Market taught me never try to time the bottom!
Instead of taking a break, I took a break from punching orders and practice more on trend analysing. I prepared my mind to change at any given time! This volatility taught me a lot of things!
Not pushing orders and analysing the charts with their price action helps a lot to understand what affects the price changes. Earlier I used a lot of terms like “Key Levels”, “Support/Resistance” and “Oversold/Overbought” but all these don’t work if you want a kickass sniping accuracy!
Taking a pause just from punching orders helps to be unbiased about the trend and understand the price action much better!
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Trading the markets can be a mix of excitement and stress. It’s exciting to put on trades. It’s a thrill. You feel energized and thrive on the action. But it’s also stressful. You’re constantly putting your ego and money on the line. If you are not careful, it can use up all your psychological energy. Although it may be psychologically difficult to take a vacation, taking one is essential for maintaining psychological health.
Sharing just an excerpt from “Don’t Overwork: Take a Break”. Check out the entire chapter which just talks about why it is important to take time off, on Varsity 
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Never taken a pause. Never know when that big trend is around the corner. So always in the market. Besides am a systematic trader in auto mode. Well capitalized relative to my position size. So am mostly in fire and forget mode.
I haven’t taken a pause either since i started trading profitably. Not missed a single day of trading ( except Diwali sessions that i don’t trade).
Biggest problem is that profitable trading often depends on outliers. So by taking a complete break, you take a chance that you will miss those and they can make a decent portion of the income for the year if you get unlucky. Also, outliers can happen between two tough periods and by missing the profits you can basically double up on your drawdowns if timed badly.
ofc, if someone can somehow make money very consistently in a straight line and does not depend on outliers, then all good.
Best way out is to automate and not have to deal with day to day work of trading. That way you don’t have to look and there are no ups and downs. Or shift to higher timeframe only where work should be much lower. Even here you will need to at least be aware enough to fix things if they break, like they did when Z cancelled all stop orders for some recently.
But yeah, i do agree that we cannot keep working, burnout will be inevitable. I take large breaks where i don’t do anything for days other than just maintenance of automated systems. No idea how discretionary guys can sustain over long term.
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Taking a break pre-profitable & post-profitable are two completely different things.
Pre-profitable: you definitely need to have skin in the game to learn to trade well. You take break in this phase by not putting money on the table but still showing up everyday to study and learn from the markets.
post-profitable: Not all market conditions are tradable. Every market participant who is profitable understands that there are times when doing nothing offers the best outcome. Times when i took a break:
*2017: the volatility of the market was in the gutter and nifty pretty much just grinned up slowly enough to not be able to capture any big trends or profit from neutral trades. Took small breaks throughout the year.
*late 2018-19: the noise in the market was too much and couldn’t see any clear opportunities
*2020: profited from the initial fall in early march and sat out till june, too much uncertainty
*2023: saw too many spikes and a clear change in intraday price action, took break late jan-early feb.
I believe that taking a pause from trading can be a wise decision, as it allows me to reflect on my trading strategy, assess my risk tolerance, and review my financial goals. During this time, I can also use the opportunity to learn new trading skills, study the market trends, and develop a more disciplined trading plan that aligns with my objectives.
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Market provides opportunities for trades only when there is 
Trend 
except for scalpers.
In range bound markets, its always better to keep hands away from market.
Being a trend follower, trade rarely when there is a good opportunity towards the side of trend. Understanding the above helps to trade with patience if one is compulsive trader cause compulsive traders try to find opportunity in any direction or setup, but they forget the mother of price ie. Trend!