Do you trade on days when you have slept badly? How do you decide?

Sleep affects attention, patience and the quality of decisions, and a trader who has slept badly may read a chart differently from one who has slept well. That is hard to measure in the moment, which is why many members set a rule in advance rather than deciding each morning. The rule can be as simple as no new positions on a poor night, or a smaller size on a day after a late release.

How to use leverage responsibly covers the limits that protect an account when judgement is weaker than usual, and the same principles apply when tiredness is the reason. The question is how you tell whether you are fit to trade, and what you do when the answer is no. Members often find that the hardest part is accepting that a day's plan can be to do nothing.

We would like to hear your rule:

• Do you trade on days when you have slept badly? What is your rule?
• How do you tell tiredness from a normal mood on a trading morning?
• Have you made a decision while tired that you regretted? What changed afterwards?
• What would you tell someone who insists on trading through a sleepless night?

Please share your own approach and reasoning, not calls for others to copy. Posts that promise a direction or sell signals will be removed.