Why Coffee Hurts your Poker Results

Hey there, UPSWING FAM! Today we mix everything with a guest article by “coach” Bahman Zarghami who will help you with your mental game. Even if you don’t want to release your daily coffee, this short article is worth reading so you can better understand stress and anxiety because they are related to poker.

Poker players around the world start their day with a cup of Joe. Most people think it’s harmless, some even think it’s healthy. In my view, nothing can be further than the truth. Do you drink coffee, energy drinks or cola; Caffeine might spend your money.

As a poker player you are very familiar with stress, but to truly understand your mind and body, you need to understand the stress mechanism. Stress is your physical, mental or emotional reaction for anything in your life that requires your direct attention. This can happen when you drink bad, lose connection during the final table, or get a check-on all-in on the river when you have second beans against the most tight players you have ever seen.

Let’s use the metaphor to explain what stress is done to your body.
(We will return to coffee soon.) It’s late at night, you wake up and grind a few tables. Suddenly you heard a big sound with some sound downstairs. You don’t expect guests, so you’re slowly walking downstairs and seeing some masked men in black clothes. People break your home! People who break your house are stress triggers, and instantly the alarm sounds in your body. Hypothalamus, your brain region, sends a signal to your adrenal gland. Your adrenal gland instantly produces two types of hormones:

• Cortisol – Stress hormones produced your body to wake up in the morning and also regulate your metabolism and help reduce inflammation.
• Adrenaline – Hormones that are only released your brain in a fight or flight situation, and it’s about trucks.

In situations like this you pass three phases, and this first is called the alarm phase. During the alarm phase, you become a sort of super temporary human. Your body will help you to withstand hunger, fix the body, feel less pain and more facilities that are useful when facing battle situations or flights. But all things have the price.

When stress leaves, linin anxiety.
The second phase is the resistance phase, and it is called for a reason. Your body builds resistance until you are really exhausted or the trigger stress is removed. Now we reach the three phase, called the fatigue phase. It’s time to repay the loan that you borrow from your body for temporary superhuman skills.

 

You are tired, maybe not physically, but mentally. You may:

• Be annoyed.
• Avoid responsibility and social interaction.
• Become self-destructive.
• Start making bad decisions.

Potential physical effects are:

• Add weight
• Problems sleep
• Heart disease
• Problems with memory and concentration.

Some of these may sound familiar to you. To add a list of this long problem, introduce …

…WORRY.

This term is increasingly used today, but it is not always clear what exactly. Anxiety is what lingers when stress is no longer. Stress is a psychological pain of a clear trigger. Anxiety does not have a clear source, but you can certainly feel it and it affects everything you do. It can create significant discomfort and even lead to long-term anxiety or panic attacks.

What is the relationship of coffee with all this? There is a diagnosis called substance / anxiety disorders caused by treatment. Consider several effects of caffeine:

• Increase blood pressure
• Discomfort in the stomach, digestive problems
• Insomnia
• Worry
• Fast heartbeat
• Fatigue
• Feel anxious

If you put this effect next to a panic attack or anxiety, you really won’t see the difference in symptoms. Do not take it wrong; I do not state that coffee always causes anxiety or panic disorder. I stated that high-performance professionals in a high stress environment would be wise to avoid substances that add more stress and anxiety to their system. You should try to find a reason why you think you need coffee to appear at a high level, because in reality a healthy human with a balanced diet and the right exercise has a lot of natural energy to appear at a high level.

Fair points, coaches, but I drank it because I like it.

Is this really worth everything that happens to your mind and body?

I believe what you say, but I have never experienced it personally – I only drank one cup a day.

I have talked to many clients and even people who drink only one cup one day or withdrawal effects are less experienced because of caffeine addiction. Don’t forget it is a substance that changes the mind and one of the strongest psycho’s active drugs. That’s not a joke.

Sure, but I think I can handle a few cups of coffee.

That’s quite extraordinary. Allow me to offer you a challenge. I with this challenging every coffee drinker who read this article to stop caffeine for at least one week – or 30 days if you are willing to truly challenge yourself – and experience a difference in your feelings.