Relieve My Stress

One thing the on line poker player doesn’t have to worry about is what effect his show of emotion is having on his game. There is no one to react to your outbursts or your inability to maintain a “poker face”. You neither have to hide or fear expressing how you feel about the progress of the game. Indeed you can express the full range of emotion, and even pound on or break those items that may be close at hand in your moment of anger. And presuming you are playing at home you can do it with immunity.

One word of caution … your computer is off limits. As for people and pets who share you living space, surely they have already learned to maintain a safe distance when you are involved in serious poker play. If they fail to do so, that’s their misfortune.

While this advantage seems to be a great boon, it has the possibility of turning against you and having a negative impact on your mental health. There is a belief shared by many that the containment of our strong feelings is bad for us both as a person and as a player. The thought is that the more you down play the expression of your emotions the more those feelings build until they begin to influence your judgment and eventually lead to total stress out.

Recalling their negative feelings of “flashes of anger”, “blind rage” or even going “totally berserk” many players admit guilt. They like to point to the Japanese experience where rubber dolls are given – representing management- and employees use these to alleviate their feelings of frustration.

One needs to remember, however, that Japan is a culture radically different from ours, and hence very possibly with psychological make up that is radically incompatible with ours. Moreover, despite the rubber dolls and the liberal views in relation to porn and simulated violence, Japan still has some of the most appalling suicide statistics in the world, especially in its middle class marketing sector.

The consideration of those facts calls into question the legitimacy of taking out your frustrations on objects close at hand. A number of studies go so far as to suggest that the expression of our frustrations through violence leads to greater stress rather than a relaxation of the tensions.

Viewed from a rational position one concludes that the real cause of our frustration is not alleviated, and indeed may be further advanced by the repeated pounding of a rubber bag — the pounding encouraging anger rather than easing the stresses. Further, when the relief is not evident as a result of implementing the method imposed by his superiors, even greater frustration is likely to be felt.

When this is true in a poker player, it means that while thus variously and complicatedly irritated the player is significantly distracted from the game, possibly quite more so than if he or she did their best to fume quietly. Fear disrupts purpose and excessive joy disrupts creativity. In fact, any excessive emotion (as opposed to intense intellectual concentration) is intellectually incapacitating, especially in relation to the activity which engenders them.

To be able to contain anger (and we are not talking about “swallowing” lifetime frustrations like unfulfilled love or lack of appreciation) during a game should in fact be better and teach the player some discipline and poise in general. If it takes some effort at first, it should become easier and better for your health and career with a little time. If it doesn’t, it is possible to take a break, quite the one worst game of your life or even stop playing poker altogether for a while.

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