highs and lows

[KenP 0]

Your 'situation' doesn't surprise me at all. That was intense.You need to take a vacation. Take your lady to Tahitti and veg in the sun. Get the battery recharged.

[RayPowers 0]

Nothing recharges me more than just going to hang out with my friends. It can be to play Poker, to go drinking, to shoot some hoops, to play some computer games, it doesn't really matter. Nothing fixes the lows so quickly as hanging out with someone who you really want to hang out with. Daniel obviously has Lori for that somewhat, but I have to admit I have yet to see a Journal that says "I was playing xbox WITH SOMEONE." Maybe its time to have a couple boy's nights out that aren't poker related, since that is what he does full time.. *SHRUG*Ray

[StackOSociety 0]

Playing high stakes poker can really bring out highs and lows, like a drug, and coming down can be harsh.All comments I've read are kinda beating around the bush...Daniel could very well be depressed and or sensitive to highs/lows, thus he is just invariably caught in a low period which could be now, what with the holidays, end of the year, POTY race and yada yada yada. Plus it seems like he is "expanding" his spiritual side, or having questions related to spirituality. When your doing some soul searching, it's usually cause something doesn't feel right in your life, your searching for an answer. All this can be really stressfull on a person's life and day to day well being. I could not imagine how Daniel's life could be any more stressfull, but it seems like he tries his hardest at times to do just that! I mean, just read what he does in his journal... answer a gajillion emails, play tournaments, play high stakes at bellagio, million appointments in between, fly every which way and deal with those hassles, I get tired just from reading! Seems like he spends an awful lot of time soloing on the X-box and/or Tivo. These seem like his coping mechanisms for all the stress. He could be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD, which is brought on by less light, from the changing seasons. Daniel writes how much he likes the hot weather and despises the cold, and is therefore more comfortable in Vegas than Toronto, where he grew up. That is a common thing for sufferers of SAD to gravitate towards warmer, sunnier climates and have a certain displeasure to returning to colder ones. The solution is you have to a buy a certain kind of light that stimulates the brain into thinking it is summer. He could post that thing up on his couch and be getting "sun therapy" while he plays X-box and Tivo's. You can laugh at this point, but depression is a very serious illness that we will all probably get sometime in or life, luckily in only brief bursts but for others it is a common malady that can swing into and out of your life for months. Depression can and will leave on it's own though, leading many to just suffer in the rut knowing they will "come out of it". However, there is a multitude of ways to attack the problem and ease one's length and intensity of suffering. The most important thing is to do something about it, becuase your going to do something about it anyway... I think Stu Ungar died becuase he chose the wrong therapy to address a common malady, depression. I know Daniel won't do that, but he could still do things to cope that are a detremint to his overall well being and health. Anyway, Good Luck to Daniel on his journey through the trying times,StackOSociety

[DanielNegreanu 141]

I thought your post was very well written and informative. Thanks for that...

[rxq 0]

Now that's a cool avatar. If you ask me and I know your not. What happens to you is not that dissimilar to a sugar rush. When you eat ton of sugar you body adjust and when you run out of sugar, you become sluggish. Without getting to technical (neurotransmitter, reuptake inhibitors, ETC) you body compensate for the natural high you have been on. It is very comparable to "Manic Monday" ecstasy users have. The most important thing to have is quiet time, where you don't even think about what you did. Recharge the batteries so to speak. You are right, some people like that natural high so much that they seek artificial means to obtain that natural high and fall short and into a deep hole. My 2 cents. I know it would have been better spent at the $.01-$02 table.