Well now you got me on a bit of a rant. This is just some of the stuff that Jared taught me through both his videos and his personal coaching:
The quickie graph below explains it well. Y axis is performance. The higher, the better. X axis is your emotional level. The farther left, the more calm you are. The farther right, the more stressed you are.
There are like 4 general areas I guess. The first is when you're so calm/relaxed that your head is just out of the game. Your poker brain isn't warmed up, you're tired, you can't play too many tables, whatever.
As you get more aware and more warmed up, you approach 'the zone' which is a term I'm sure you've heard a million times. A good example is like a sports player who says he/she performs better under pressure. That's why. They've reached a point of mental stress where it's not quite past the threshold, but are just stressed enough that they're perfectly aware and perfectly focused. The 'zone' is the circled area.
The threshold is the dash right after that. Usually when you cross that point, there seriously is no return from it unless you take a break. Always keeping an eye on your mental state ensures that you never pass this point, or at least if you do, then you're able to recognize it and quit before you lose too much money or have a mental breakdown or whatever.
After that point is when you have 10 BI downswings.
Thanks, I'll definitely try rewriting it to be more positive.
How do you know when ur tilting though ?
Like what is your threshold ?
Well a good way of looking at it is to write down things you do while on your A-game. Like "always aware", "constantly checking stats", "taking my full time to think out every option", "staying one step ahead of your opponents by adjusting to their adjustments", etc.
Then look at your C-game. Usually it's just the opposite of those things.
I guess each person has different 'symptoms' when they reach their threshold; like mine would be when I start to feel physically hot in my chest and face, get frustrated at simple beats and start to act without thinking.
Yours might be more or less severe.
Again, if you have a stox sub, watch his videos and take notes. Then watch them again.