Tilt is a measurable, predictable degradation in decision quality after losses. Recognising it in real time is a skill. Recovering from it is a written protocol.
What tilt looks like
- Position sizes drift up.
- You take setups outside your written rules.
- You move stops further away "just to give it room".
- You add to losing trades.
- You feel rushed.
- You're trading multiple pairs at once when you usually trade one.
Real-time recognition
Build a tilt checklist into your pre-trade routine. Three questions: Am I taking this because it fits my rules, or because I lost the last one? Am I sized correctly? Have I hit my daily-loss cap?
Recovery protocol
- Hit daily loss limit → stop trading. Close the platform. Walk away.
- Sleep before journaling. Do not journal in the heat.
- Next morning: write what happened. Identify which rule was broken.
- Reduce position size by 50% on the next session. Rebuild confidence with discipline, not size.
- Trade only your highest-probability setup for 5 trades. Then return to normal.
Prevention
Hard daily-loss cap. Trade caps per day. Pre-defined "if I lose three in a row, I stop." Sleep. Eat. Hydrate. The boring physical inputs matter more than any chart pattern.
Next steps on ShaFX
- Free trading calculators — position size, pip value, margin, risk/reward, drawdown.
- Take a quiz on this topic and see what you missed.
- Glossary — precise definitions for every term used here.
- Compare brokers using our methodology.
Educational only. This article is general information for trader education. It is not financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a recommendation to trade. Trading CFDs and forex is high-risk and most retail investor accounts lose money. Read the Risk Disclosure.