The Five Variables Behind Execution Fatigue
A deep look into mental resistance, execution fatigue, and the quiet erosion of performance.
I went on holiday to Brazil last month, and my boyfriend and I started noticing a pattern:
We got way more tired on the days we went to the beach than on the days we stayed at the hotel pool.
We weren’t doing much at the beach. Yet when we’d arrive home, we were exhausted.
As we got curious, we started coming up with reasons, but nothing fully explained it.
So we asked AI why.
It turns out the beach has far more sensory input than a pool:
the movement of the sea
the brightness from the sun reflecting on the sand
the sound of people and the waves
the wind
It’s a heavy-stimuli environment. Your brain is processing far more than you consciously realize.
The moment I read that, I tied it back to trading.
Think about the amount of stimuli in the market during just one session:
the market is never the same
multiple timeframes for analysis
constantly updating tools and news
for some, multiple tickers, markets, screens
That is a lot for the brain to absorb.
A client once told me:
At the end of the session, I feel drained. I often finish green, but it costs me so much mental energy that I start doubting if all the effort is worth it.
Another reader commented recently:
The trade takes so long to reach target — back and forth, mentally exhausting. It finally wins… but now I’m risk averse. The next valid setup appears and I can’t take it because if it loses quickly it invalidates all the energy I spent.
It’s not only the doing that creates fatigue — the mental load is the toughest part.
And lately, I’ve been thinking more about this finite resource called focus and alertness. It seems far more dependent on the amount of stimuli we absorb than anything else.
For example, I’m an anxious person. On mornings when I wake up with many items on my to-do list, I’m more likely to multitask. And the more stimuli I absorb from the moment I wake, the faster my alertness fades. But when I limit what I expose myself to (no phone, no email, no new tabs) my focus lasts way longer.
The brain was built to work efficiently with one thing at a time, not through multitasking.
And trading is multitasking by default.
Execution Fatigue
Most traders assume risk tolerance is a fixed personality trait. And yes, it varies from trader to trader — influencing things like position sizing.
But risk tolerance is also a finite resource. It gets drained.
Which is why you don’t have the same tolerance for risk at the end of the session as you did at the beginning.
Across coaching work, reader comments, and real-world trading floor experience, I’ve noticed the same pattern:
Your ability to take the next trade isn’t only influenced by your PnL — it’s influenced by the mental cost of what you just lived through.
This is what I call Execution Fatigue.
In this post, I talk about:
The five variables that drain your risk tolerance throughout the day
Why your best decisions happen early in the session — and how to extend that clarity
Practical ways elite traders conserve mental capital
Let’s dive in!