Tilt is a state, and it announces itself
Tilt is borrowed from poker: a state where emotion has replaced process, and you continue playing because stopping feels like accepting the loss.
The critical property is that it does not feel like tilt from the inside. It feels like determination, or conviction, or seeing something the market has not priced yet. The tilted trader is not aware they are tilted. That is why you cannot rely on noticing it in the moment — you have to catch it by its symptoms instead.
What it actually is
After consecutive losses, measurable things change. Attention narrows. Risk tolerance rises. The brain treats the losses as a problem to be solved *now*, and urgency crowds out the slow, comparative thinking that good trade selection requires.
This is not weakness and it is not specific to trading. It is the ordinary human response to a run of negative outcomes under uncertainty. Knowing that helps, because it means the fix is structural rather than moral — you do not fix tilt by resolving to be more disciplined.
The observable symptoms
You will not feel tilted. You can check whether you are: