On Tilt
Regulating erratic aggressiveness before it spirals
Hi (No) Wonder-ers,
In a previous life I used to play poker professionally.
(No I didn’t, but you should see your faces!)
Anyone who has played a few hands of poker and/or watched “Rounders” knows that poker imitates life: you get dealt a hand (some better than others!), read and interact with others, place/call bets, people fold, and ultimately the best remaining hand takes the pot. All in the context of a larger system designed to siphon resources away for itself.
Sometimes life is going smoothly enough to find a rhythm conducive to steady gains, or at least breaking even. And then a sudden loss places a player on TILT.
When a poker player is on TILT, they start acting and playing aggressively after sustaining an unexpected loss (a “bad beat”) during a time they thought they had an advantage. For instance, Player 1 might go on tilt if their pocket aces ultimately lose to Player 2’s offsuit 7-2 that miraculously completed its flush or full house on the final card. Player 1 might get angry at a perceived unfairness (“Who the hell preflop raises with offsuit 7-2?! How did those crappy cards beat my set of aces?”), then start playing with erratic aggression in an attempt to “get even” or “take back what’s rightfully mine.” This, in turn, activates the fight-or-flight response, compromises analytical judgment, worsens play, increases losses, and the cycle continues until the player walks away… or loses their entire bankroll.
We see this in life, as well. People might drive more aggressively (and less safely) if they get caught in a traffic jam in order to try and recover the lost time, thereby allowing any number of adverse outcomes (getting pulled over for speeding, getting in an accident, etc.). Any unexpected, unfair loss – a loved one, a relationship, a job prospect, a valued item – can theoretically put us on tilt. And unfortunately we remain on tilt, on the wrong side of the Yerkes-Dodson curve, until we do something to break the tilt cycle. That “something” can be as simple as taking a mindful break from the task at hand, changing the scenery temporarily, or cognitively reframing the situation.
The lot of the so-called involuntarily celibate (“incels”) reflects this too. Many of us cis men are raised with a particular worldview (“Patriarchy,” From the Vault) that if we check off a vague set of “nice guy boxes,” the universe will ensure us companionship and emotional satisfaction. We aren’t raised to discern, articulate, regulate, and advocate for our emotional needs. Thus when the patriarchal myth fails to materialize – and it always does! – it’s a perceived injustice, akin to losing with pocket aces, that puts us at risk for going on tilt. If unequipped with the proper skills to manage tilt, we’ll behave with increasingly erratic aggression that compromises judgment and results, compounding the tilt cycle right up until its violent (and possibly fatal) end.
You may be asking yourself, “Self, how can I avoid a similar fate? How can I sidestep tilt? If I’m on tilt, how can I recognize it early on so I don’t spiral?”
An important part of avoiding tilt altogether is managing expectations; specifically, accepting the irrelevance of our “shoulds” and checking them at the door.
At the poker table we can tell ourselves that our pocket aces “should” win, but doing so discounts variance. When our pocket aces lose, that’s variance – a normal part of the game. Accepting variance upfront helps us accept the outcomes of variance; i.e., statistically unlikely losses. As for the relationship context, expectation management may take the form of questioning our worldview and accepting that we may not have the entire story. It may also take the form of accepting that fully autonomous people don’t always want what we’ve been raised to believe they “should.” Letting go of these expectations can help us stop “should-ing” all over ourselves, accept things as they truly are, and avoid altogether the perceived injustice that sends us into tilt.
Though we can’t always sidestep tilt altogether, science does show us ways we can mindfully recognize and manage tilt early in the cycle. When we’re on tilt, we manifest the physiological signs of fight-or-flight: increased heart rate, quick shallow breaths, muscles clenching, etc. We have a desire for vengeance or “payback.” We even have specific eye/facial movements that enterprising scientists are hoping to use for an automated “tilt detector.” If we take a moment we can feel these, recognize them for what they are, and sense our descent into tilt before we go too far down the rabbit hole.
Mindfulness can also help us stop the tilt cycle by bringing us into the present, the here and now, our own body. Concentrating on the feeling of our breaths, deepening them, and lub-dub of our heartbeats as they slow down, hearing the hum of the air conditioner, smelling the tang of your roommate’s silent-but-deadly fart as it hits your olfactory nerve… all of these sensations will take your focus away from the past (where “I’ve been unfairly wronged!” lives) and the future (where “I’ve got to get even!” lives)… and into the present where it belongs. Often this will also require a change of scenery to distance ourselves from the stimulus that started the tilt cycle in the first place.
Once we’ve re-centered ourselves into the here and now, cognitive reframing can help us snap out of the tilt cycle and break it. “Shit happens, what’s done is done.” “That didn’t work, so we can learn from it and try something else that might.” “One bad result doesn’t define me.” “Onward and upward.”
By treating our L’s as data points, rather than evidence of some cosmic vendetta against us personally, we can improve where the data points show it’s possible to do so – and, ultimately, take fewer of these L’s. (Are you listening, 2024 White Sox?)
Shuffle Up And Deal,
Merrit
Abbott Sport Psychology
https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/79328/1/Wei_etal_ICMR2016_The_science_and_detection_of_tilting.pdf