Premium course
Video/Text
Research Study
71 Lessons
0% Not started
About Project ALPHA
Module Content
A detailed walk-through and foundational introduction to Project Alpha.
This study is confidential and contains proprietary materials and intellectual property. Participants of the study must agree to maintain full confidentiality in regard to their participation in this study, unless written permission is granted.
Participation in Project ALPHA is voluntary and by participating in Project ALPHA, you agree to the terms of the study. Please read and complete the Informed Consent Form.
Refer to this Road Map throughout the study when needed.
Research study assessment schedule and overview of expectations.
The hypothesis behind Project Alpha is based on proven science. In the next two lessons, we'll take a deeper look into the battle between alpha and high beta brainwave states.
In this lesson, we take a closer look at how the internal world of the mind perfectly mirrors the external world of our body.
The study is built on three daily practices. We call them the three daily pillars. Everything you do for the next 90 days runs through one of these three.
This is a brief visual lesson that takes you to Pat's office where you sit with him in Costa Rica. What will you see?
The CORE ALPHA meditation series will be the backbone of your daily practice for this entire study.
Download the printable daily checklist. Recommendation: print multiple copies, or laminate. Keep next to monitor.
What to expect this week. The goal: become comfortable with the technology and establish your baseline. No trading yet. No pressure. Just preparation.
Order your Muse device. Be sure to use coupon code provided to get the 25% off discount.
Download and install instructions (iOS/Android). Connecting to the Muse headband. Verifying signal quality (all four sensors green). Confirming automatic data sync. Overview of the Stroop and nBack exercises within the app.
Step-by-step headband setup. Unboxing, fitting (forehead sensors on skin, earpieces snug), pairing with phone/tablet. Common fit issues and fixes. Photos or short video showing correct placement.
Study begins with five paper trading session to establish the most non-emotional baseline of brainwave activity. This will be the starting point, and will allow us to compare both brainwaves and heart rate over throughout the duration of the study.
This questionnaire establishes your baseline profile before the study begins.
Completing the baseline cognitive assessment through the MUSE app: eyes open session followed by eyes closed session. Explains what this establishes (baseline alpha activity, peak alpha frequency, brainwave profile). Mark complete when recorded.
Stroop training is included in the MUSE app as part of the study. This lessons introduces nearly a century of science behind impulse control - and how to catch yourself.
nBack training is also included in the MUSE app as part of the study. It is used in cognitive neuroscience for studying and improving working memory while under load.
Guided walkthrough of completing a practice CORE ALPHA meditation with the headband on and the ALPHA app recording. What to expect. How it should feel. Don’t worry if your mind wanders — that’s normal. Complete 2–3 practice sessions before Day 1.
Nothing else in this series works until the participant can truly let go of needing to control outcomes. Surrender is not passive resignation — it is the active, deliberate release of attachment to any specific result.
Why journaling matters for this study. What to write: observations about your mental state, initial impressions from practice sessions, anything you notice about your relationship to trading. This is qualitative data that supplements EEG. Keep it simple — 5 minutes per day.
New features specific for Project ALPHA study participants.
Completion-tracked checklist confirming: Muse headband received and paired, ALPHA app installed and connected, Size UP access confirmed, brokerage account funded ($2,500), Trick Trades membership active, daily checklist printed. Mark complete when all items are done.
Final confirmation checklist: baseline cognitive assessment recorded, intake questionnaire submitted, 2–3 practice sessions completed, Stroop/nBack familiarization done, journal started. Reminder: Day 1 begins with paper trading. Your only job is to follow the protocol.
In this phase of the study, we establish the baselines that we'll use as a reference point for emotional and financial progress over the next 90 days. This lessons sets clear expectations for the next 30 days.
Paper trading correctly is one of the most critical parts of this study and requires full professional discipline from the start.
Day 6 guidance. This is where financial fear potentially re-enters the equation. Notice the difference in your body between paper and live trading. That difference is exactly what the study measures. Don’t fight it. Observe it.
The post-market debrief appears on your daily checklist as a single line item. This lesson explains exactly what it is, why the sequence matters, and what you're supposed to do during it.
Detailed walkthrough of a complete study day from pre-market through evening. Covers each block: headband connection, CORE ALPHA session, breath-linked chart observation, trading, post-market debrief, Stroop/nBack training, journaling. Short video showing the flow.
How was your first week? What to expect: the routine feels awkward at first. The headband takes getting used to. Your mind will wander during meditation — that’s the training, not a failure. Reminder to complete weekly cognitive assessment and weekly check-in form.
Day 6 guidance. This is where financial fear potentially re-enters the equation. Notice the difference in your body between paper and live trading. That difference is exactly what the study measures. Don’t fight it. Observe it.
How was your first week? What to expect: the routine feels awkward at first. The headband takes getting used to. Your mind will wander during meditation — that’s the training, not a failure. Reminder to complete weekly cognitive assessment and weekly check-in form.
Introduction to the second meditation. One-page concept summary: neutrality means refusing to label outcomes as good or bad — both poles trigger high-beta. Printable mantra card. “What to notice this week” guide: observe what happens in your body when a trade goes green vs. red. Is the reaction different? It shouldn’t be.
This lesson gives you enough context to understand what's being measured — and why that understanding makes the practice more meaningful. It is not a guide to interpreting your own data. That is Dr. Krigolson's job, not yours.
This is the check-in where things start getting interesting. Not because anything dramatic has happened, but because three weeks of consistent practice is long enough for something to begin shifting — even if you haven't fully noticed it yet. This lesson is designed to help you see it.
There is one archetype that is real. One identity that is not a test, not a station, not a pattern to be named and released. It is the destination. Everything else is the road that leads to it.
This lesson covers two things: how to recover when the protocol gets disrupted, and how to recognize the specific pattern driving it. Because by now — three weeks in — that pattern has shown up enough times to have a shape. And a shape can be named.
Twenty-eight days. Four weeks of daily protocol. Twenty-two live trading sessions. Four CORE ALPHA meditations each week. Roughly 120 Stroop and nBack sessions. Four post-market debriefs every week, four rounds of Questions of Truth, four written session intentions.
In Phase 1 you were learning to run the protocol consistently. In Phase 2 you learn to use it as a real-time instrument — to catch what's happening in your brain state as it's happening, not after the fact.
Phase 2 is about pushing your observation point earlier in the sequence — from the decision stage back to the thought stage, and eventually back to the body stage where the shift first appears. That's where the choice is. That's where the interrupt works.
This week introduced a new focus: catching the shift. Not after the session, not in the debrief — in the moment, as it's happening. Today's check-in is calibrated to that focus.
The first two sessions trained you to let go (surrender) and to stop reacting (neutrality). Now the question becomes: if you’re not reacting, what are you doing instead? The answer is: acting with intention.
Forty-five days in — half the study behind you, half ahead. The mid-study cognitive assessment arrives on Day 45, which means Dr. Krigolson's team will soon have their first direct comparison to your Day -7 baseline. Forty-five days of data on both sides of that measurement.
Halfway through the study. This is also the day of your mid-study cognitive assessment. Reflection prompt: what has changed about how you relate to trading?
The assessment asked you to sit still, relax, and let your brain be measured. No instructions on what to produce. No performance that would help. Just you, the headband, and the data that your nervous system generated without your input.
The gap between “I practice calm trading” and “I am a calm trader” is the difference between habit and identity. Habits can be broken under pressure. Identity holds.
Eight weeks. You’ve been doing this for almost two months. The routine should feel like a part of your day, not something extra. If it still feels forced, that’s information — journal about what’s in the way.
This lesson asks a simple question: after fifty-seven days and four CORE ALPHA sessions, what is the current state of your archetype? Not where you hoped it would be. Where it actually is.
This lesson is not instructional. There is nothing to do here except stop and look clearly at what Phase 2 actually produced — before Phase 3 begins to demand your full attention.
What Phase 3 is about: consistency. All three pillars running at full protocol. The question is no longer “Can I do this?” It’s “Who am I becoming?” The data will show the answer.
A critical teaching for this phase. When things start working, discipline feels easy. And easy is a pole. This lesson addresses the risk of discipline erosion from success — the day you feel like you’ve made it is the most dangerous day. Mastery is not a destination. It’s a daily return.
Eight weeks. You’ve been doing this for almost two months. The routine should feel like a part of your day, not something extra. If it still feels forced, that’s information — journal about what’s in the way.
The final session is not about learning something new. It is about integrating everything that came before into a single, sustainable practice. Surrender, neutrality, intention, and identity are now established.
Eight weeks. You’ve been doing this for almost two months. The routine should feel like a part of your day, not something extra. If it still feels forced, that’s information — journal about what’s in the way.
There is a moment in the development of every trader who does this work honestly — and you will know it when it arrives — where something shifts in the relationship between intention and outcome.
Eight weeks. You’ve been doing this for almost two months. The routine should feel like a part of your day, not something extra. If it still feels forced, that’s information — journal about what’s in the way.
Eight weeks. You’ve been doing this for almost two months. The routine should feel like a part of your day, not something extra. If it still feels forced, that’s information — journal about what’s in the way.
This lesson has one purpose: make sure the final assessment is completed under the right conditions so the data is clean. Two days remain in the study. What you submit today is the third point in a three-point trajectory. It matters.
Ninety days. History. You are done. Not done with the practice — the practice continues, by choice, for as long as you trade. But done with the study. Done with the protocol as an obligation.
Completion-tracked milestone. Extended reflection: compare Day 1 to Day 90. Who were you when this started? Who are you now? What would you tell someone starting this study tomorrow? Write in journal. Mark complete.
The study protocol is complete, but the brain pathways you’ve built need maintenance. Recommended ongoing practice: daily CORE ALPHA session (any session), daily Stroop/nBack training, continue journaling. The musician doesn’t stop practicing scales after the recital.
Timeline for Dr. Krigolson’s analysis, paper drafting, peer review, and publication. What “published through the University of Victoria” means. How participants will be notified when findings are available. Reminder: all data is anonymized — you will not be individually identifiable.
All five CORE ALPHA sessions are now permanently available to you. Guidance on when to use each: Surrender when you feel the grip, Neutrality when you’re polarizing, Intention when impulse is loud, Identity when behaviors slip, Mastery for daily maintenance. Use them like tools in a kit, not a curriculum to complete.
Dripped 10 days before the follow-up is due. Reminder that the 90-day follow-up questionnaire is coming. Link to the questionnaire. Explanation of why durability data matters for the publication. Mark complete when submitted.
Single page with every downloadable resource: daily checklist PDF, CORE ALPHA companion materials for all five sessions (concept summaries, mantra cards, “what to notice” guides), study guide link. Updated as new materials are released during the study.
Links to every form used in the study: intake questionnaire, weekly check-in form, daily reporting form, mid-study evaluation, final offboarding questionnaire, Day 180 follow-up. Organized chronologically with due dates noted.
Frequently asked questions: headband troubleshooting, ALPHA app issues, what to do if you miss days, how to contact study support, how to reach Trick Trades support. Updated as common questions emerge during the study.
About the Teacher
Pat Mitchell
Pat developed and perfected a day trading strategy while he was working as a blue collar pipeline welder in the bush of Alberta. He has since then retired to the paradise of Costa Rica where he teaches people all over the world how to trade as a professional. This is the easiest and most consistent way to pull a full-time income out of the market.