Leading up to my online CEU course on Jing and nurturing life practices (
2 hours of CEUs for FREE, sign up here
), I sat down with scholar and Chinese medicine practitioner Dr. Phil Garrison to discuss Jing (Essence) and the less discussed Jing Shen.
PCOM-NY faculty member Jeremy Pulsifer was featured cooking a healing soup to treat a cough on PCOM alumna Jill Blakeway’s show “Grow Cook Heal”. Check it out!
And at #7: the Power of Placebo, featuring Ted Kaptchuk–Pacific Symposium 2013’s keynote speaker and a longtime PCOM associate!
“ 32 - Because joining a ragtag band of fellow travellers, cooks and guides as I trekked back from La Ciudad Perdida in Colombia reminded me of the joy of sharing your journey with others.”
In 404 CE, the first foreign medicine was imported into Japan from Korea, which has been deduced as being mostly herbal in nature.
During this time, waves of migration from the Korean peninsula brought Chinese technology and writings to the island nation. It was through these transplants that the native Japanese learned of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. As passageways between China and Japan became more open, the first formal introduction of acupuncture in Japan occurred in 562 by a Chinese monk name Zhi Cong. He made the trek across the Sea of China east and brought with him medical treatises on herbal medicine and acupuncture meridians including the Mingtang tu, also known as the Illustrated Manual of Channels, Collaterals, and Acupuncture Points.
Thanks to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation for honoring Pacific College for our support for the important work they do. And thanks to Dr. Jeff Poplarski who makes it all possible.
David Rich Sol, Dean of Asian Holistic Health and Massage of PCOM’s Chicago campus, talks extensively about this method to reduce pain and tension.
Overconfidence, Casino Psychology, and Better Gambling Strategy
The Dutch phrase “casino psychologie overmoed en strategie” captures a familiar tension in gambling: the desire to make smart decisions can easily become a belief that every result is under personal control. Casino games are designed around uncertainty, while the human mind constantly searches for patterns, explanations, and signs of progress. Understanding that tension can make entertainment more conscious and less reactive.
Traditional Chinese medicine offers a useful language for discussing this subject without pretending that gambling outcomes can be predicted. Ideas such as balance, moderation, attention, and awareness of changing conditions can help people notice when excitement is becoming impulsiveness. These principles do not turn roulette, slots, or sports wagers into reliable sources of income, but they can support more disciplined choices.
For readers exploring an online platform, practical information matters as much as psychological awareness. A promotional review of booms bet may cover casino games, live tables, sports betting, mobile access, payment options, and promotional terms. Such features should be assessed alongside personal limits, transparent conditions, and a clear understanding that the house retains a mathematical advantage.
| Psychological pattern | How it may appear during gambling | More balanced response |
|---|---|---|
| Overconfidence | Believing skill will overcome random outcomes | Separate knowledge from control |
| The gambler’s fallacy | Expecting a result because another has not appeared recently | Treat each independent event as uncertain |
| Loss chasing | Increasing stakes to recover money quickly | Stop at a preset loss limit |
| Confirmation bias | Remembering wins while minimizing losses | Record the complete session |
| Emotional arousal | Acting faster after a win or setback | Pause before changing the plan |
| Illusion of control | Assuming rituals or timing affect random games | Use rituals for self-awareness, not prediction |
Why Overconfidence Develops At The Casino
Overconfidence often begins with a genuine success. A player may choose a winning sports bet after researching team form, or select a casino game that produces a favorable result. The mind then creates a story: the outcome happened because the decision was especially perceptive. Sometimes that explanation contains a degree of truth, particularly in sports analysis, but one successful result cannot demonstrate a lasting advantage.
Casino environments intensify this effect through speed, sound, visual rewards, and frequent feedback. A digital interface may celebrate a small return with bright animations even when the overall balance is declining. Live casino games add a social dimension, making the experience feel more like a performance than a sequence of probabilities. The emotional brain can interpret stimulation as evidence that something important or skillful is happening.
In behavioral psychology, this is related to the illusion of control. People tend to overestimate how much their actions influence events governed largely by chance. Choosing a number, pressing a button at a particular moment, or following a personal betting ritual can feel meaningful. Awareness begins when a player distinguishes between an action that changes the odds and an action that merely changes the experience.
The Difference Between Skill, Chance, And Variance
Sports betting provides the clearest example of mixed influences. Knowledge of injuries, schedules, tactics, and statistical performance can improve the quality of a prediction. It cannot remove uncertainty. A favored team may lose because of a red card, poor finishing, weather, or an unexpected tactical change. Good research improves decision-making, but it does not guarantee a profitable outcome.
Casino games usually place even more weight on chance. In a slot game, the outcome of each spin is generated independently by the game’s system. In roulette, previous colors do not make a particular color “due.” A losing sequence may feel unusual, yet it does not automatically alter the probability of the next spin. The difference between a short-term result and a long-term mathematical expectation is essential.
Industry reporting on casino revenue patterns also helps explain why individual wins should be interpreted carefully. Gross gaming revenue describes the relationship between wagers and payouts across an operator or market; it is not a promise that any individual session will follow the same pattern. A player’s memorable win can coexist with an unfavorable overall result, just as a brief losing run can occur within a profitable period for an operator.
A Traditional Medicine View Of Balance
Chinese medicine frequently emphasizes balance between activity and restoration. Applied metaphorically to gambling psychology, this suggests that decision quality changes when the body is tired, overstimulated, hungry, or emotionally unsettled. A person who begins a session after poor sleep may have less patience for slow outcomes and may respond to losses with quicker, less considered wagers.
Breathing and body awareness can create a short interval between an impulse and an action. A slow breath, relaxed shoulders, and attention to physical tension do not influence a random draw. They can, however, reveal that the player is angry, rushed, or unusually excited. This makes traditional self-observation relevant as a harm-reduction practice rather than as a supernatural method of improving odds.
The same principle applies to the rhythm of a session. Constant play creates little space for reflection, while deliberate pauses make it easier to compare current behavior with the original plan. A pause is particularly valuable after a large win, because euphoria can produce overconfidence, and after a loss, because frustration can encourage attempts to recover money immediately.
Strategy That Respects Probability
A sensible gambling strategy starts with money that has already been classified as entertainment spending. It should never depend on rent, tuition, food, debt payments, or emergency savings. A fixed budget gives a session a defined financial boundary. Once that amount is used, the strategy has reached its limit, regardless of whether the player feels close to a turnaround.
Time limits matter as much as financial limits. Online platforms make it possible to move quickly from one game to another, and mobile access can blur the boundary between a planned session and background activity throughout the day. Setting a start time and an end time reduces the risk that gambling becomes an automatic response to boredom, stress, or routine.
Promotions deserve the same careful reading as game rules. A welcome offer advertised as up to €500 plus 100 free spins may involve eligibility requirements, wagering conditions, minimum deposits, game restrictions, expiry dates, and withdrawal rules. The headline value should never be treated as cash available without conditions. Reviewing the official terms and choosing only regulated, age-appropriate services is part of an informed approach.
How To Recognize Cognitive Traps
The gambler’s fallacy is one of the most persistent errors in casino decision-making. It assumes that an independent event must compensate for previous outcomes. After several losses on red, a player may believe that black is now more likely, or may expect red because it has been absent for too long. In a genuinely independent game, the sequence does not create a debt that must be repaid.
Confirmation bias adds another layer. Players often remember the predictions that worked and quietly forget those that failed. A person may recall correctly calling three football results while overlooking a larger number of inaccurate forecasts. Keeping a simple record of stakes, outcomes, and total balance can expose the difference between a compelling memory and a reliable pattern.
Near misses can also distort judgment. A symbol that appears close to a winning combination may feel like evidence that success is approaching, even though the result is still a loss. Similarly, a small payout can feel rewarding while returning less than the original stake. Naming these experiences accurately—near miss, partial return, or loss—helps reduce the emotional influence of the presentation.
Digital Platforms And Conscious Choice
Online casinos and sportsbooks combine convenience with constant availability. Features such as live casino streaming, mobile applications, quick deposits, and multiple payment methods can make access smooth, but convenience also removes natural stopping points. Crypto withdrawals and other fast financial tools may add complexity because money can move between accounts without the visual friction of cash.
A responsible review should therefore look beyond game selection. It should consider whether the platform explains bonus conditions clearly, provides accessible customer support, offers deposit or loss limits, and identifies its licensing and safer-gambling resources. User experience is important, yet a polished interface should not be confused with favorable odds or a lower risk of financial loss.
The educational perspective of the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine connects naturally with this broader view of wellbeing. Holistic health asks people to notice relationships among behavior, emotion, environment, and physical state. In gambling, that means considering whether a session supports or disrupts sleep, finances, relationships, concentration, and mood.
A balanced approach leaves room for entertainment without assigning gambling the role of income, emotional regulation, or personal achievement. Overconfidence becomes easier to manage when every outcome is treated as uncertain and every decision is measured against a predetermined limit. Strategy then means planning for one’s own behavior, not claiming control over chance.