Hip-hug hostel

Creak… Squeak… The spring bed above me started moving ever so slightly. A hint of a rhythmic rattle. Slowly at first — just a steady to and fro — then the pace quickened and the pace was more definite and the sounds of the springs on the bed were forceful. It was a cheaper hostel so the bed squeaked loudly and the upper bunk bed was only an arm’s reach from my head, very close to me. I could hear the heavy breathing of the sleeper above me climb to full volume, in tune with the rapid shaking of the springs… then, silence. Finished. And since it was two in the morning, I was relieved — until a few minutes later when the steady, slow chirping of the bunk bed springs started their rhythm again.

The scene played all night, and by the fifth episode, I could not help myself from whispering,  “ Please… enough!” It was 5 a.m. and the bunkmate was too far into the beat; he could not stop.

Welcome to the world of hostels in Edinburgh, Scotland. After spending four months in many hostels, I have become a pro at meeting people from different countries. Some would describe hostels as a place where one can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, and guests are free to behave as they wish. Sleeping dormitory-style, there are no mother superiors to regulate, and with a majority of guests under the age of 30, the forms of acceptable conduct are very flexible. Strangers have beds beside one another, men and women mixed in a room. Prices vary, with a four-bunk bedroom in Scotland charging about 19 British pounds on weekends and a dorm with 16 bunk beds costing 12 pounds per night on weekdays. Shared bathrooms, kitchens and lounges are designed to give guests an atmosphere whereby one can meet and be met.

Castle Rock has 300 beds and windows looking out onto the Edinburgh Castle. Cowgate Hostel, another favorite, swings with its 120 beds set up apartment-style. Many tourists are new college graduates, or candidates writing their theses for their doctorates; then there are the elders; very few bring children. Each guest averages two nights before they move on to their next adventure. In such an atmosphere, close friendships are made quickly, knowing there are only hours before it is time to say goodbye.

Every day is different and more so in a hostel where one is exposed to 12 strangers upon waking up. A plan to cook breakfast turned into bop dancing in the kitchen with Misha, an art student who is preparing to take her master’s in Switzerland. The Swiss subsidize their universities so citizens have free education. Her boyfriend had just graduated from an art school in New York. Together they have been hitchhiking for three weeks around the northern part of Scotland, getting off wherever the scene takes their fancy and climbing mountains whenever they please. Staying in a hostel where they can have a proper shower and a bed serves as a refreshing change for backpackers like them.

One afternoon, three adventurous, fully made-up ladies walked into the kitchen and asked if they could switch my music from Chopin’s mellow piano symphony to their contagious rhythmic beat. What started as a session to prepare for dinner became a booty-bumping, swirling dance led by these beautiful girls from Fife, an area in Scotland; we jiggled our bodies for over two hours as we danced the butt dance to the bass sounds which came from my Samsung phone.

That’s hostel life. A lady whom I came to call Turkish Delight transferred from the room we were in and moved into another dorm where a man she had been eyeing was staying.  By morning, they were sharing the same bed.

Just beside them, three Brazilian students were discussing their plans. It turns out that they joined a one-year course to learn how to speak English. Brazilians are also fortunate because all they have to do is send a letter of acceptance from any learning institution and their government will pay the tuition fees.

It’s easy to start a conversation in hostels: “Where are you from? Where are you going? How long are you staying…?” And after taking the effort to translate into their language whatever greeting we give, the friendship begins. Somehow, guests end up helping one another: sharing food, lending shampoo and letting each other know how to move around and where to go. 

Bathroom use is the tricky part. Hovering over the loo (the British term for the toilet) — well, “hovering over the loo” is literally the act of floating above the toilet seat. One needs to use his or her wits to conquer the loo problem. In every hostel, there are some toilets and showers that work better than others. Learning the timing of when to use the bathrooms is also a useful skill. The cleaners wait until most of the guests finish using the showers before they start to clean. I wait for the cleaners to do the bathrooms before I shower.

Every day there is a story to tell and this one is particularly memorable. It was Saturday early morning, about 5 a.m.  Many partygoers were trickling into their beds, complete with makeup and tattered jeans, struggling to creep up silently on the wooden bunk beds. This time the handmade wooden beds were solid — no creaking platforms — when suddenly I heard a THUMP. Oh, no! The thought that one of these youngsters had fallen off her bed from a drunken state concerned me. “Are you all right?” I whispered into the dark cold room.

There were 16 beds in this room and no light shone. “Are you all right?” I again asked the girl whose moans aroused my hesitant concern. Then, in the dark, I heard a Scottish lad saying, “You are so tight.” (Note: “Tight” can mean two things here: the Brits use it to describe someone who’s drunk; or else, it can mean something else…) Anyway, he repeated this about 10 times — that is when I knew that the lady had survived and the loud thump was not someone falling off the bed. Soon enough, the male voice repeated over and over again: “I am sorry… I am sorry…”

Next morning, I saw a foil of king-size condoms near the bed. Unopened.

source: philstar.com

Trouble falling asleep may signal high blood pressure

Trouble sleeping, especially trouble falling asleep, may be associated with high blood pressure, according to a new study from China.

This is the first study to show that certain people with insomnia are at risk for high blood pressure, said co-authors Dr. Xiangdong Tang of Sichuan University in China and Dr. Alexandros N. Vgontzas of Penn State University College of Medicine, in a statement to Reuters Health.

Insomnia with increased alertness during the day, or hyperarousal, is associated with increased chronic secretion of stress hormones like cortisol, which may lead to hypertension, they wrote.

The authors studied about 300 adults, including more than 200 chronic insomniacs who’d had trouble sleeping for at least six months. They all spent one night in the Sleep Medicine Center of West China Hospital and took a sleepiness/alertness test the following day.

At night, they were allowed to sleep as they normally would, in sound, light and temperature-controlled rooms. The next day, they were given four 20-minute nap opportunities throughout the day. Researchers measured their “sleep latency,” that is, the amount of time it took for the nappers to actually fall asleep, if they were able.

Researchers also took their blood pressure readings in the evening and in the morning.

Normal sleepers were no more likely to have high blood pressure even if they took longer to fall asleep for a nap.

For chronic insomniacs, the longer it took to fall asleep when they tried to nap during the day, the more likely they were to have high blood pressure, even after accounting for age, gender, weight and height, diabetes, and use of alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.

Compared to normal sleepers who fell asleep quickly, people with insomnia who took more than 14 minutes to fall asleep during the day were three times as likely to have high blood pressure readings or a doctor’s diagnosis of hypertension, the authors report in the journal Hypertension.

People who fell asleep in less than 14 minutes, regardless of whether or not they had insomnia, had no increased risk of high blood pressure.

About half of insomniacs and a third of the normal sleepers took more than 14 minutes to fall asleep during the day, Tang and Vgontzas wrote in the statement.

People who have trouble sleeping should ask their doctors about their blood pressure readings, they wrote.

“Insomniacs who have either short sleep at night or show signs of hyperalertness during the day are at risk for hypertension,” they wrote. “This is similar to someone who has other risk factors such as obesity, high lipids, smoking, etc.”

The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for high blood pressure for all adults over the age of 18 every year or so, regardless of sleep patterns, USPSTF chair Dr. Michael LeFevre noted in an email to Reuters Health.

Blood pressure screening causes few major harms, LeFevre said.

“However, many people who have high blood pressure in (a doctor’s) office setting do not have sustained high blood pressure outside of a medical setting,” he said. “Making the diagnosis of hypertension based only on office readings may lead to unnecessary treatment.”

Blood pressure measurements should be repeated outside the doctor’s office during the course of the day to confirm high blood pressure before diagnosing hypertension, he said.

Most people will need help from a doctor or sleep expert to start falling asleep more quickly, Tang and Vgontzas wrote.

source: interaksyon.com

Good night's sleep cleans out gunk in brain

LOS ANGELES — When we sleep, our brains get rid of gunk that builds up while we're awake, suggests a study that may provide new clues to treat Alzheimer's disease and other disorders.

This cleaning was detected in the brains of sleeping mice, but scientists said there's reason to think it happens in people too.

If so, the finding may mean that for people with dementia and other mind disorders, "sleep would perhaps be even more important in slowing the progression of further damage," Dr. Clete Kushida, medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center, said in an email.

Kushida did not participate in the study, which appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

People who don't get enough shut-eye have trouble learning and making decisions, and are slower to react. But despite decades of research, scientists can't agree on the basic purpose of sleep. Reasons range from processing memory, saving energy to regulating the body.

The latest work, led by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center, adds fresh evidence to a long-standing view: When we close our eyes, our brains go on a cleaning spree.


The team previously found a plumbing network in mouse brains that flushes out cellular waste. For the new study, the scientists injected the brains of mice with beta-amyloid, a substance that builds up in Alzheimer's disease, and followed its movement. They determined that it was removed faster from the brains of sleeping mice than awake mice.

The team also noticed that brain cells tend to shrink during sleep, which widens the space between the cells. This allows waste to pass through that space more easily.

Though the work involved mouse brains, lead researcher Dr. Maiken Nedergaard said this plumbing system also exists in dogs and baboons, and it's logical to think that the human brain also clears away toxic substances. Nedergaard said the next step is to look for the process in human brains.

In an accompanying editorial, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro said scientists have recently taken a heightened interest in the spaces between brain cells, where junk is flushed out.

It's becoming clearer that "sleep is likely to be a brain state in which several important housekeeping functions take place," she said in an email.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In a statement, program director Jim Koenig said the finding could lead to new approaches for treating a range of brain diseases.

source: philstar.com

Sleep helps brain stay fit by clearing waste

WASHINGTON - Like a janitor sweeping the halls after the lights go out, major changes occur in the brain during sleep to flush out waste and ward off disease, researchers said Thursday.

The research in the journal Science offers new answers to explain why people spend a third of their lives asleep and may help in treating dementia and other neurological disorders.

In lab experiments on mice, researchers observed how cellular waste was flushed out via the brain's blood vessels into the body's circulatory system and eventually the liver.


These waste products included amyloid beta, a protein that when accumulated is a driver of Alzheimer's disease.

In order to help remove the waste, cerebral spinal fluid is pumped through brain tissue.

The process is sped along during sleep because the brain's cells shrink by about 60 percent, allowing the fluid to move faster and more freely through the brain.

The whole operation takes place in what researchers call the glymphatic system, which appears to be nearly 10 times more active during sleep than while awake.

"The brain only has limited energy at its disposal," said lead author Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

"You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same time."

Co-authors of the study, which was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, came from Oregon Health and Science University and New York University.

source: interaksyon.com