Science

We believed that raiding the refrigerator at dawn was a lack of willpower. Science has discovered the real culprit

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When night comes, there are many people who cannot conceive of watching a series without something in your hands to eatand not exactly a little carrot, but a little ice cream or some ultra-processed bun. Traditionally, popular culture and fad diets have dismissed this behavior as a simple “lack of willpower” or a sweet tooth. However, the most recent scientific evidence suggests that it is not gluttony, but chronic stress taking control. Night feeding. Eating at night is not always a disorder, but medical literature has been delineating for decades when the line is crossed. Already in 1955, a researcher defined the bases of the so-called night feeding syndrome (NES), characterized by a curious triad: lack of appetite in the morning, hyperphagia at the end of the day and insomnia with awakenings to raid the pantry in the middle of the night. Today, the diagnostic criteria have been updated and indicate that this syndrome occurs when more than 25% of daily calories are consumed after dinner, or if there are two or more episodes of nighttime binge eating per week for at least three months. The trigger It is none other than the hated stress and emotional dysregulation. Here various studies they point Because this nocturnal snacking is associated with a depressed mood, high levels of stress and the need to eat to find a little comfort after a very difficult day. The biological clock. When we eat late, usually after nine at night, or in the two hours before going to sleep, the reality is that we are sending contradictory signals to our ‘primal’ endocrine system. On the one hand, eating at night prolongs the rise of cortisol, which is the stress hormone, at a time when it should be at its lowest levels to prepare the body for sleep. In this way, the body postpones the secretion of the hormone that induces sleep, which is melatonin, and the serotonin and dopamine receptors are altered to respond to food intake. An explosive cocktail. Perhaps one of the most surprising recent findings is the devastating impact that this combination has on our digestive system, since if we combine a high level of stress with late dinners or nightly visits to the refrigerator, the result is catastrophic for the microbiota. Science suggests that those who combine poor sleep, stress and eating habits are up to 2.5 times more likely to see their intestinal health diminished, and also have noticeably less diversity in the bacteria in their microbiome. The whiting that bites its tail. In the end, we are faced with a textbook vicious cycle, wonderfully documented by the University of Arizona. According to your investigations60% of adults confess to itching at night on a regular basis. Of them, two-thirds admit that it is precisely lack of sleep that triggers junk food cravings. But precisely eating at these hours makes you less sleepy. And so on. Images | freepik In Xataka | We Spaniards love to have dinner at 9:30 p.m. and even at 10:00 p.m. Who is paying the price is our body

We believed that eating with our cell phone in our hand was harmless. Science warns that it is “hacking” our satiety

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Today, a fairly everyday scene is to see how, at meal time, in addition to the plate on the table, there is also the illuminated mobile screen is next to it while playing a TikTok video or an Instagram reel. The habit of eating by doing scroll on social networks, reading news or answering messages has become normalized to the point of becoming invisible. However, scientific literature has been warning for years that this disconnection between the plate and the brain has measurable consequences. The hijacking of satiety. The fact of eating while looking at the mobile screen makes us eat much worse, and this is what is known in the literature as mindless eating, which can be translated as “eating unconsciously.” Something that makes a lot of sense because when we are looking at something that interests us, we don’t even realize what we are putting in our mouths, going into automatic mode. And this is very important, because science is quite clear that the fact of feeling full of food is not something that depends only on the gastric process, but also involves our consciousness. In this way, when we eat while paying attention to something else, we damage the episodic memory of food. in the brain there is no adequate record of the textures, flavors or amount of food that has been put in the mouth. As a result of this “food amnesia”, the signals that indicate that the stomach has become full and that one should stop eating more become blurred. This causes us to eat more at that moment, and also, since we do not have a solid memory of having been full, we tend to eat more calories at lunch or snack. The data. This lack of active attention during eating can be extrapolated to specific figures, and something that has been repeated a lot is that cell phone use can increase caloric intake by 30%. Although this is an extreme limit derived from the sum of several disconnection factors, since studies point to somewhat lower figures. a study published in 2019 showed that eating with a mobile phone increases caloric intake by around 15% compared to people who are completely aware of their food. Furthermore, we do not eat more of everything but rather the nutritional profile worsens by tending towards a noticeably higher intake of fats. In the long term, we have a studio published in 2025 by Kyoto University where regular cell phone use during meals was associated with more marked weight gain in adults. But in the case of adolescents, it is associated with a greater consumption of sugary drinks and a higher BMI attributed to multitasking with the mobile phone. That is why it is best to always eat without any type of distraction that diverts attention from the task at hand, because otherwise there are several risks to our own health. Images | drobotdean in Magnific In Xataka | Eating in front of a screen is not a modern mania: it is the new social ritual

The giant jugs of Laos have long baffled science. A “death jar” has solved the riddle

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The heart of Southeast Asia and scattered throughout the mountains of Xieng Khouang province in Laos, rest thousands of monumental stone vessels. Some of these reach three meters in height and weigh several tons, and that is why this place received the name ‘Plain of Jars’. However, this landscape has been a great mystery for all the experts because it is not known who carved them, nor how they moved them nor what they were for. Resolving. Now, a new archaeological study seems to have finally found the key piece of the puzzle, revealing a mortuary tradition much more complex and macabre than previously thought. The discovery of a huge “death jar” has confirmed that these stone colossi were not isolated monuments, but the protagonists of a sophisticated multigenerational funerary ritual. A secret. The key to this puzzle is based precisely on the analysis of a single, gigantic vessel that hid inside no more and no less than the bone remains of at least 37 different people. But the most interesting thing of all is that this “overcrowding” is not the product of a hasty mass grave or a sudden catastrophe, since the study shows that we are dealing with a practice known as secondary burial. How they did it. This practice, the truth is, is very far from our current customs, since instead of burying the deceased directly, the ancient culture that inhabited the area allowed the bodies to decompose first. Once cleaned of meat, the bones were transferred and deposited inside these monumental jars, being a process quite similar to the one that continues with Spanish royalty in the Royal Pantheon of Escorial. But the presence of the remains of so many people in a single jar suggests that these were reopened and reused over several generations, functioning as authentic family or community pantheons. Ritual recycling. This article does not come out of nowhere, but already in 2023 investigations at “site 1” of the plain had found signs of secondary burials around the stones, but this new discovery consolidates the hypothesis that the jars themselves were main containers of this mortuary tradition. The most fascinating thing about this research is the time lag that the dating has revealed since scientists have discovered that the history of the Plain of Jars is made up of overlapping layers. This shows that the human remains analyzed date from between the 9th and 13th centuries, but the gigantic stone jars are, according to geological and archaeological estimates, much older. What does it mean? Basically, the landscape was the subject of a profound “ritual recycling.” The medieval inhabitants of Laos did not carve the jugs; They came across a pre-existing, mysterious and monumental megalithic landscape, and decided to appropriate it for their own funerary rituals. In other words, the site was not built for a single function or at a single moment, but rather had an unusually long lifespan, being resignified by different cultures over the centuries. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | We still don’t know where Tartessos was, but we do know where we are going to solve the enigma: in Badajoz

If you wake up tired on a regular basis, your rest is fragmented. The good news is that science knows how to fix it

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When the alarm clock rings in the morning, many of us ask to stay five more minutes between the sheets. But sometimes these five minutes are not for convenience, but for necessity, since there are people who wake up as if you haven’t slept at all. And this is a problem, since waking up tired on a regular basis is not normal. The myth of hours. Sleeping eight hours seems the standard that we must follow to be able to rest well, as occurs with the mantra of take 10,000 steps a day to have good cardiovascular health. The problem is that there are many people who can sleep eight or more hours and feel in the morning as if they had not slept at all, and here science suggests that real rest is given to us sleep phases and how time is distributed in each of them, not in the global calculation. The distribution. Sleep is not a linear state, although it may seem that way to us. The reality is that while we are with our eyes closed, we are going through a complex cycle of fragile architecture that passes through light phasesdeep stages and the well-known REM phase where dreams occur. But here what interests us most is deep sleep, which is responsible for physical restoration and the immune system, so when this cycle is broken repeatedly during the night, which is what It is known as fragmented sleep.the direct impact the next day is a decrease in cognition and an increase in fatigue, regardless of the hours we have spent lying down. Sleep or fatigue. For some they may be similar terms, but the truth is that they are quite different, since, while drowsiness is the biological and overwhelming need to sleep, fatigue, on the other hand, is a lack of physical energy or mental motivation. If what you feel when you wake up is fatigue, the origin may transcend the pillow and there may be a medical cause such as anemia, hypothyroidism, depression, chronic stress or the side effects of certain drugs that may be behind this lack of vital energy. Two culprits. Among the medical conditions, there are two that stand out above the others. The first of them is the sleep apneawhich is undoubtedly the great invisible saboteur, since it causes breathing to stop and restart repeatedly throughout the night. These drops in oxygen cause micro-awakenings that the brain uses to survive and breathe again, which we are not aware of. The problem is that these shocks prevent deep sleep from being achieved and result in extreme fatigue. The other culprit is sustained insomnia, since, beyond the difficulty in falling asleep, insomnia also manifests itself with early awakenings or constant interruptions, greatly reducing the restorative nature of rest. It can be corrected. Once medical causes are ruled out, there are several tips that can be followed to have a better quality of sleep. The first of them is to stay away from screens before going to sleep, since if we are already close to falling asleep and our body is preparing for it, exposure to blue light and stimulating content can cause it to take longer to fall asleep. Another very important tip is for dinner, which should ideally be as light as possible so as not to feel very heavy all night and also keep it as far away from bedtime as possible. This is where British time has a clear advantage over ours, as it means you don’t go to sleep with dinner food still in your stomach. The environment matters. In addition to removing any television from the room where you are going to sleep, the comfort you have is also important. This involves having a suitable mattress and ensuring that the temperature of the room is not uncomfortable, since this will cause awakenings that will cause you to not finish resting. This is also added to the need to have as little noise as possible. What is done during the day It matters a lot to sleep, and here exercising several hours before bed can make you sleep much better. But in the diet you also have to be very methodical, since you have to limit caffeine in the afternoon or at night, and limit alcohol consumption which, although it seems to put us into a very deep sleep, the reality is that it makes it not at all restorative. Images | jcomp in Magnific In Xataka | There are people who sleep four hours a day and are still functional. It’s the closest thing we have to genetic “superheroes”

Influencers have made it fashionable to give yourself cramps in your vagus nerve to cure stress. Science has bad news

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After a marathon day, what if the report doesn’t arrive, feed the kids, walk the dog, go to that Pilates class… And your brain refuses to turn off. You open TikTok or Instagram looking for a distraction and, between dances and recipes, a influencer. Wear a minimalist design device around your neck or clipped to your ear. It promises that with the push of a button and a few small electrical pulses, your anxiety will disappear, you’ll sleep like a baby, and your “brain fog” will lift. they call it “the great reset of the nervous system”. For centuries, the vagus nerve has functioned in complete anatomical obscurity, but today it has achieved an almost mythical status in the wellness ecosystem. According to The New York Timesthere are billions of social media impressions about this nerve. Celebrities like Kelly Ripa and podcasters like Andrew Huberman They praise their virtues. “A lot of this is being driven by influencers saying, ‘Just do this to stimulate your vagus nerve, and all the problems in your life will be solved,’” explains Dr. Kevin Tracey, a neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. It sounds like science fiction, but forecasts suggest that the stimulation of this nerve will generate a billion-dollar industry by 2030. The inevitable question that arises is: can we really “hack” our stress with neck cramps, or are we facing the umpteenth expensive internet placebo? To understand the phenomenon, you must first understand the biology. As explained by the Cleveland Clinicthe vagus nerve (whose name comes from the Latin “wanderer”) is the tenth of the twelve cranial nerves and the longest of all. It arises in the brain stem and winds through the neck, chest, and abdomen, connecting the brain to the heart, lungs, and digestive system. It is the main highway of our parasympathetic nervous system, the one in charge of the “rest and digest” function. Basically, it is the body’s handbrake. When we get stressed, the sympathetic system (the “fight or flight” response) is activated; When the danger passes, the vagus nerve should come into action to calm the pulse and relax the body. But why are people obsessed with electrocuting him? According to the magazine Women’s Healthwe live in an epidemic of chronic stress. The flood of emails, traffic jams and daily pressures cause what is known as “vagal dysfunction.” Our body gets stuck in survival mode and loses the ability to calm down.. The promise of a quick fix has led to the emergence of commercial devices. When faced with the idea of ​​using home electricity, it is normal to wonder if this is dangerous. Generally, the physical answer is no. According to Dr. Michael Kilgard, director of the Texas Biomedical Device Center, interviewed by The New York Timesthe batteries in these commercial devices are too small to burn the skin. The most you feel is tingling. However, the real danger is psychological and medical. “The strangeness of the sensations is annoying enough that people feel like the devices are doing something,” Kilgard warns. In most cases, these gadgets are “probably little more than a placebo disguised as neuroscience“. The risk lies in false hope: patients who spend hundreds of euros on devices that do nothing, delaying medical treatments that have been proven to be effective. To understand the true impact of this false hope, it is vital to separate the wheat from the chaff and define where scientific rigor ends. The line between medicine and marketing wellness The science of Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) is real, fascinating and very complex, but it is light years away from what the marketers sell. influencers. There are real medical devices, but as a comprehensive review article published highlights in the scientific journal Comprehensive Physiologyinvasive stimulation (iVNS) “remains the gold standard with well-documented efficacy.” That is, we are talking about small devices similar to pacemakers that are surgically implanted under the skin of the chest, with cables threaded directly to the nerve. According to Cleveland Clinicthe FDA (the US drug agency) has approved these severe implants to treat cases of resistant epilepsy and severe clinical depression. Medical research continues to advance. A pivotal clinical trial published recently in Nature Medicine (the RESET-RA trial), demonstrated that an implanted neuromodulator system targeting the vagus nerve significantly reduced inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were unresponsive to conventional medications. On the other hand, as a review points out from the magazine Exploratory Research and Hypothesis in Medicinethe use of non-invasive stimulators (in the ear or neck) is being intensively studied in clinical settings for rehabilitation after stroke or to slow cognitive decline. But what about the devices that anyone can buy online to “de-stress”? The experts are blunt. Dr. Kristl Vonck, neurologist at Ghent University, warns that consumer devices They are “lightly regulated and do not have to prove to the FDA that they actually work.” Many companies hide behind vague claims about “wellness” to avoid medical controls and use the language of real clinical trials as a mere marketing tactic. Furthermore, as a clinical researcher explains in The Conversationmanipulating the vagus nerve is not a panacea and does not work the same for everyone. Some people in clinical trials experience headaches, worsening migraines, or even a drop in mood when receiving stimulation. “Most diseases involve multiple biological and psychological factors, and no single nerve explains or solves all of them,” he says. Misinformation is not limited to devices; It also covers home diagnostics. The magazine Bustle recently echoed a viral trend on TikTok: the “three drinks” test. Content creators claimed that if you are unable to swallow saliva three times in a row and quickly, your vagus nerve is seriously deregulated due to chronic stress. The therapists had to intervene. Chloë Bean, an expert somatic trauma therapist, clarified that swallowing does involve this nerve, but not being able to do it three times in a row “does not automatically mean that your vagus nerve is stuck.” It … Read more

“Slaughterbots” are no longer science fiction in Ukraine. Russians wear masks to avoid the drone that aims at their heads

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A few years before the start of the war in Ukraine, a Berkeley computer science professor presented at the UN a short called “Slaughterbots”a piece where small drones with facial recognition chased people autonomously. Many saw it then as another technological exaggeration in the style of the Black Mirror series. A few years later the short… has fallen short. Drones that search for tanks, search for people. For much of the Ukrainian war, drones were seen as a support weapon intended to destroy armor, correct artillery fire or monitor enemy movements. That phase has gone disappearing quickly. What is now emerging is something much more disturbing: cheap drones, produced by the millions, designed specifically to hunt down and kill soldiers. individually. They counted in Forbes that the Russian military channels themselves they are warning of Ukrainian FPVs equipped with thermal vision, reconnaissance systems and munitions capable of firing explosive projectiles at a distance directly against a human body. The detail that is generating the most fear is not the weapon itself, but the possibility that these drones are already learning to identify Where to hit to maximize lethality. The idea of ​​small autonomous devices “hunting” specific people no longer belongs to technological dystopias or viral YouTube videos: it is beginning to form part of the front line’s routine. A gigantic aerial hunting area. The most profound consequence of this revolution is that huge parts of the front have been transformed in “kill zones”those corridors where any human movement can be detected and destroyed from the air in a matter of minutes. Ukraine has especially perfected this model around cities like Kostyantynivka or Chasiv Yarwhere small Russian groups are identified long before approaching the defensive lines. The result has been devastating for classical Russian doctrines: large armored columns and mechanized assaults have become too visible and vulnerable. In response, Moscow is trying to create their own “drone racers”infiltrating small teams of operators hiding in basements, destroyed buildings or tree lines to build temporary bubbles of local air dominance. In other words, war is no longer just about controlling the terrain, it is about controlling the sky just a few meters above each soldier’s head. The true technological leap. The most important thing about these new systems is not the size of the explosive charge, but intelligence that begins to guide them. Many Ukrainian FPVs already integrate autonomy modules capable of continuing the attack even when the operator loses signal due to electronic interference. Western companies and civilian developers have created relatively inexpensive kits that turn commercial drones into smart munitions capable of automatically locking on and pursuing targets. Until recently, that autonomy was mainly used against vehicles; now the focus shifts to the infantry. Some models use EFP loadsformed explosive projectiles that do not need to hit directly to penetrate protection and kill the target from a distance. That eliminates many of the defenses improvised measures that had proliferated on the front, from metal nets even the famous Russian “turtle tanks”. The problem for soldiers is that hiding no longer guarantees survival: the drone can continue observing, wait for the exact moment and attack when it detects vulnerability. “Slaughterbots” stopped seeming over the top. We said it at the beginning, in 2017 Professor Stuart Russell launched the short film “Slaughterbots” as a warning about autonomous drones with facial recognition capable of murdering specific people. At the time it seemed like a futuristic hype designed to open ethical debates about military artificial intelligence. Nine years later, the parallels are beginning to be uncomfortable even for those fighting on the ground. Russian soldiers develop countermeasures that seem straight out of a science fiction movie: using masks to confuse recognition systems, throwing helmets as decoys, hiding their heads behind obstacles or remaining completely still to avoid thermal tracking. Obsession reflects a huge psychological change. For centuries, a soldier could attempt to protect himself from enemy fire using cover, armor, or distance. Many fighters now feel that there is a camera constantly watching them from above, capable of deciding when to attack and possibly where to do it to ensure death. The industrial and algorithmic battle. The great Russian fear is that Ukraine will manage to combine mass production, autonomy and precision on an unprecedented scale. kyiv aims to manufacture millions of FPVs a year, and that completely changes the mathematics of combat. Whether a relatively cheap drone can chase soldiers with hit rates close to 80%human wear and tear begins to take on industrial dimensions. That is why Russia is desperately trying to build its own drone racersdeploy interceptors and saturate local airspace before moving larger troops. However, Ukraine maintains an advantage in both quantity and technological sophistication, especially in optics, autonomous navigation and aerial interception. What is being seen in the Donbas is not simply a tactical evolution of drone warfare: it is rather the birth of a new form of combat where thousands of semi-autonomous machines continually compete to detect, pursue and eliminate individual human beings. And the most disturbing thing is that this transformation is just beginning. Image | Defense Ukraine In Xataka | Satellite images reveal how much Russia fears Ukraine’s drones. 7,000 km away they are covering their nuclear missiles In Xataka | Ukraine has resurrected one of the oldest tactics of warfare. And he is isolating Russian cities without the need for soldiers

Spain will have 27,000 new civil servants. The surprise is that experts in AI, cybersecurity and data science are now sought

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In recent years, Spain has promoted the public employment calls. This has managed to beat historical figures in the number of places and, although the OEP (Public Employment Offer) of 2025 took its foot off the accelerator, the Council of Ministers has just approved the OEP corresponding to 2026 with figures somewhat higher than those of the previous period. What draws attention is something else: the 1,700 positions for information technology specialists to achieve a ambitious goal. Transform Administration thanks to AI. 27,000 for the AGE. How has published The Government through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, the OEP 2026 includes 27,232 places for the General Administration of the State. It represents a small increase compared to the 26,889 places last yearalthough it continues to show that there is a personnel problem. The breakdown is 26,886 ordinary places and 346 corresponding to an extraordinary offer linked to the climate emergency. The Government points out that this offer will generate 6,200 net jobs and ensures that, since 2021, the different public employment offers have met the objective of rejuvenating the public workforce, with an average age now at 49 years. New specialists. Now, the big news is that the Administration wants profiles that are much more specialized in technology. Of these positions, 1,700 will be for information technology specialists. It is estimated that it is 42% more than those called in the previous offer and it is not only the increase in places, but also the profiles they are looking for. Because what they are looking for are “specialists in Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Data Science” with the aim of, according to Minister Óscar López, “transforming the Administration.” López points out that we have to see what the administration’s priorities are, the needs of citizens and, thus, “have a more effective and efficient administration with the use of AI and the creation of quality public employment.” More digitization. This increase in digital profiles is supported by Government figures that indicate that the percentage of citizens who use official websites or applications is 83% while the European average is 75%. Furthermore, they point out that Spain is seven points above the average in digitalization of the Public Administration. The objective they aspire to is to increase digital administrative procedures by 25%, digitizing public administration. If this is going to be accompanied by the destruction of jobs, López affirms no and that what they are going to do is transform those jobs, not destroy them. They do not detail much else, other than that a series of digital training courses will be carried out with AI modules and “data tools” to strengthen the digital skills of all public employees. Exceeding 37,000. In total, counting the beaches already announced for the National Police, Civil Guard and Armed Forces, the OEP 2026 will exceed 37,000 places, slightly above the 36,588 last year. And, beyond the striking nature of these digital offers in AI and “data”, the Government intends to reinforce strategic areas such as the energy transition, the prevention of climate emergencies and the fight against climate change. The problem is that, according to the OECD, Spanish public employment remains below the international average. In the 2025 report, the OECD pointed out that Spanish public employment represented 15.25% of the total active population in 2023, with the average for all OECD countries being 18.41%. We will have to wait for more recent reports to see if the record rally of 2023 and 2024 has reversed the situation. Image | Treball Generalitat (edited) In Xataka | The easiest oppositions to pass in Spain following three criteria: by syllabus, by places and by requirements

Many people wake up between two and three in the morning. And science already knows what they have in common

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Waking up in the middle of the night can be a pleasant experience when we look at the clock and see that we still have several hours of sleep left. dream. However, for many people it can become a frustrating routine that reduces their ability to achieve restful sleep. It is therefore likely that people may wonder why this happens and to what extent it can be prevented. Many things can wake us from our sleep at night. From a mosquito stalking our bed to serious cases of insomnia. Each circumstance may have its particular characteristics, but in any case, a significant part of the population ends up waking up at some point during the night with some frequency. And why does it happen? Beyond the external factors, there are two internal processes related to this. The first is the circadian rhythm, and the second is the sleep cycle. The circadian rhythm refers to “biological clock“which tells us the sleep and wake cycles. It is a collection of biological processes that activates us throughout the day and prepares us for sleep in the afternoon and night. It does so through substances such as melatoninthe “sleep hormone” that transmits this information between different parts of our brain. Our body takes advantage the light we perceive as an indicator of when to secrete melatonin or not. The sleep cycle, for its part, refers to a series of stages that occur and repeat throughout our daily sleep. A night of sleep has between four and six sleep cycles, each with four stages: a REM (rapid eye movement) stage; and three non-REM stages, each deeper than the last. Although the cycles are repeated in their structure, each of the four phases can have greater or lesser presence in each cycle. In the first cycles, the deeper stages predominate. That is why from the first hours of sleep it is easier to wake up and more difficult to fall asleep again. However, there are numerous factors that can affect how often we wake up at night more or less frequently. It is about both internal and external circumstances that can affect our circadian rhythm or our sleep cycle. The age It is one of the main factors. Over time our circadian rhythms changejust like our need for sleep. Age is a determining factor to the point that older people can have their sleep interrupted up to four times a night. The menopause It can also affect our ability to sleep straight through (as well as pregnancy). Age is also linked to nocturiathe interruption of sleep caused by the need to go to the bathroom. Our psychological state can also affect. Stress, as well as disorders related to anxiety either depression They can have a negative effect on our quality of sleep. This is bad news if we take into account that poor sleep quality can aggravate these problemswhich has the potential to generate a vicious cycle. From a mild headache to chronic painphysical pain can also affect our sleep. Like some medications such as beta-blockerscorticosteroids, antidepressants or diuretics They can negatively affect our sleep. How to avoid interruptions Understanding the causes of our sleep problems can serve as the first step to solving them. Adapting to changes in our body can be complicated, but some general guidelines They can also be useful. Guidelines such as correct “sleep hygiene”. Something that can help us is to introduce changes to our schedule. The usual recommendations in this regard usually begin by maintaining regular schedules, going to bed at “prudential” hours, that is, ones that allow us to achieve the recommended seven or eight hours of sleep. Another habit change can happen eliminate nap. Napping can negatively affect our night’s sleep. However, in this sense, science tends to consider that the differences between individuals are high, so there may be important differences from person to person. Another important guideline is to avoid screens or other blue lights in the last hours of the day. Physical activity can also help, although it is usually recommended not to leave it until the last hours of the day. That is, not exercising before going to bed. Eliminating alcohol and tobacco in our daily lives can also help us improve our sleep. Many of the techniques that aim to help us sleep are relaxation techniques. These can also help us so that sleep interruptions do not result in hours of lost sleep. “Empty” our thoughts in a notebook before going to bed, controlling our breathing… these are ways to prevent our stress from affecting our sleep. Lack of sleep and rest has important effects on our physical health and our mood. It is not surprising therefore that it is an issue that worries Spaniards more and more, to the point of becoming one of the countries with increased drug consumption to sleep like benzodiazepines. Like any other health problem, many times treating it is not in our hands but rather health experts must be the ones to tell us the appropriate guidelines to solve our problem. Of course, taking the first steps towards a better dream is still in our hands. In Xataka | There are people who sleep four hours a day and are still functional. It’s the closest thing we have to genetic “superheroes” In Xataka | Drink water right before going to sleep? Science has finally clarified whether it is a good idea or a terrible enemy of sleep Image | Mathieu Bigard *An earlier version of this article was published in May 2023

Eat breakfast as soon as you wake up or wait a couple of hours? This is what science says about perfect timing

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For decades we have heard the incomprehensible mantra that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, however, nutrition has been advancing to put the focus now when we eat and not what it is eaten. But here chrononutrition studies how the timing of our food affects our metabolism; has a lot to say about it. A schedule. If you are one of those who jump out of bed straight to the toaster or, on the contrary, one of those who need a couple of hours to pass for their stomach to “open”, you have probably asked yourself: what is the ideal time to have breakfast? And to answer this question, we have to turn to science. The biological clock. Something very important here is that our body does not process food the same at eight in the morning than at eight in the afternoon, all because our circadian clock and insulin sensitivity fluctuate throughout the day. According to classic reviews in this field, aligning the onset of feeding with the active phase of our circadian rhythm improves glucose homeostasis, lipid control, and thermogenesis. The bottom line here is that our body is better prepared to manage energy in the morning. The studies. Here, a large review published in 2023 followed more than 100,000 people and its results were conclusive in pointing out that eating breakfast after 9:00 in the morning increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 59% compared to doing it before 8:00. But constantly delaying the first meal of the day and shifting caloric intake towards the evening is associated with a higher cardiovascular risk and worse metabolic markers at the population level. Therefore, the premise we have on the table right now is that eating breakfast early offers a great advantage. But with nuances. Having breakfast early is good, but… Does it have to be as soon as you open your eyes? There is no clinical trial here that dictates that you should eat food at minute zero after waking up, and in fact, waiting a little can bring benefits metabolic under certain situations. One of them, which came from a trial published in 2025compared people who ate breakfast early, at 8:30, with another group of people who ate breakfast mid-morning, at 10:30. Here, surprisingly, mid-morning breakfast reduced the glycemic response of the following meal to make it more efficient. This indicates that the time interval between breakfast and lunch influences how our body processes sugar hours later. More cases. In the case of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a trial observed that delaying breakfast until mid-morning or even at noon managed to reduce the blood glucose that occurred after eating. What needs to be done. For most adults, science suggests that it is best to eat breakfast within the first hour or two of waking up, so there is no need to get out of bed and start eating because it seems to be the most efficient. But if we want to be precise, the limit may be nine in the morning, since delaying the first time we drink something too much in the day until noon and having dinner late is the perfect recipe for metabolic imbalance. In short, there is no need to force yourself to swallow toast with your eyes still glued to sleep. Letting your body wake up, doing your morning routines, and eating breakfast an hour after waking up not only respects your natural rhythms if you’re not immediately hungry, but it has solid clinical support. Images | freepik In Xataka | We’ve been telling ourselves for 100 years that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day.” The problem is that it is not true

The day Spain wanted to be Spielberg doing science fiction. It was such nonsense that Tarantino ended up claiming the film

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In 1982, during the filming of Fitzcarraldo In the Amazon jungle, Werner Herzog heard a completely real proposal from several local indigenous people: they offered to kill Klaus Kinski to put an end to the problems he was causing on set. The German director rejected the idea, but years later he would admit that for a few seconds he seriously considered accepting the offer. The impossible movie. In the mid-80s, Spanish cinema was still very far from Hollywood. Science fiction blockbusters seemed to be the exclusive territory of Spielberg, George Lucas or Ridley Scott, while comedies and much more modest films in terms of media predominated here. Then the director Fernando Colomo appeared and decided do exactly the opposite of what seemed sensible: raising a medieval science fiction epic with aliens, castles, special effects, international stars and the largest budget in the history of Spanish cinema up to that point. The result was so enormous, chaotic and Martian that it ended up becoming a symbol first of absolute failure…and decades later in a cult film claimed even by Quentin Tarantino himself. movie poster Spain in Hollywood style. The dragon knight was born as a completely improbable idea: mixing the myth of Sant Jordi with Encounters in the third phasemedieval fantasy, absurd humor and romantic science fiction. The story began with a spaceship mistaken for a dragon in the middle of medieval Europe and a silent alien (played by Miguel Bosé) falling in love with a princess after accidentally kidnapping her. Colomo came from triumph with the comedies of the Madrid Movida, but decided to launch into a gigantic project by Spanish standards. The budget is over exceeding 300 million of pesetas, a crazy figure for the time. Huge sets were built, models and storyboards that were unusual in Spain were designed, and some of them were experimented with. the first digital effects of national cinema. The problem is that Spanish cinema in 1985 simply did not yet have the necessary industrial infrastructure to build something like that without everything exploding into the air. Martian Bosé, Keitel sunk and Kinski unleashed. The casting seemed like an international frenzy. Harvey Keitel accepted the project at one of the lowest moments of his career after working with Scorsese. Miguel Bosé finished turned into an alien because Imanol Arias “did not have the face of an alien,” according to Colomo himself. And then there was Klaus Kinski. The German actor arrived at the filming as a ticking bomb human. He constantly insulted the team, shouted “What a shitty movie!” During the days, he demanded more money, disappeared when he wanted and turned any technical delay into an attack of fury. Apparently, he only respected Miguel Bosé (and for being Picasso’s godson) and the gypsy animal caretakers on the set. To give us an idea, Keitel even offered to pay out of pocket to settle one of Kinski’s contractual tantrums. The atmosphere was so unbearable that Colomo tried to film all the German scenes before meals so I can have a quiet lunch without him. History left the moment when Kinski finally finished his sequences and left the shoot, when the team celebrated his departure. opening bottles of champagne All wrong. The film was shot amidst constant rain, delays, cost overruns and situations almost surreal. An extra was about to drown during a sequence on a lake because the armor was too heavy and he couldn’t stay afloat. An electrician managed to rescue him at the last moment and then used that anecdote for years to demand work in new Colomo films. Not only that. The castle where they were filming was so poorly located that the crew had to upload loading material on exhausting days every morning. Miguel Bose I could barely breathe inside his spacesuit and diving suit it continually fogged up. Meanwhile, money was disappearing at breakneck speed. What had started as an ambitious fantasy ended up becoming something of a kind. suicide expedition where every day seemed to bring a new logistical disaster. The final failure. When The dragon knight It hit theaters in 1985, the reaction was brutal. Part of the criticism destroyed her describing it as a botched, absurd and inoperative fantasy. Although the film was relatively seen and became the seventh highest-grossing Spanish production of the year, that it wasn’t enough to recover such a crazy budget. To make matters worse, the American distributor broke agreements due to delays in the delivery of the material and Colomo lost a trial in Hollywood that left him without international rights. The director finished in debt with 50 million of the old pesetas and, according to would count Years later, he only kept “a Renault 5.” The experience was so traumatic that he thought he was going to have a heart attack. In fact, to survive financially he wrote almost as an emergency The joyful lifewhose subsequent success allowed him to pay off the debts accumulated by that medieval space madness. From disaster to cult movie. For decades, The Dragon Knight was remembered as one of the big hits of Spanish cinema. But over time something began to happen that has been repeated in many other celluloid productions: many people began to see it with fascination. Its impossible mix of genres, its naive tone, its disproportionate ambitions and the chaos that each scene gives off transformed it into a unique rarity. Festivals like CutreCon They claimed it as a cult work and the film ended being restored in 4K forty years after its premiere. The definitive turn came when Colomo remembered a conversation in Sitges with Quentin Tarantino. The American director, always obsessed with strange and failed films, immediately recognized Star Knight (his international title) even before Colomo himself remembered what it was called in English. It turned out that that martian medieval that almost ruined half the world ended up surviving in the most improbable way: converted into a delirious relic of a moment in which Spanish cinema believed, … Read more

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