The Pitt News T h e in de p e n d e n t st ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh
TIRED OF TAKING IT EASY
Online: Police seek North Oakland robber December 10, 2015 | Issue 79 | Volume 106
Annemarie Carr Staff Writer
Most students take time over school breaks to recover from the high-stress of a chaotic semester — but Christine Chau often finds herself fending off a fever in bed. “Getting out of bed when I’m sick is the hardest thing to do. I feel like there’s a huge brick on my body preventing me from getting up,” Chau said, referring to her tendency to fall ill right when she gets a break from school and goes home. Just a few weeks ago, Chau spent her Thanksgiving break with bronchitis. Now, with the stress of finals peaking and winter break approaching, one Dutch psychologist’s theory suggests Chau could get sick again when she goes home. In 2001, psychologist Ad Vingerhoets coined a name for a phenomenon he called “leisure sickness,” meaning the tendency for some people to get sick when their stress levels drop. Leisure sickness isn’t an officially recognized medical condition — neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy make note of it — but Vingerhoets’ research suggests that certain psychological traits, like being accustomed to high amounts of stress, can cause some people to fall ill when reprieves from work relieve their otherwise constant state of stress. According to Vingerhoets’ research, around 3 percent of adults he studied attributed their weekend migraines or consistent illness when they had downtime to leisure sickness. Vingerhoets found that some of these people reported they worked too much during the week and then had trouble shifting from work mode to leisure mode, causing their immune systems to
The Pitt Symphony Orchestra performed its final concert of the semester Wednesday evening in Bellefield Hall.
See Leisure on page 5
See Registry on page 3
Meghan Sunners |Senior Staff Photographer
CITY OFFERS HOPE FOR RENTAL REGISTRY Pittsburgh City Council has preliminarily approved a bill to set up a log of all rental property in Pittsburgh. Council’s final vote is set for Dec. 15. | by Annemarie Carr and Lauren Rosenblatt After delaying voting on its rental registry for months, Pittsburgh City Council gave a preliminary OK to the bill Wednesday, with plans to vote again next week. The City Council, which has been debating the bill since Mayor Bill Peduto introduced it in November 2014, voted to preliminarily approve the measure and move it to the floor
for a full council vote next week, according to Councilman Daniel Lavelle. Seven council members voted for the bill, which will create a citywide log of all rented property and impose a fee on landlords, while Councilwoman Darlene Harris voted against the bill and Councilman Corey O’Connor abstained. According to Neil Manganaro, community relations manager for City
Council President Bruce Kraus, the council will cast its final vote at the next City Council meeting Dec. 15. If the City Council votes to approve the bill Dec. 15, it will then go to Peduto’s office for his signature. Peduto first introduced the bill in November 2014, asking the city to create a log of every person who rents