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Monday, March 31, 2008

Hot girl + ugly man = happiness



Experts say happier marriages result from attractive women who wed uglier men. Just ask Sienna Miller and Rhys Ifans.
HE'S had many an unkind comment about his looks when set against the radiant beauty of girlfriend Sienna Miller.

But Rhys Ifans seems likely to have the last laugh because psychologists reckon that happier marriages result from attractive women who wed uglier men.

And women who marry handsome men had better watch out. Men who saw themselves as better looking than their wives were more likely to be disgruntled and have negative feelings about their marriage, experts found.

Opposites attract: Hollywood beauties and their unsightly fellas
The University of Tennessee study leaves 40-year-old Ifans set fair if, as expected, he marries 26-year-old Sienna this year, and it might also explain a few other couples such as Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas and Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller.

The Tennessee team tested 82 newlywed couples for facial attractiveness and the quality of their marriage.

Their results, in the Journal of Family Psychology, suggested most men who married attractive women were happy to bask in the glory of their partner's beauty.

But Professor Jim McNulty reported: "Men who were more attractive than their partner demonstrated a tendency to offer less emotional and practical support to their wives."

He said "evolutionary perspectives" offered an explanation.

"Attractive men have available to them more short-term mating opportunities.

"This may make them less satisfied and less committed to the marital relationship."

Strathclyde University psychologist Alastair Ross said many men enjoyed the prestige of having a beautiful wife.

"Men are rated as more likeable and friendly when they have a wife who is very attractive," he added.

Scientists are beginning to uncover evidence that meditation has a tangible effect on the brain.


There is evidence that meditation changes brain structures
Scientists probe meditation secrets
Scientists are beginning to uncover evidence that meditation has a tangible effect on the brain.

Sceptics argue that it is not a practical way to try to deal with the stresses of modern life.

But the long years when adherents were unable to point to hard science to support their belief in the technique may finally be coming to an end.

When Carol Cattley's husband died it triggered a relapse of the depression which had not plagued her since she was a teenager.

"I instantly felt as if I wanted to die," she said. "I couldn't think of what else to do."

Carol sought medical help and managed to control her depression with a combination of medication and a psychological treatment called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

However, she believes that a new, increasingly popular course called Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - which primarily consists of meditation - brought about her full recovery.

It is currently available in every county across the UK, and can be prescribed on the NHS.

One of the pioneers of MBCT is Professor Mark Williams, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford.

He helps to lead group courses which take place over a period of eight weeks. He describes the approach as 80% meditation, 20% cognitive therapy.

New perspective

He said: "It teaches a way of looking at problems, observing them clearly but not necessarily trying to fix them or solve them.

"It suggests to people that they begin to see all their thoughts as just thoughts, whether they are positive, negative or neutral."

MBCT is recommended for people who are not currently depressed, but who have had three or more bouts of depression in their lives.

Trials suggest that the course reduces the likelihood of another attack of depression by over 50%.

Professor Williams believes that more research is still needed.

He said: "It is becoming enormously popular quite quickly and in many ways we now need to collect the evidence to check that it really is being effective."

However, in the meantime, meditation is being taken seriously as a means of tackling difficult and very modern challenges.

Scientists are beginning to investigate how else meditation could be used, particularly for those at risk of suicide and people struggling with the effects of substance abuse.

What is meditation?
Meditation is difficult to define because it has so many different forms

Broadly, it can be described as a mental practice in which you focus your attention on a particular subject or object.

It has historically been associated with religion, but it can also be secular, and exactly what you focus your attention on is largely a matter of personal choice.

It may be a mantra (repeated word or phrase), breathing patterns, or simply an awareness of being alive.

Some of the more common forms of meditative practices include Buddhist Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, Transcendental Meditation, and Zen Meditation.

The claims made for meditation range from increasing immunity, improving asthma and increasing fertility through to reducing the effects of aging.

Limited research

Research into the health claims made for meditation has limitations and few conclusions can be reached, partly because meditation is rarely isolated - it is often practiced alongside other lifestyle changes such as diet, or exercise, or as part of group therapy.

So should we dismiss it as quackery? Studies from the field of neuroscience suggest not.

It is a new area of research, but indications are intriguing and suggest that meditation may have a measurable impact on the brain.

In Boston, Massachusetts, Dr Sara Lazar has used a technique called MRI scanning to analyse the brains of people who have been meditating for several years.

She compared the brains of these experienced practitioners with people who had never meditated and found that there were differences in the thickness of certain areas of the brain's cortex, including areas involved in the processing of emotion.

She is continuing research, but she believes that meditation had caused the brain to change physical shape.

Buddhist monks

In Madison, Wisconsin, Dr Richard Davidson has been carrying out studies on Buddhist monks for several years.

His personal belief is that "by meditating, you can become happier, you can concentrate more effectively and you can change your brain in ways that support that."

In one study he observed the brains of a group of office workers before and after they undertook a course of meditation combined with stress reduction techniques.

At the end of the course the participants' brains seemed to have altered in the way they functioned.

They showed greater activity in the left-hand side - a characteristic which Davidson has previously linked to happiness and enthusiasm.

This idea that meditation could improve the wellbeing of everyone, even those not struggling with mental illness, is something that is exciting researchers.

Professor Williams believes it has huge potential.

"It involves dealing with expectations, with constantly judging ourselves - feeling we're not good enough," he said.

"And, that is something which is so widespread in our communities.

"All of these things are just thoughts. And, they will come up in meditation and learning to recognize what they are as thoughts, and let them go, can be enormously empowering for anybody."

There is, of course, a distinct possibility that this research will come to nothing and that interest in meditation will turn out to be a passing fad, but for now this ancient discipline is being taken seriously by scientists as a tool with potential to make each one of us happier and more content.

Turner paintings head for Moscow



Norham Castle, Sunrise, will be among the paintings which travelling to Moscow
An exhibition of the works of JMW Turner is to go ahead at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow later this year.
Tate Britain is lending over 100 of the artist's works for the show which will run from November until February.

The Pushkin exhibition, which is being sponsored by billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov, will feature over 100 of Turner's works.

It marks the first time any of Turner's paintings have been seen in Moscow since the 1970s.

"The generations have changed since Turner was last in Moscow and it's important that the young see him," said Ainaida Bonami, the Pushkin's deputy director.

The paintings on loan will include Norham Castle, Sunrise, one of Turner's most popular works, and a self-portrait.

Diplomatic row

The exhibition follows the wranglings over the loan of Russian-owned art for a British exhibition at the Royal Academy earlier this year.

Russia eventually allowed the loan after the UK passed a law to ensure the paintings could not be seized.

It feared they could be confiscated because of disputes about their ownership.

Some of the 120 paintings included in the exhibition were taken from private collections after Russia's 1917 revolution.

It was thought some of them could be seized to settle private legal claims.

Both the British and Russian governments denied the clash related to the fallout from the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, which prompted strained relations between the two countries.

A spokeswoman for Tate Britain said there was no connection between the two exhibitions and that the Turner loan had been in the pipeline for some time.

Turner, who lived from 1775 to 1851, bequeathed much of his work to the nation. Most of his paintings are on display at Tate Britain in London.