That’s why millions are turning to online dating services, which promise to use math and science to find people dates — and often more than dates, life partners. But how reliable are these popular services, and the matchmaking algorithms they use? A new and exhaustive study of these online matchmakers — and of romantic prediction in general — raises real doubts about these services’ methods and results. But this critique goes beyond eHarmony, Match.com, and Chemistry.com. It questions the entire enterprise of predicting lasting love for any two people who have never met.

Five psychological scientists at five universities spent a year distilling and analyzing more than 400 scientific studies related to dating, romance, and marriage, to determine what traits are measurable and valuable in successful matchmaking. The effort was headed up by Eli Finkel of Northwestern University, and the resulting analysis is discouraging for anyone who is gambling on these Internet dating services. But the bottom line of the study, published last week in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, is that no third party — not your sister or best pal or the matchmaker of yore — would do much better in finding you your soul mate.

The scientists identify three broad categories of information that matchmakers might use to match people up for lifelong relationships: quality of personal interaction, life circumstances, and individual traits and attitudes. All three are important in determining whether a romantic relationship thrives or fails, the scientists say, but in reality much of this vital information is inaccessible or ignored.

Take personal interactions, for instance. This is everything about how two people are with each other — the way they talk, or don’t; how critical or kind they tend to be; how distant or intimate; how good at resolving disputes. Clearly this is important stuff in any relationship — arguably the most important — but as Finkel and colleagues point out, it plays no part at all in online matchmaking. Think about it. These matchmaking formulas are designed to predict romantic outcomes for two people who have never met — complete strangers — so how could they possibly factor in such interactive qualities? The short answer is that they don’t, but neither do other, more traditional matchmakers. Your sister may have seen you and a potential partner in action, independently, so she can at least imagine the two of you together and make an educated guess about your dynamic — but it’s just a guess.

Traditional matchmakers also have a slight advantage over computers when it comes to weighing life circumstances. Some of the best predictors of romantic and marital success are things beyond our control — social and economic status, for example. Some of this could in theory be known ahead of time — before two people meet — and factored into a prediction. But the fact is, online matchmakers don’t pay much attention to economic and financial issues. Nor do they factor in crucially important life stresses — including unanticipated stress from losing a job, or chronic illness, infertility, a flood or cyclone. These things are unknowable in advance, and even things that are knowable — life alcohol abuse or family pathology — are hidden from online matchmakers. Traditional matchmakers have a better chance of knowing some of these circumstances in advance, but even your sister can’t predict a factory closing or the onset of cancer.

So that leaves individual traits, which is really all that these online matchmakers have to work with. These traits include not only personality — outgoing, shy, daring, gloomy — but also views and attitudes and values. Do Ron Paul’s politics resonate for you? How about Thai food? Long walks in the woods? Online services are well equipped to gather a lot of this kind of information and to match up strangers who share such interests and values.

But how important are these things, really? Does matching up on tastes and preferences predict long-term satisfaction as a couple? Probably not, the scientists conclude. Most of the online matchmaking services match people up based on the assumption that similarity is important to relationship success, but the existing studies of this theory are mixed in their findings and not easily interpretable. For one thing, it’s not at all clear which dimensions of similarity are important. You may both like those long walks in the woods but have very different tastes in food or politics. What trumps what in the search for compatibility?

Electronic matchmaking’s preoccupation with compatibility may itself be a problem, these scientists conclude. More important than compatibility, they suggest, is something called relationship aptitude. Aptitude is the constellation of traits, preferences, and personal history that makes a person more likely to have good relationships in general — not necessarily with a specific other person. One of the most robust findings from relationship science is that the capacity for intimate relationships is a relatively stable quality in individuals — regardless of partner — as is the incapacity. That all-important trait may not show up in preferences for Thai food, libertarian politics, or autumn strolls. That’s what used to be called good character, which no matchmaking algorithm can possibly capture.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/online-dating_b_1268511.html

But the dating site Zoosk wants to change that by incentivizing its members to stay online after they’ve found romance. The company is beginning to unveil a host of new features and services designed to make its service more sticky.

“I use the example of LinkedIn versus Monster,” co-founder Alex Mehr said in a Valentine’s Day interview. “Monster just focuses on the job-seeking phase of your professional life, whereas LinkedIn covers your entire professional career. We want to provide a service like that for your entire romantic life.”

Mehr said that Zoosk will be able to do this with relationship-enhancing bonuses such as reminders of key dates including birthdays and anniversaries, deals on events and activities for two, and advice centers for couples.

While Zoosk is looking to add a new twist to the online dating world, the site is already successful. Founded in 2007, it now claims some 15 million monthly active users and company representatives say that its sales revenue surpassed $90 million in 2011.

Zoosk works differently than most dating sites already, Mehr says. It integrates a variety of social networks as well as functionality as a social network of its own with a news feed and interest graph. But it’s the new features, set to debut over the next month, that Mehr thinks will truly set Zoosk apart.

“What we want is for it to have 2 benefits,” he says. “It will capture more value for the customer so that they don’t just turn it off when they find someone. At the same time, we’ll know the transition points, we’ll know when you will want to find someone else if it doesn’t work out, so that gives us a natural advantage.”

When a Zoosk user finds a boyfriend or girlfriend, they will be able to change their relationship status to begin capitalizing on the couples’ features. Change that status back to single, and personal ads will reappear.

Mehr said that reviews of the new features with small groups of test users have been “very positive.” Between now and the end of March, Zoosk plans to roll out a host of different iterations of its new features to see which ones most users prefer and then finalize the site’s added element.

Relationship advice, for example, could be syndicated from outside sources or user generated — though Mehr said he hopes Zoosk eventually relies more on content provided by its members.

And, just as Zoosk already integrates with other social networks, all of its new features will as well. Post a photo of you and your significant other to Facebook, and Zoosk will pull it to your profile there. Post that photo to your Zoosk profile, and the site will push it to Facebook.

“One way to think of it will be as a romantic filter for all your social networks,” Mehr said. “There is no other site out there where, if two people are in a relationship, it provides this type of service to them.”

Do you think Zoosk’s idea will become successful or be a flop? Let us know in the comments.

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/14/why-zoosk-wants-to-make-online-dating-more-like-linkedin/

It’s 2025 and your boyfriend has been temporarily posted to Tokyo, while you’re still stuck in the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis. How will you keep in touch? Well, maybe hug shirts and larger-than-life videoconferencing will help you out.

As communication technology has improved over time, it’s helped long-distance couples stay in real-time contact and enjoy conversations almost as if they were sitting face to face. There aren’t good studies on whether more people maintain long-distance romantic relationships now than in the past, said Linda Young, a relationship counselor and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that aims to educate the public about family and relationship science. Young’s anecdotal experience, however, is that there are more separated lovers now. “The impression I get is that yes, it’s true,” she told InnovationNewsDaily.

The possible increase in the number of far-flung lovers isn’t just a result of better tech, she said, but also of the poor economy in the U.S. “Because of job opportunities or lack of opportunities, people are going where they have to go,” she explained.

For now, these people will have to rely on phone calls, email and video calls, but in the future, they can look forward to technologies that will involve one or two more of the five senses or even virtual worlds of their own.

INFOGRAPHIC: High Tech Love in Space and Time

Big brother lover

Television screens have been growing bigger and sharper since the 1990s. Now, with the Apple iTV, they’re getting more connected, too. Even mobile devices can have fairly large displays, such as those on tablets. “It’s going to be seamless to have a really large view of your spouse and the room they’re sitting in,” Young said. She has noticed many long-distance couples understandably prefer video chat programs such as FaceTime and Skype over telephone or email, so the future’s big-screen views may be popular with traveling and long-distance partners.

Call in a hug

Even the largest video displays are still missing one physical sense that is very important to love: touch. Both sexual and non-sexual physical touch help couples bond, not least by releasing a social chemical called oxytocin in the brain, Young said. 

In 2006, Time magazine called the Bluetooth-enabled “hug shirt” one of the best inventions of the year. The shirt is embedded with devices that can sense and recreate the strength, warmth and heartbeat of someone’s embrace. If hugger and huggee both wear the shirts, which are linked to their cellphones, they can send touches to one another’s torsos and arms, to any location their phones could normally make calls. If one party doesn’t own a hug shirt, he or she can still send a hug using software called HugMe.

Six years later, the shirt is still listed as “coming soon” on the website of its inventors, CuteCircuit. Though other researchers have since created jackets with tactile feedback for video games and movies, the shared-touch shirt idea seems to have stalled for now.

“When it comes to something like putting on a suit that has sensors so your entire body can be activated by a remote person at a keyboard,” Young said, “the number of people who are desiring that kind of touch experience is pretty low.” 

She doesn’t see a big market for touch clothing, except for “depersonalized” experiences such as paid webcam sex. It seems too strange coming from a beloved partner, she said. “Touch is really important, but second-degree touch is very different from first-degree touch.”

Yet webcams and phones give people second-degree sights and sounds. Why is touch different? Phones and photographs have existed for a long time, Young said, so people are familiar with the sensations. 

Perhaps with time, people will get used to touch technology as well.

In their own little world

Most of the long-distance couples Young works with keep in touch by phone or with video calls, but there is a “subset of the population,” she said, who use avatars in virtual-world games such as Second Life to keep things “spicy.” In akin technology, some online services, such as OmniDate and VirtualDateSpace, let users create avatars and go on virtual dates.

For those who aren’t interested in avatar worlds, there are websites (Tokii) and smartphone apps (IceBreak, Between) that have quizzes, games, messaging and photo-sharing just for two. Young recommends them for long-distance couples who prefer doing things together over sitting and talking.

She has seen these games work well with long-distance lovers, but she’s also run into couples in which one partner enjoys the new game much more than the other. In that sense, it’s just like joining the local bowling league together or picking up community gardening as a pair. “Like anything else, like some new hobby, you have to do something that fits both dispositions,” Young said.

With better video screens, improving tactile technology and more online activities and games, separated couples in the future can keep in close touch. There’s no app to reproduce the dirty details of day-to-day living, however—snoring, nose-picking, arguments both petty and important. Couples who plan eventually to live together should keep that in mind, Young said. “You can maintain an idealized version of yourself through your technology.” Long-distance relationships can have “that bubble quality, that shinier-than-real-life quality.”

All communication technologies engage the imagination in some way, to fill in the inevitable gap with real life. People should expect a potentially rough adjustment period when they get back together again, Young said. “Now all the truths are coming out.”

• How Do I Love Thee? Experts Count 8 Ways
• How Tech Trends Today Affect Romancing Tomorrow
• 10 Best Online Dating Sites

Copyright 2012 InnovationNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://current.com/groups/on-current-tv/76371842_the-hug-shirt.htm

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/12/long-distance-relationshi_n_1271210.html

For a fee, many dating sites will collect data about you, crunch the numbers and match you with someone who, as eHarmony puts it, has been “prescreened for deep compatibility with you across 29 dimensions.” Sites like Chemistry, PerfectMatch and GenePartner make similar scientific-sounding claims.

But can a mathematical formula really identify pairs of singles who are especially likely to have a successful romantic relationship?

We believe the answer is no. It’s hard to be certain, since the sites have not disclosed their algorithms. But — as we and our co-authors argue in an article to be published this month in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest — the past 80 years of scientific research about what makes people romantically compatible suggests that such sites are unlikely to do what they claim to do.

One major problem is that these sites fail to collect a lot of crucial information. Because they gather data from singles who have never met, the sites have no way of knowing how two people will interact once they have been matched. Yet our review of the literature reveals that aspects of relationships that emerge only after two people meet and get to know each other — things like communication patterns, problem-solving tendencies and sexual compatibility — are crucial for predicting the success or failure of relationships. For example, study after study has shown that the way that couples discuss and attempt to resolve disagreements predicts their future satisfaction and whether or not the relationship is likely to dissolve.

Likewise, dating sites don’t take into account the environment surrounding the relationship: factors like job loss, financial strain, infertility and illness. But research indicates that when couples encounter such stresses or unexpected demands on their energy, their satisfaction with their relationship declines and their risk for breaking up increases. To give just one example: in a 2004 study by the psychologist Lisa Neff, wives who experienced relatively high levels of stress outside of their marriage tended to evaluate their marriage increasingly negatively over time.

Another major problem with the algorithms of dating sites is that the information that they do collect — about individual characteristics — accounts for only a tiny slice of what makes two people suited for a long-term relationship. Certainly, some characteristics predict relationship well-being. For example, decades of research confirms that people tend to have troubled romantic relationships if they are emotionally volatile, were mistreated as children or abuse drugs or alcohol. Eliminating people from the dating pool who are likely to have relationship problems, as some sites may do by declining customers based on their answers to questions about things like emotional stability, can be a useful service (as long as you’re one of the lucky singles who make the cut).

Of course, dating sites promise much more than access to a somewhat improved pool of potential mates; they promise to identify specific pairs of strangers who are likely to mesh well together in a romantic relationship. In particular, almost all of the sites claim that partners who are more similar to each other in certain ways will experience greater relationship satisfaction and stability relative to partners who are less similar.

But our review of the literature revealed that the forms of similarity advertised by dating sites provide a meager foundation for an enduring relationship. To be sure, similarity on some dimensions, like race and religion, does predict relationship well-being. Analyses by the National Center for Health Statistics, for example, indicate that marriages between spouses of the same race or ethnicity have a lower divorce rate after 10 years than interracial or interethnic couples (31 percent versus 41 percent). However, the vast majority of people mate with demographically similar partners anyway, so such findings aren’t especially useful in helping dating sites narrow a client’s pool of potential partners.

Perhaps as a result, these sites tend to emphasize similarity on psychological variables like personality (e.g., matching extroverts with extroverts and introverts with introverts) and attitudes (e.g., matching people who prefer Judd Apatow’s movies to Woody Allen’s with people who feel the same way). The problem with this approach is that such forms of similarity between two partners generally don’t predict the success of their relationship. According to a 2008 meta-analysis of 313 studies, similarity on personality traits and attitudes had no effect on relationship well-being in established relationships. In addition, a 2010 study of more than 23,000 married couples showed that similarity on the major dimensions of personality (e.g., neuroticism, impulsivity, extroversion) accounted for a mere 0.5 percent of how satisfied spouses were with their marriages — leaving the other 99.5 percent to other factors.

None of this suggests that online dating is any worse a method of meeting potential romantic partners than meeting in a bar or on the subway. But it’s no better either.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/online-dating-sites-dont-match-hype.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

That’s according to data shared with Mashable by fraud protection agency Iovation, which works with several major Internet dating services. Iovation reached that number by employing patented technology that analyzes hardware and software, rather than mine for personal information, says Molly O’Hearn, vice president of operations.

Iovation found that in 2011, 3.8% of all transactions it processed for online dating sites were fraudulent. That includes users misrepresenting themselves to try to acquire personal information, directing users to phishing sites, spamming people with unrelated messages, or persistently harassing users.

From 2009 to 2010, dating fraud on the sites Iovation monitors declined slightly, from a rate of 1.5% to 1.4%.

The spike in 2011 was due to two trends in the industry, according to O’Hearn. The first is that “while dating sites have been around for several years, we’re now entering an era where the later adopters are willing to give it a go,” she says. “With that growth comes more bad guys, because it represents an opportunity.”

Another emerging opportunity, O’Hearn said, is the proliferation of dating sites targeted at specific niches — people who are Catholic, Jewish, virgins or pot users. This narrowing of the field allows scammers to better target their marks and tailor their nefarious strategies.

O’Hearn said that one common scheme involves trying to direct conversations off-site to personal email or instant messaging accounts, where it’s easier to mine for information. Another preys on the sympathy of possible paramours by asking for money to deal with crises like huge medical bills or the need to visit a dying relative.

O’Hearn said that two main giveaways of swindlers are the use of the world “love” in the early stages of correspondence, and people whose syntax and use of language don’t jibe with their pictures or where they claim to be from.

So, if that charming blue-eyed farm boy from Nebraska suddenly tells you he wants to “make nice date with you, love” for Valentine’s Day, take the suger with a few grains of salt.

Do you believe that online dating fraud is on the rise? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/10/online-dating-fraud/

Whereas Match.com, eHarmony and OkCupid promise to calculate your ideal mate based on your actions and stated preferences, these new sites use some interesting new criteria such as common friends, activities, alma mater or even face structure to make matches.

A team commissioned by the Association of Psychological Science recently deemed the purely algorithmic approach to online dating no more effective at predicting compatibility than a good old-fashioned chat.

We’re not sure that any of the seven approaches below would be any more effective. But many of them are certainly more fun.

1. Clique: Stop Dating Strangers

When the dating world plugged into the Internet, it largely catered to the classified-style dating that preceded it — facilitating meetings between strangers who might like each other. But the age-old method of meeting dates through friends was largely ignored by online dating sites.

Clique, which will celebrate its one-year anniversary Valentine’s Day, is trying to make that method its niche. On the invite-only site, only you, your friends and people connected to you by fewer than three degrees are visible. When you’re browsing profiles, you can see how you’re connected to each person, and your friends can make match suggestions for you.

Upside: A personal reference for every potential date.

Downside: Your common friends will inevitably hear feedback about your dates.

2. Sparkology: Ivy League Men Only

Sparkology has set out to filter its community with rigid criteria. To join the site, you need to be a college graduate. If you’re a man, you need to be a verified graduate of a school on the site’s list of “top universities.”

Payment also works a bit differently than traditional dating sites. Women pay a flat fee per month to be on the site. Men pay a small fee to start conversations, which theoretically prevents them from spamming everyone on the site.

Upside: Men have to invest each time they communicate and are less likely to do so when they aren’t sincerely interested.

Downside: Although the site’s founders point out that its list of top universities includes 85 schools, Sparkology is still no doubt missing some interesting, successful people who don’t happen to have a top-notch college degree.

3. Nerve Dating: Less-Painful Introductions

Once a site for listing personals, Nerve Dating relaunched in 2011 with a focus on natural ice breakers. Users post mini-updates on their profiles that answer simple questions such as “What did you do last night?” Whether they read a book, saw a concert or watched TV, the hope is that it will give others a reason to connect. Browsing the site is free, but unlimited messaging costs $20 per month.

Upside: there’s something to talk about when you message someone for the first time.

Downside: Another status to update.

4. SinglesAroundMe: Location-Based Dating

SinglesAroundMe is an Android, BlackBerry and iPhone app that lives up to its name. Quite simply, it uses the GPS feature on your phone to find singles near you, literally plotting them on a map. Profile information is pretty limited, but there’s an option to message people to find out more if you fork over $2.95 per month or $19.95 per year. So far I have gotten one message on the network: “you are a fake!drop dead.”

Upside: Dating people near you seems practical.

Downside: When proximity is the major criteria of interest, there may be reason to question the motives of people who contact you.

5. HowAboutWe: Activity Dating

HowAboutWe puts focus on the date rather than the individual. Users propose fun activities. Other users can send them messages if they like their ideas. To send such a message, however, you’ll need to fork over between $7.99 and $34.99 per month depending on how long you commit.

Upside: Fewer coffee shops, more adventures.

Downside: “How about we… communicate only through facial expressions for the first 30 minutes of our date.” How about not.

6. Soul2Match: Similar Faces

Soul2Match promises to match singles based solely on one piece of information from each of them: their headshot. Founders Jorn Eiting and Linda van Liempt are serious. They cite several studies that show what we’re all really looking for in our ideal mate is ourselves.

“The more two people have similarities in their faces, the more they look alike, the happier they are in the relationship, the stronger the relationship,” Eiting told Mashable in September.

The website compares your mugshot with other faces to rate your compatibility.

Upside: Entertainment.

Downside: Remember that research the company cites? Some of it shows that couples with similar levels of attractiveness are the happiest. Other research says people trust those who have similar facial features more than those who don’t.

The best proof for Soul2Match‘s matchmaking method is a 1999 study that used computer-graphic image manipulation to generate male faces that looked like female participants. For example, if a woman’s cheekbone stuck out 0.3 percent more than the average woman’s cheekbones do, the program would generate a male face with cheekbones that stuck out 0.3 percent more than the male average. Women were more likely to rate faces as attractive that had been manipulated to match their own.

Trouble is, a later study by Lisa M. DeBruine of McMaster University showed that people are more likely to rate faces similar to their attractive when it’s the same sex than photos of the opposite sex.

“The same-sex bias … is a product of specialized responses to facial resemblance as a cue of kinship,” DeBruine wrote; it helps us “favor kin in a non-sexual prosocial context and avoid kin in a mating context.”

In other words, her theory is that it’s all part of the brain’s recognition mechanism that helps us be nice to family members — and avoid incest.

7. Grouper: Group Dating

Grouper arranges group dates between three women and three men.

Upside: Less pressure and a “meet three new people for one time commitment” structure.

Downside: Here’s to hoping you and your friends don’t all fall for the same person in the other group.

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Etsy is a no-brainer for gifts, and even though its Valentine’s Day board is rather sparsely populated, the content is super original.

The Twinery not only Pinned lots of yummies, but has a good eye for crafts too.

Need ideas for Valentine cards themselves? Check out Perkins’s cute Board.

Smullin takes the cake for quirky Valentine’s gift ideas that fit the whole family.

Real Simple‘s Valentine’s board has something for everyone, prices attached.

Chef Deen’s Date Night Recipes Board will inspire you to cook for your honey on Valentine’s night.

CreatingHOME’s Board features lots of yummy treats.

Iddrise Ann’s be mine

With over 300 Pins, Beckett includes enough Valentine’s treats and treasures to last a lifetime.

Valentine’s gifts are that much more special when they’re DIY. Anna S will help inspire you.

Cookies, cakes and crafts galore on Fabulous Fun Finds’s Board.

Silbermann’s Board isn’t Valentine’s-themed, specifically, but he has a pretty accurate idea of what a girl wants. Check out his Gifts for Guy Friends Board too.

Silbermann’s Board isn’t Valentine’s-themed, specifically, but he has a pretty accurate idea of what a girl wants. Check out his Gifts for Guy Friends Board too.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, adventtr

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/new-online-dating-sites/

Online dating sites frequently trumpet their ability to corral the most compatible fish in your sea through sophisticated algorithms. But a psychological study released this week says that you may be better off doing it the old-fashioned way and just meeting a stranger at a bar.

A team commissioned by the Association of Psychological Science says that the algorithms employed by sites such as eHarmony, Match.com and OKCupid don’t do much much to determine whether sparks will fly when they compare people’s interests and personalities, according to a recent Reuters interview with report author Eli Finkel.

“There’s no better way to figure out whether you’re compatible with somebody than talking to them over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer,” said Finkel, an associate professor at Northwestern University.

Finkel and his team found that the massive databases of potential matches don’t reveal enough about the people behind the profiles. And the sheer volume of options can overwhelm users to the point of “shutting down” and making poor decisions because of too many choices, according to Finkel, who compared the situation to shoppers at an overstocked supermarket.

“Eighty years of relationship science has reliably shown you can’t predict whether a relationship succeeds based on information about people who are unaware of each other,” Finkel told Reuters.

The researchers did not have access to the algorithms themselves, but Finkel scoffed at the accuracy of websites’ studies of their own success.

“The assumption is that they work,” he said. “We reviewed the literature and feel safe to conclude they do not.”

Finkel and his team’s research will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

Do you think that online services have value in the dating game? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/08/online-dating-study/

Today’s experiment in eating, however, involves becoming aware of that reflexive urge to plow through your meal like Cookie Monster on a shortbread bender. Resist it. Leave the fork on the table. Chew slowly. Stop talking. Tune in to the texture of the pasta, the flavor of the cheese, the bright color of the sauce in the bowl, the aroma of the rising steam.

Continue this way throughout the course of a meal, and you’ll experience the third-eye-opening pleasures and frustrations of a practice known as mindful eating.

The concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel. In one common exercise, a student is given three raisins, or a tangerine, to spend 10 or 20 minutes gazing at, musing on, holding and patiently masticating.

Lately, though, such experiments of the mouth and mind have begun to seep into a secular arena, from the Harvard School of Public Health to the California campus of Google. In the eyes of some experts, what seems like the simplest of acts — eating slowly and genuinely relishing each bite — could be the remedy for a fast-paced Paula Deen Nation in which an endless parade of new diets never seems to slow a stampede toward obesity.

Mindful eating is not a diet, or about giving up anything at all. It’s about experiencing food more intensely — especially the pleasure of it. You can eat a cheeseburger mindfully, if you wish. You might enjoy it a lot more. Or you might decide, halfway through, that your body has had enough. Or that it really needs some salad.

“This is anti-diet,” said Dr. Jan Chozen Bays, a pediatrician and meditation teacher in Oregon and the author of “Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food.” “I think the fundamental problem is that we go unconscious when we eat.”

The last few years have brought a spate of books, blogs and videos about hyper-conscious eating. A Harvard nutritionist, Dr. Lilian Cheung, has devoted herself to studying its benefits, and is passionately encouraging corporations and health care providers to try it.

At the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, Prof. Brian Wansink, the author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” has conducted scores of experiments on the psychological factors that lead to our bottomless bingeing. A mindful lunch hour recently became part of the schedule at Google, and self-help gurus like Oprah Winfrey and Kathy Freston have become cheerleaders for the practice.

With the annual chow-downs of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday behind us, and Lent coming, it’s worth pondering whether mindful eating is something that the mainstream ought to be, well, more mindful of. Could a discipline pioneered by Buddhist monks and nuns help teach us how to get healthy, relieve stress and shed many of the neuroses that we’ve come to associate with food?

Dr. Cheung is convinced that it can. Last week, she met with team members at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and asked them to spend quality time with a chocolate-covered almond.

“The rhythm of life is becoming faster and faster, so we really don’t have the same awareness and the same ability to check into ourselves,” said Dr. Cheung, who, with the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, co-wrote “Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life.” “That’s why mindful eating is becoming more important. We need to be coming back to ourselves and saying: ‘Does my body need this? Why am I eating this? Is it just because I’m so sad and stressed out?’ ”

The topic has even found its way into culinary circles that tend to be more focused on Rabelaisian excess than monastic restraint. In January, Dr. Michael Finkelstein, a holistic physician who oversees SunRaven, a holistic-living center in Bedford, N.Y., gave a talk about mindful gardening and eating at the smorgasbord-friendly headquarters of the James Beard Foundation in New York City.

“The question isn’t what are the foods to eat, in my mind,” he said in an interview. “Most people have a general sense of what the healthy foods are, but they’re not eating them. What’s on your mind when you’re eating: that’s mindful eating to me.”

A good place to try it is the Blue Cliff Monastery, in Pine Bush, N.Y., a Hudson Valley hamlet. At the serene refuge about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan, curious lay people can join Buddhist brothers and sisters for a free “day of mindfulness” twice a week.

At a gathering in January, visitors watched a videotaped lecture by Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced tik-nyot-HAHN), who founded this and other monasteries around the world; they strolled methodically around the grounds as part of a walking meditation, then filed into a dining room for lunch.

No one spoke, in keeping with a key principle of mindful eating. The point is simply to eat, as opposed to eating and talking, eating and watching TV, or eating and watching TV and gossiping on the phone while Tweeting and updating one’s Facebook status.

A long buffet table of food awaited, all of it vegan and mindfully prepared by two monks in the kitchen. There was plenty of rice, herbed chickpeas, a soup made with cubes of taro, a stew of fried tofu in tomato sauce.

In silence, people piled their plates with food, added a squirt or two of condiments (eating mindfully doesn’t mean forsaking the hot sauce) and sat down together with eyes closed during a Buddhist prayer for gratitude and moderation.

What followed was captivating and mysterious. Surrounded by a murmur of clinking forks, spoons and chopsticks, the Blue Cliff congregation, or sangha, spent the lunch hour contemplating the enjoyment of spice, crunch, saltiness, warmth, tenderness and like-minded company.

Some were thinking, too, about the origins of the food: the thousands of farmers, truck drivers and laborers whose work had brought it here.

As their jaws moved slowly, their faces took on expressions of deep focus. Every now and then came a pause within the pause: A chime would sound, and, according to the monastery’s custom, all would stop moving and chewing in order to breathe and explore an even deeper level of sensory awareness.

It looked peaceful, but inside some of those heads, a struggle was afoot.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

“Tibetan language is the key to our culture, and without it all our traditions will be locked away forever,” said Abo Degecairang, 25, a ruddy-cheeked monk who is among the inaugural class of young men enrolled at the school, the Anymachen Tibetan Culture Center, which opened in September here in southeastern Qinghai Province.

More striking than its improbably isolated setting is the fact that the Chinese government allowed Rinpoche Tserin Lhagyal, 48, the school’s spiritual guide and soft-spoken founder, to set up an autonomous institution dedicated to promoting Tibetan culture and language. Although Tibetan areas of China are flecked with Buddhist monasteries, their mandate is to teach religious devotion through ancient texts and long hours of prayer. Nonreligious schooling is typically controlled by the state, most often anchored in Mandarin, although poverty and geographic isolation deprive many children of any formal education.

It was those young people whom the Rinpoche — a title bestowed on high-ranking teachers in Tibetan Buddhism — has sought out, eager to give them a future that he hopes will help preserve their heritage. Today, 30 shepherd boys, orphans and novice monks are learning the fundamentals of Tibetan culture, as well as Mandarin and English. Some are garbed in burgundy monks’ robes, others in jeans and trucker hats. A few arrived unable to read or write in any language, but the Rinpoche has faith that these challenges can be overcome, just as he succeeded in establishing this center despite the daunting political and financial odds.

“If your heart is in the right place, everything else will fall into place,” said the Rinpoche, who raised more than $3 million to build the vermilion-painted building topped by shimmering gold roofs. The main building, which dominates a breathtakingly picturesque valley, also houses an ornate temple filled with colorful Buddhas and altars illuminated by butter lamps. The school is so far off the grid that it must rely on solar power.

The Rinpoche, who has achieved the status of a “living Buddha,” says the idea for the center came to him in a vision one morning six years ago. Dismayed by the growing number of Tibetans unable to decipher the written form of their mother tongue, he dreamed of a sanctuary where young Tibetans left behind by China’s progress could study their culture and pass it on to the next generation.

“Monasteries just teach monks about Buddhism, but they don’t teach the full range of how to be a Tibetan,” he said. “From a cultural point of view, it’s an emergency.”

This frustration over a struggling culture, shared by a great many Tibetans, has fueled the ethnic unrest that has roiled Tibetan areas of China in recent years. Part of the anger stems from the influx of Han Chinese migrants to the region and other policies, including a renewed emphasis on Mandarin instruction, that some feel is undermining an ancient way of life. Last year, thousands of middle and high school students in Qinghai took to the streets in protest over proposals to eliminate academic instruction in Tibetan.

The deadliest outburst occurred in 2008 in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, where rioting and the crackdown that followed killed at least 20 people. In recent months, the protests against Chinese governance have taken the form of self-immolations that have left 15 Tibetans dead or gravely hurt.

Rather than be deterred by the tense relationship between the Communist Party and Tibetan people, the Rinpoche spent years cultivating “guanxi,” or personal relationships, with Qinghai officials. Through those efforts he methodically obtained approvals from numerous government departments. The government, he says, hopes the center, which he says will eventually house 600 students, will attract tourism and raise local living standards. To raise money, the Rinpoche traveled across China seeking donations, and received them largely from Han Chinese, who make up 80 percent of his 1,000 contributors. “Han people give me money for the same reason Tibetans donate: they want to do good,” he said.

Mia Lee contributed research.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/world/asia/teaching-tibetan-ways-school-in-china-is-unlikely-wonder.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Each series follows three single princes and three single princesses from around the world who go undercover in the UK in pursuit of true love, according to a TLC press release. They hit up bars and clubs and try online dating sites and even speed dating in search of their perfect match to take back to their respective kingdoms.

Take a look at who’s on the prowl …

The princes:

• Crown Prince Manvendra of Rajpipla, 46: Born to one of India’s richest royal families, he shocked the world by becoming the first Indian royal to come out as gay.
• Prince Africa Zulu of Onkweni Royal House, 33: Expect this South African royal to struggle with Prince Manvendra’s sexuality.
• Prince Remigius of Jaffna, 47: The prince from Sri Lanka was raised with strict protocol.

The princesses:

• Princess Xenia of Saxony, 22: She’s a celebrity in her German kingdom, thanks to the press her sexy image gets.
• Princess Aaliya of Balasinor, 35: This Indian princess has never ever dated let alone had a boyfriend.
• Princess Sheillah of Buganda: Hailing from the largest and most powerful kingdom in Uganda, this royal is famous in her country –the Buganda Kingdom — for her title, but as pop star, as well.

During their quests, the princesses share a townhouse in the upscale Brighton, while the princes stay in Essex, a party neighborhood. They’ll all be going it alone without cooks, cleaning staff and the like; instead, they’ll be the ones doing the dirty work both at home and elsewhere. To maximize their exposure to potential love interests, the princes and princess will hold everyday jobs including cleaning hotels and waiting tables.

“Undercover Princes” and “Undercover Princesses” will each air four episodes, followed by a one-hour update special scheduled to air on Tues., Mar. 27.

“Undercover Princes” premieres Tues., Jan. 31 at 10 p.m. EST on TLC and “Undercover Princesses,” premieres Tues., Feb. 28 at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.

Check out a sneak peek below:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/undercover-princes-princesses-tlc_n_1214795.html