There's a good reason why yoga attracts more than 36 million Americans every year: it's a great way to unwind from the pressures of everyday life while also boosting your flexibility and strength.
You'll get a lot more out of it than simply toned biceps and triceps. The technique has been shown to aid in a wide variety of situations, including the treatment of sleeplessness and the prevention of illnesses like diabetes.
Yoga has often been practised solo. It's a chance to get in touch with your body, breathe deeply, and stay present on your mat. However, there are additional benefits to practising yoga with a friend, partner, or significant other.
Couples yoga, also called partner yoga, is a kind of yoga in which two individuals engage in mutually supportive yoga postures. Couples yoga may have great effects on your relationship beyond the physical, from increasing trust to fostering better communication.
A couples yoga experience may serve as a type of mini-retreat or 'workshop' to develop a relationship. If a couple wants to get the most out of their yoga practice together, it's not enough to simply show up to class together; they have to pay close attention to each other during the session and collaborate to achieve their goals. Couples yoga has been shown to have many positive effects, from less anxiety to enhanced sex life, and the practise is helpful for both partners.
Keep reading to find out how you and your partner may reap the many mental, physical, and spiritual rewards of a yoga practise together.
1. Increased relationship happiness.
You may improve your relationship satisfaction just by taking a couples yoga session together.
Research shows that couples who do new, exciting things together report an improvement in the quality of their relationships and an increase in romantic desire. The closeness and mutual support fostered by couples yoga may assist to revitalise and resuscitate a relationship. Couples may have fun while slowing down, spending valuable time together, and sharing a meaningful experience through learning new talents together.
Happier relationships have been related to the cultivation of mindfulness, which is fostered through yoga practice. Mindfulness, which is described as "an open attention to and knowledge of the present moment," has been linked to greater relationship happiness, according to research published in the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension in 2016.
Posing and breathing deeply together may reawaken passion in a relationship and leave both partners feeling fulfilled.
2. Enhanced personal connections and sex life
Yoga for couples has the potential to boost sexual desire and pleasure. Partner yoga has been shown to aid couples dealing with sexual dysfunction, according to research conducted by the Loyola University Health System.
Couples yoga is not a sexual activity. Yoga as a pair involves coordinating each partner's breath, posture, and movement. However, because it calls for more openness, conversation, and connection, it may deepen your relationship.
Yoga has been shown to improve sex life in several ways, including through enhanced communication via touch and movement. Conflict in relationships can come from partners feeling out of sync, aloof, or detached. Moving together as a couple in yoga may bring you closer together. Yoga has been demonstrated in studies to increase libido.
Several couples therapists have begun adding partner yoga into their sessions to assist their clients to have better sex lives and build healthier relationships.
3. Better understanding and rapport.
To build the postures together in a couples yoga session, you need to continually communicate with your partner, both vocally and non-verbally, and lean on them (literally and figuratively!). To do so calls for openness, cooperation, and trust.
The act of physically touching another person may be a language all its own, one that allows for the expression of profound feelings without the need for words. A person's sense of being seen, acknowledged, cared for, loved, accepted, valued, worthy, and safe may all be conveyed through conscious and voluntary human contact, as she puts it.
According to research from the British Psychological Society, couples who engage in synchronized nonverbal movement, such as the rhythmic breathing and posture seen in couples yoga, report feeling "more affectively attuned to each other."
Mimicking your partner's actions has been shown to strengthen feelings of connection and empathy. To maintain positions, couples must rely on each other's strength and balance, which may boost trust and open lines of communication between them. Participants must be present in the moment and the motions to feel connected, and the flowing postures, push and pull, and reliance on one another all contribute to this.
4. Decreased levels of stress and worry
When it comes to relieving tension and anxiety, yoga in general is beneficial, but when practiced with a partner, the added benefit comes from the healing power of touch. Holding hands as a married couple has been shown to alleviate tension immediately, according to research published in Psychological Science. When compared to holding the hand of a total stranger, the brain response elicited by holding the hand of one's partner was significantly greater. For this reason, the simple act of touching your spouse might help alleviate anxiety by dampening the brain's reaction to stress.
The goal of yoga positions like the backbend and the Camel Pose is to stretch and loosen certain muscle groups. This can provide room for revitalizing new energy and ease mental, emotional, and bodily pain, stress, and tension.
Couples yoga provides the extra benefit of strengthening your partnership, whether your primary motivation for practicing yoga is to relieve stress, increase strength and flexibility, cultivate a more thoughtful outlook, or some combination of these. And for that, we can say "Namaste."
Try this easy yoga position with your partner: Breathing in tandem
· In a comfortable sitting posture, with your backs against each other and your feet crossed, you may both relax and enjoy the company of your partner.
· Start doing some alternative breathing while sitting up straight with your shoulders back and away from your ears.
· When one person inhales deeply, the other should exhale similarly, and so forth.
· Repeat for a total of 30 times, each time taking 10 breaths.
Mindfulness, calmness, and intimacy may all be enhanced by adopting this breathing position.