Key Points
-
It's normal to look for new ways to stay connected with your partner.
-
Yoga for couples strengthens relationships and improves communication, happiness, intimacy, flexibility, relaxation, and posture.
-
Stretching and strengthening the muscles treats chronic pain as well as some medical and mental health conditions.
-
Yoga for couples is a way to get physically and emotionally closer to your partner.
With the constant distractions in life, it's easy to drift away from your partner. Sometimes it feels like your partner is just a roommate. Yoga for couples is an exciting, sexy way to get closer and deepen your connections.
Deciding to get healthier with your partner is the first step to a long, happy life together. Yoga for couples involves staying present, focusing on the other partner, increasing flexibility, and strengthening your muscles together.
Benefits of Yoga for Couples
Yoga writer and instructor Gemma Clarke emphasizes that "partner yoga improves trust, communication, and connection. Not to mention, it gives you a great stretch and helps strengthen your asana practice."
Yoga is a great time to get deeply connected with yourself. It's about being present and focusing on your current environment.
Yoga is even better for a couple. Pairing up for couples yoga doubles the benefits of doing it alone.
Communication
Yoga is an excellent time for self-communication and verbally connecting with your partner. It's beneficial for the couple to discuss how to do the poses and where to provide support for the partner.
Couples yoga improves communication skills, making it easier to sort out feelings and connect with your partner.
Partner yoga enhances communication because you both must listen to verbal and nonverbal cues to complete the movements. It also strengthens effective conversation with your partner outside of the yoga studio.
Happiness
Your brain reacts to exercise by releasing various hormones and neurochemicals, like dopamine, that alter your mood and performance.
Increasing your dopamine elicits feelings of happiness between you and your partner. Working together through yoga makes you happy with each other. You reap the benefits of your session even when you aren't practicing.
Intimacy
Couples yoga releases sex hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, that improve sexual health. Touching and breathing together is a way to enhance sexual energy and tension between you both.
Yoga improves flexibility and creativity, so it's a big help in the bedroom. You might even complete a yoga routine together in bed.
Flexibility
Yoga involves several poses and stretches that promote oxygen flow, circulation, and flexibility.
Stretching enhances the delivery of minerals and nutrients to tissues throughout the body. It relieves chronic pain and improves some medical conditions, posture, and yoga performance.
Stretching with a partner gives you a deeper reach than doing it alone. The partners pull on each other to reach new depths in their pose.
Relaxation
Partner yoga is relaxing for both of you. Physical touch with someone you love boosts beneficial neurochemicals that reduce stress and improve relaxation.
Yoga reduces stress through stretching by decreasing muscle knots and tension. It also loosens the muscles in the chest and core, making it easier to take a deep breath.
Better Posture
The muscles in the core, including the abs, obliques, and latissimus dorsi, hold you upright. Strengthening and stretching these muscles improve balance, alignment, and posture.
A yoga partner helps you perform the correct poses so you get the most out of your session. They also keep you safe from injury by ensuring you don't overextend.
Good posture is beneficial for circulation, balance, and concentration. It improves blood and oxygen flow to the brain and makes breathing easier.
Strengthens Relationship
Couples yoga forces you to rely on your partner for a safe and successful experience. Working with your partner builds positive shared experiences and memories.
Partner yoga is a trust-building exercise. Partners must trust each other to ensure they perform the various positions safely.
It's exciting to look forward to that one hour you spend together each day. It creates a safe space for you and your partner to block out the world and focus on each other. You also spend time together and connect on a spiritual level.
How To Do Yoga
Yoga is an art. It's a beautiful flow of bodies and movement that shapes into beautiful designs. Yoga transforms the body into sculptures that make you feel powerful.
Whether you're a beginner yogi or a master teacher, you must do certain parts of yoga correctly.
Breathing
One of the most essential parts of yoga is breathing. Deep breathing decreases stress hormones that negatively affect the body. It improves the release of extra carbon dioxide in the body and supplies more oxygen to the tissues.
Focus on moving your stomach when breathing. Take a deep breath and imagine filling your stomach wide. Watch your stomach fall as you exhale.
This form of breathing triggers your diaphragm for a more effective exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Core Engagement
Being able to balance involves the core muscles. The abs, back, and side muscles hold your center of gravity. Strengthening these muscles improves your balance.
When you are off balance, the core muscles flex to stabilize you. Strong core muscles allow you to stay steady when completing yoga poses requiring balance.
Personalization
You might not complete every pose like a pro. Some have conditions that prevent specific movements. Others are unable to bend in various ways.
Alter your poses to ensure you complete them safely. Pushing yourself too fast is dangerous. It's easy to overestimate your abilities, especially when you're starting out.
Slightly bend your knees if you feel pain. Reduce your stretch if your muscles feel like they're on fire. Focus more on accurately completing the movements, breathing, and engaging muscles than on the finished pose.
Stretching and Contracting
Yoga focuses on the movements of getting into the position, not just the pose. Moving between positions takes balance, flexibility, and strength.
When you're moving, focus on contracting the correct muscles and stretching the proper areas. If you learn the muscles involved in the yoga poses, you know which areas to engage when positioning yourself.
Tantric Yoga
Tantric yoga combines meditation, visualization, and mantras to enhance the effects of yoga.
Tantric yoga is a series of poses that allows you to connect deeper with your partner. They are very intimate poses that force you both to rely on each other in a close and personal manner.
Boat
Boat pose requires couples to help each other into their positions and focus on steadiness for safety. The boat pose requires holding hands and putting your feet flat against each other.
For a partner boat pose, start by sitting on the ground and facing each other. Bend your knees and have your partner rest their toes on yours.
Hold your knees about an inch apart and reach for your partner's hands on the outside of your legs. Firmly grasp their hands for support.
Each of you lifts one foot and places the bottom of your toes together. Continue moving up until the balls of your feet are touching, then raise straight into the air so the feet are flat against each other.
Repeat with the other foot, holding onto each other's hands for support until they're both in the air. You must point your toes and straighten your legs as much as possible. Lean back on your butt so your torso and legs look like a checkmark.
Double Savasana
The double savasana is one of the most popular yoga poses because it's one of the easiest. It allows you both to relax while still connecting.
The savasana relieves stress, stabilizes blood pressure, and reduces muscle tension.
The double savasana consists of lying flat on your back while holding your partner's hands. Holding hands boosts oxytocin, the love hormone that improves trust and romantic connection.
Yab Yum
The yab yum is a fun yoga pose to say and do. This profoundly intimate pose increases the connection between you and your partner.
To start this pose, one person sits with their legs crossed on the ground. The other person sits in their lap, facing them and straddling their legs around them.
Rest your foreheads together and breathe deeply. Close your eyes and focus on each other's heartbeat. The posture brings you closer physically and emotionally.
Paired Breathing
For paired breathing, sit cross-legged on the ground with your hands on your knees. Put your backs against one another. Breathe deeply and try to mimic each other's breathing.
When you feel their breathing, you focus on lining up yours with theirs. Focusing on your breathing allows you to stay present and in the moment.
Staying focused on the present banishes racing thoughts and anxiety. It also develops a deep connection with your partner because you feel their breathing and heart rate. You breathe together and feel like the two of you are one entity.
Seated Twist
The seated twist is similar to the paired breathing pose. The seated pose begins with you both sitting down with your legs crossed and your backs touching.
Both of you need to twist to the left and grab your partner's right knee. Focus on pulling your body to their knee, not their knee to you. Sit up straight and breathe deeply.
This pose stretches and strengthens the muscles in your core. It also creates a connection because you use each other to get a proper pose and safely achieve a successful session.
Temple
The temple pose makes you both feel strong and connected. For this position, stand looking at one another and place your palms facing outward in front of your face.
Place your palms flat against your partner's. Lean forward and put your elbows and forearms against each other. Take a few steps back and lean forward, keeping your palms, forearms, and elbows touching.
Keep your legs and back straight, bending at the hips until your torso is almost parallel with the floor. Slightly look up if you feel pressure in your neck.
Standing Forward Fold
The standing forward fold requires some flexibility, so it's okay if you can't do this pose at first.
Stand tall with your backs and butts touching. Your heels need to be less than a foot apart. Lean forward and reach for your toes. Instead of touching your toes, reach behind you and grab your partner's shins. Gently pull yourselves deeper into the stretch.
Partner Fold Forward
If you spend lots of time sitting at a desk, chances are high you're among the millions suffering from lower back pain. The partner fold forward is one of the best stretches for lower back pain.
Sit on the ground facing your partner with your legs spread wide. Touch your feet together and create a diamond with your legs.
Keep your back straight, lean forward, and reach for your partner's hands. They need to gently pull you forward until you feel a release in your lower spine. After about 30 seconds, return to sitting and pull your partner forward.
Back-Forward Pose
Another position beginning with backs touching is the back-forward pose. This time, you fold forward over your legs and reach far out in front of you.
Your partner lays back on top of you, arching backward. They keep their hands on their knees during the stretch.
Namaste Together
Yoga is an intimate and fun way to improve your health and your relationships. Yoga allows you to express yourself with a partner, deepening your connection. It involves touch, breathing, movement, and focus to create a beautiful flow of poses.
Tantric yoga sends you both through an intimate, unique, intense experience. It's a strong option when looking to strengthen your connection and relationship.
It's easy to drift apart in this world. Physically lean on your partner, so it's easier to emotionally lean on them.
Want more fun and healthy ways to connect with your partner? Subscribe to Fit&Fab for everything related to fitness, nutrition, and yoga!
