With Valentine’s Day coming up this month, love is in the air and on our minds. We want to help you take your Valentine’s Day beyond flowers and chocolates, and find a fun and engaging way to help you and your partner improve communication, trust and intimacy. Couples yoga is a joint yoga practice in which a pair of individuals engages in joint, supported poses. This practice is going to bring you and your partner into connection not just physically, but emotionally and mentally, as you focus on communicating with and trusting your partner as you engage in joint poses.
We all know that yoga provides a multitude of benefits, including reduced stress, and increased mindfulness. Couples yoga offers these benefits as well, in addition to bringing us into enhanced connection with our partners. Want to see for yourself? Try this with your partner and see what you notice; Sit on the floor back to back, each of you placing a hand on your heart. Close your eyes and take slow deep breaths. Naturally, you’ll notice your heart rate slow, and your breathing sync up with your partner. You also may notice a sense of connected calmness. This is the power of co-regulation. Enhanced co-regulation can be a powerful tool in a relationship, bringing you more in sync with your partner, which can improve communication and reduce conflict. The increased awareness of our own and our partners nervous system makes us more mindful of our internal emotional states when engaging with our partner in conflict. Co-regulation is also useful when tackling stressful tasks together, like parenting.
Experiencing the power of co-regulation through couple’s yoga can also increase trust in a relationship. Through the practice of couples yoga, each partner must not only stay in connection with their partner through calm, mindful awareness, but the joint poses require a level of trusting your partner to quite literally have your back! Engaging in couples yoga, and practicing these joint poses with your partner will foster a sense of trust within your relationship that can lead to improved trust outside of the yoga studio. Sometimes our busy lives can pull us in different directions, and we become ships passing in the night. Couples yoga helps to build back the foundations of teamwork and trust in your relationship, bringing you into unity with your partner.
Although not intimate in nature, couples yoga can enhance feelings of intimacy and even enhance your sexual relationship. When our lives become bogged down with the stress and obligations of work, parenting, caring for elderly parents, etc., we may spend less time engaging in fun and meaningful activities with our partners. A lack of quality time together can have a negative impact on trust, communication, and intimacy. Through non-sexual touch, couples yoga brings closeness and connection with your partner in an intentional and fun way. This enhanced emotional closeness has been found to go beyond the yoga studio, and into the bedroom. Research shows that increased trust and emotional closeness are important factors in sustaining physical intimacy. So are you ready to feel close to your partner, have fun, and spice up your love life? Join us for a special couples yoga class this month. February 14th at 6pm and February 15th at 12pm. Click here to sign up!