Story highlights Partner yoga was developed to use touch to bring you two closer together These moves will increase the intimacy between you and reduce your stress

Partner Yoga is a style of yoga designed to connect people -- especially couples -- via the somatosensory system, otherwise known as your sense of touch.

Not only can physical contact reinforce intimate emotional connections and increase dopamine release to enhance pleasure sensations, but studies have shown it also reduces stress.

In 2006, Dr. James Coan, director of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia, conducted an experiment with 16 married couples and found that holding your partner's hand reduces anxiety by mitigating the stress response.

According to Coan, subsequent research has shown that hand holding between loving couples also promotes enhanced health, overall well being and, even, increased life expectancy.

The Partner Yoga moves I've included below all involve hand holding and/or intertwining arms as the foundation for connection, so you and your partner can partake in your own touch-response experiment.

Partner Yoga is about intimately tuning into one another so we can be guided by our partner's breathing and tactile reaction and respond appropriately.

Coordinated Breathing

Sit across from your partner in a seated straddle position with your feet touching your partner's feet.

Reach out and clasp hands. Look at one another as you establish a long, deep breath.

Read more:

Yoga: Double the pleasure with a partner?