Couples That Exercise Together, Stay Together
Recent studies that compared people who exercise with non-exercisers concluded that Couples that Exercise Together, Stay Together! That’s right, couples who workout tend to have more successful relationships while dealing with stressful situations. Furthermore, among the research participants who exercised, the ones who reported higher satisfaction and contentment with their relationships were the couples who worked out together. This finding was true for both married and unmarried couples.
Working out and keeping yourself physically active is not just an investment you make in your physical health. It also provides an essential boost that maintains your mental health. In addition, your exercise routine can turn into an effective bonding time for you and your partner when it comes to forming strong relationships. Whether you’re jogging, hiking, biking, or spending your time together at the gym, forming these healthy habits can work in your favor to mature your partnership.
However, this discovery also leads us to ask the next question: Why do couples that workout together is more likely to be happier, especially when together?
It’s the Play of Hormones and Emotional Connection
It’s a widely known fact that when we exercise, our body releases the feel-good hormone, also referred to as endorphins. Moreover, the production of endocannabinoids, which is a hormone that makes our brain feel rewarded, work together with endorphins to improve our mood even further. As a result of these two hormones, people feel notably happier and satisfied after their workout sessions.
However, it still doesn’t answer the ‘why’ behind our original question. Individuals who exercise are far more likely to be in happy and committed relationships; the odds are even better when they exercise together. Why is that?
The factor that positively links a couple’s workout sessions with their happiness is their emotional attachment. One of the after-effects of exercising together is positive social engagement and an enhanced sense of attraction. The adrenaline release also induces a sexually arousing response and evokes a fulfilling feeling in both partners, compelling them to strive for that feeling repeatedly. This is consistent with findings that exercising with your partner is significantly more fun compared to working out alone.
Moreover, later studies found that the attraction between partners, in addition to the act of mimicking each other’s movements, also leaves a stronger intimate connection too. Simply put, getting in sync with your partner to exercise will amplify your emotional and mental awareness, creating a long-impacting bond with increased feelings. Hence, we connect more quickly with our exercise partners, even when we are not intimately related to them in any way.
Couples That Exercise Together, Stay Together
Most people consider exercising as a means of looking better and maybe even living longer. However, while that’s true, the benefits of working out don’t just stop there. In fact, exercise can play a crucial role in improving your relationship with your partner, friends, and family members.
Couples can enhance their chances of a successful relationship by encouraging each other to be physically active. Here are seven key points that promote a healthy attitude in relationships, whether you choose to work out individually or together.
1- Find a Better You
Regular exercise tends to change your opinion about how you perceive yourself for the positive. Besides this, this new perception becomes evident to others around you as well. When the people around you see something they respect, their attitude also changes towards you in turn. This immensely helps when you are focusing on creating a relationship with your partner that’s based on mutual respect.
2- Attract Positivity All Around You
When you’re working towards a better ‘you,’ you automatically attract people with a similar mindset. This quality is fantastic for people who desire to eliminate negativity from their relationships.
3- Transform Your Demeanor
When you exercise, your overall demeanor transforms, and you start to appreciate the people around you. Moreover, it alters other aspects of your life in the long run. Case in point, your body encourages you to sleep sounder, eat better, and remain active. You radiate the kind of positivity that attracts people towards you. Simply put, you become an aspiring role model for them.
4- Broaden Your Horizon
Exercise helps you fight off your fears while pushing you to make positive choices. It broadens your horizon, compelling you to strive for more, especially when you get used to the effect that feel-good hormones leave on your mind frame after a workout.
5- The Goal-Setting Habit
Creating milestones helps you succeed in achieving your workout goals. Moreover, while you don’t realize it at the time, you start following the same strategy in all parts of life after that. A happy relationship also asks for constant small efforts to acquire the satisfaction that you only get from creating strong emotional connections. So, in a way, incorporating exercise in your routine gets you in the habit of doing everything in life with a similar goal-setting approach.
6- Initiate Better Communication
Studies prove that exercise helps you resolve your issues with a clear, rational mind, giving way to better communication between couples. A clear mind means fewer chances of getting into unnecessary conflicts and fights.
7- Clear Your Mind
Have you ever noticed how all your jumbled thoughts finally start making sense while you’re exercising? That’s because exercise helps your brain think more clearly and opens it to possibilities that you initially didn’t pay mind to due to a stressed mind. That’s a skill that flows into your life.
3 Reasons to Exercise Together
Exercising together can improve your relationship and change your innate perspective on how you look at your life. Here are three reasons why you should encourage your partner to work out together for establishing a long-lasting relationship:
1- Shared Perspective and Goals
Exercising together isn’t all about perfecting your body. It’s also a bonding time to get to know your partner’s likes, dislikes, hopes, and dreams. One of the profiting reasons to work out with your partner is so you can communicate constructively and pass the time easily. You can also use it as an opportunity to ask questions and learn about each other to enhance your emotional bonds.
2- Partner in Your Difficult Times
Couples that share their workout sessions naturally create the kind of bond that assures them that their partner will stick by them through thick and thin. Being partners together while pushing each other physically also stimulates your mind, forging a sense of protection from both sides. This leads to forming a trusting and loyal relationship that only grows and matures with time.
3- A Fun Element
Setting goals and working on them together adds a fun element to exercising, making something strenuous and challenging into an activity that you start looking forward to daily.
6 Ways to Better Your Exercise Routine
Exercising whenever you feel like it is just not enough. Instead, you need to know how to work out the right way and establish a routine such that it becomes a part of your fundamental lifestyle. Here are six ways to better your exercise routine:
1- Stop Making Exercise Sound Like a Chore
Exercise should never be treated like a chore. It’s a physical and mental release that relieves you of your bottled-up stress and anxiety. Moreover, your exercise routine doesn’t have to be a ‘go hard or go home’ session. Instead, you should set a pace that you’re comfortable with, even if that means you’ll get to see results later than you desired.
Not to forget the fact that we, as humans, are bound to eventually give up and let go when something becomes way too much to handle all of a sudden. Simply put, you have to balance your workout timeline such that it doesn’t take a toll on your mind to remain consistent.
2- Determine Your ‘Why’
Working out as a means to look good at a particular event or a trip creates considerable pressure on your mind as well as your body. That’s not a healthy way to exercise, because you will ultimately stop once you’ve achieved the goal.
Instead, dig deep down and establish why you want to work out. Is it because you enjoy feeling good about your body? Is it because you believe it’s necessary to tone your mental health? Or is it because you feel pressured and guilty when you don’t? Determining the ‘why’ behind your actions is always the boost one needs to keep going and workout even harder. On the contrary, setting a meaningless goal will lead you nowhere.
3- Turn Your Hate Into Love
Many people start their health journey because they’re in hate with their bodies. The first thing they see when they look at their reflection in the mirror is imperfection. All they want is to look different, which leads them to work out several times a day just so they could stop hating themselves. However, hate is never the right catalyst to push yourself where you need to be.
Instead, love has the power to establish a solid foundation for yourself. Once you change your mindset, you start to realize exactly how precious your body already is and how you can keep working on it, slowly but surely, to make it better.
4- Get Out of Your Comfort Zone (Little By Little)
No matter how scary it sounds to you, staying inside your comfort zone will never make a notable change for you. You have to push your limits and stretch your boundaries every now and then to make a difference. Trying something new and re-evaluating what works best for you while you trust in your abilities is the key to making a wave and watching yourself flourish. But it’s also essential to take it one step at a time rather than pushing yourself so much that it starts hurting you, mentally and physically.
5- Develop a Fitness Plan That Fits You
It’s a common mistake people make when they look for the right answer to better their physical and mental health. That’s because the answer to your well-being isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. In actuality, you have to try many different options before deciding what works the best for you. It could be yoga, aerobics, Pilates, weight training, or something entirely else.
6- Celebrate Your Non-Scale Triumphs
Your victories don’t have to be measurable to be celebration-worthy. Moreover, your wins don’t necessarily have to be drastic. Rewarding your body with food when the occasion calls for it is not the right way to go, as it initiates a fleeting relationship with your own body.
Instead, it’s better to prioritize celebrating your non-measurable achievements. For example, you might be sleeping better, feeling more energetic throughout the day, or just more motivated and happier than usual. There are limitless benefits of exercising that don’t involve the weighing scale’s needle moving in the direction you want it to.
Talk to a Professional Relationship or Life Coach
Besides carving some time for your physical workouts, it’s also just as important to take a few moments for exercising your mind to improve your relationship. The best way to do that is by connecting with a relationship coach that takes note of your relationship’s highs and lows while effectively communicating with you to help you sort out your issues.
At Marriage Means Moore, you can begin this new journey with us by scheduling a $99 Coaching Special with one of our relationship coaches. You can also visit our website blog for the resources we’ve put together to help you fight your struggles as a couple together. Be sure to also check out our couples workbook, Built Marriage Tough Workbook for Couples, which you can use as a relationship guide to encourage constructive and healthy communication with your partner.
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