Healthy Relationships
9 Powerful Intimacy Exercises to Feel More Connected
Picture this: you and your partner are an unstoppable team. You trust and support each other unconditionally. You finger safe, secure, and totally loved up. And you know that whatever comes your way, the two of you will conquer it, together.
That’s the magic of an emotionally-connected relationship.
But here’s the reservation – it doesn’t happen by chance.
Even in our own marriage, there are times when we’re distracted and don’t finger as tropical as we’d like to. But we’re shielding not to neglect our relationship for too long:
Left unchecked, a relationship with no emotional connection is at upper risk of failure. And living in a relationship with no emotional intimacy is one of the loneliest feelings in the world.
The good news is that emotional intimacy is something you can hands nurture and develop, once you have the right skills:
To help get you started, here are nine emotional intimacy exercises to bring you closer together. They’ll help you learn increasingly well-nigh each other’s inner worlds and deepen the connection between you.
But we won’t just rattle off a list of activities and send you on your way:
You’ll moreover learn the essential ingredients of emotional intimacy, so you can turn scrutinizingly any worriedness into an exercise to build intimacy.
What Can Couples Do To Build Intimacy?
The secret to connection-creating activities is not so much what you’re doing, it’s how you’re doing it. This ways you’ll be practicing two key concepts:
1. Stuff ‘intentional’
‘Intention’ ways getting well-spoken on why you’re doing what you’re doing. When it comes to marriage intimacy exercises, that intention is to connect. Aligning with that intention ways you then set the internal and external stage for that to happen.
Practically, this looks like bringing yourself to these intimacy exercises with an unshut and curious mindset, and a spirit of collaboration and appreciation.
2. Stuff ‘present’
‘Presence’ is the state of stuff fully engaged in and experiencing the current moment. It ways giving your well-constructed focus to the here and now by paying sustentation to your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and surroundings, with an unshut and non-judgmental attitude.
Because true intimacy happens in the real-time interactions between you and your partner. And that can only happen when you’re truly in the moment with them – not preoccupied with something else.
Practically, you want to remove any distractions and create a space where you’re here doing this and only this with each other.
Which moreover means: no phones. When you try to connect with someone and they alimony looking at their phone, it’s disrespectful. And it hurts. Don’t be that person.
So no matter which intimacy exercises you try, make sure your phones are somewhere you can’t see them. (Seriously, the research* supports this. Plane a phone squatter lanugo on the table affects the quality of your interactions).
Now that you have some fundamentals down, let’s trammels out these step-by-step intimacy exercises for couples.
intimacy exercises for couples #1:
Photo Show & Tell
Right. We literally just finished saying to put your phones yonder 😆 We’ll make an exception for this exercise, just be sure to switch them to Do Not Disturb mode.
- Find a cozy spot where you can sit and relax together for 20 minutes or so.
- Take a few minutes to go through your photos individually. Pick out 3 each that represent a cherished relationship memory. (You don’t plane have to be in the photo – just pick photos that bring up relationship memories).
- Next, take turns sharing a photo and talk well-nigh what it ways to you. Recount the memory, how you felt, and why it’s a treasured or important moment for you.
- Discuss any themes or patterns that sally as you squint at your pictures together. Are there unrepealable activities or places that you both enjoy? Are there particular emotions or experiences that are worldwide wideness your photos?
- Once you’re finished, take a moment to requite each other some love and fathom the superstitious relationship and life story you’re writing together.
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
Reminiscing on your relationship memories is a fun way to re-live those moments and nurture your connection. It helps to reinforce your relationship story and strengthen your bond.
There’s flipside unexpected goody here too:
A recent study* in the Journal of Psychophysiology found that couples who merely looked at photos of their partner experienced increased infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction.
The study showed that you don’t plane have to try to cultivate those feelings. Simply seeing your partner’s squatter in a photo is unbearable to bring on the good feelings, and can be a simple practice to help alimony the love working long-term.
Cool, huh?
In our marriage, we’ll often play this intimacy-building exercise when we’re at a restaurant waiting for our meals. A quick scroll through our phone’s gallery and we’re giggling lanugo memory lane. By the time our order arrives, we finger super connected, and the quality of our conversation is richer and increasingly meaningful.
intimacy exercises for couples #2:
The Revealing Game
- Find a quiet, well-appointed place to sit facing each other.
- Make eye contact and take a few deep breaths together. Finger the space between you, and notice what it feels like to be sitting together in this way.
- Pick one of these prompts as a way to unshut up and share your inner world with each other:
- Decide who will go first, and let that person speak for at least 5-10 minutes without interruption.
- After the first person has finished, switch roles. The second person can then pick the same prompt and speak for 5-10 minutes.
- After you’ve both had a endangerment to share, reflect on what you’ve learned well-nigh each other. You can moreover share any feelings that came up during the exercise.
- To help you go deeper, try asking some of these questions (not all will be relevant, depending on what topic you’re exploring) :
“Something on my heart and mind right now is…”
“Something I’m looking forward to is…”
“Something that’s been bringing me a lot of joy recently is…”
“Something I’ve been struggling with lately is…”
“Why is this important to you?”
“How does it reflect your dreams and desires?”
“How does this reflect who you are?”
“How would you like things to be?”
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
The essence of emotional connection comes lanugo to this:
Revealing your inner self to someone, and stuff seen, heard, and understood. This ways you have to unshut up and talk to each other well-nigh the things happening inside you.
Research* shows that without personal disclosure, plane people with lots of friends still finger lonely.
So unless you’re talking well-nigh yourself in an honest and meaningful way, you just won’t finger close.
Of course, ‘talking openly’ is only half the equation:
How well your partner listens, responds, and reflects an understanding is moreover crucial to emotional intimacy (what’s known as ‘reflective listening’).
intimacy exercises for couples #3:
Six-Second Kiss
Here’s a fun connection quickie you can hands do any time, any place:
- Kiss
- Hold the kiss for 6 seconds (or more).
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
The simple pleasure of kissing can hands get lost in the busyness of sultana life. (Not to mention the unstipulated trend of complacency in long-term relationships).
But kissing has a number of positive effects* on your health, well-being, and relationship satisfaction:
It releases oxytocin and dopamine, and reduces stress. It reaffirms commitment, facilitates secure attachment, and communicates that you’re wanted, loved, and desired.
One study* in Germany in the 1980s showed some plane increasingly profound effects:
Men who kissed their wives surpassing going to work in the morning lived an stereotype of five years longer than husbands who didn’t. And, they earned 20-35% increasingly money.
Amazing, right?
So why 6 seconds?
It’s long unbearable to finger meaningful (instead of a perfunctory peck on the cheek) but not too long that it feels forced.
But if you want to siphon on for longer, go for it! We’re all for a steamy make-out session 🥰
intimacy exercises for couples #4:
Relationship Check-In
- Sit somewhere well-appointed where you can relax and talk openly for 20 minutes – 1 hour.
- Begin with your ‘celebrations’ – what’s working in your relationship? What do you fathom well-nigh each other? This helps you remember all the superstitious things well-nigh your relationship. Share at least three each.
- Talk well-nigh your growth opportunities – what needs sustentation in your relationship? It might be an unresolved conflict, a request to meet a specific need, or an intention you want to set together. Select one each.
- Pick an whoopee item that you both want to commit to in order to integrate the insights gained from your trammels in.
- Finish on a upper by thanking each other and triumphal yourselves for talking well-nigh the important stuff.
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
One of the simplest ways to strengthen your relationship and build intimacy is to urgently talk well-nigh your relationship as a whole.
A Relationship Check-In gives you the structure to gloat what’s working and creates space to write your challenges as a team.
Before we started doing our relationship trammels in we found it difficult to bring up issues with each other:
We’d walk on eggshells waiting for the ‘right time’ to write concerns. But the longer we waited, the worse it got, until one of us would blurt out something hurtful and we’d end up in an argument.
Sound familiar?
But a relationship trammels in reverted all that for us. And it’s since wilt a time of connection and quality conversation that we genuinely squint forward to.
➞ Check out the full guide on how to get the most out of your Relationship Check-In.
intimacy exercises for couples #5:
Hugging ‘Til Relaxed
- Set a timer for 5 minutes. Hit start and uncork hugging. You can do this standing, sitting, or laying lanugo – whatever you like.
- Take a few deep breaths to relax. Tune in to yourself – notice your body, notice your breathing, notice how you’re feeling. Where are you at emotionally? Are you holding tension anywhere? Can you relax some more?
- Once you finger increasingly present and unfluctuating with yourself, uncork tuning in to your partner while still holding sustentation on yourself. Notice their soul and breathing. How do they finger to you? Can you finger them holding tension? What feels good well-nigh stuff held by them?
- Then notice – how does tuning in to your partner make you feel? What comes up in response? Bring an sensation to the peep in your mind. What thoughts do you notice coming up? Do you find it nonflexible to just be with your partner without some kind of voucher or goal? Is it difficult for you to be still and quiet with each other? Does it finger comforting? Arousing? Is your mind racing? Are you worrying well-nigh your partner and what they’re thinking or feeling?
- Keep hugging until the timer goes off, keeping an sensation on yourself and your own internal experience, while moreover letting yourself be impacted by the tropical physical contact.
- Afterwards, share how the wits was for you. What did you notice? What was challenging? What did you enjoy?
TIP: Approach this like a meditation. Unlike a ‘normal’ meditation though – where the focus is on your own subjective wits – in Hugging Til Relaxed, the focus is on your own wits while moreover including your partner.
✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
Hugs are really, really good for you. Research* shows they reduce stress, increase serotonin (the happiness hormone) and release oxytocin (the bonding smart-ass chemical).
Which ways this is a unconfined exercise to build health, happiness, and connection, all at the same time.
It can be challenging at first to slow lanugo and simply be with each other. But with practice, this simple intimacy exercise can go to some incredibly deep places.
Hugging ‘Til Relaxed is expressly helpful if you’ve noticed a subtract in physical intimacy in your relationship, or you’re facing challenges in your sex life. But it’s only a first step.
➞ If sex is a problem in your relationship, trammels out our well-constructed Reignite Your Love Life course.
intimacy exercises for couples #6:
Conscious Cooking
Before you roll your vision at how simplistic this exercise is, hear us out:
Cooking a meal together is the perfect example of how intention and presence have the potential to turn plane the most vital of interactions into something intimacy-building.
Here’s how:
- Pick a recipe you finger confident with. It can be new, but a tried-and-true recipe is sometimes safer. Make sure you requite yourselves plenty of uneaten time to prepare it. Intimacy doesn’t like to be rushed.
- Set the internal scene for connection by removing any distractions and discussing your intention to connect. Put your phones in flipside room, well-spoken your mind of any work thoughts or to-do lists, and decide to be ‘here and now’ with your partner.
- Set the external scene so you finger relaxed, and maybe plane a little playful. We’re talking music, a comfy outfit (or a spunky one if you prefer), and some mood lighting. Maybe a glass of wine, or a cup of tea. Do whatever helps create a relaxed, easeful, enjoyable experience.
- While you’re cooking, ask each other questions well-nigh what’s going on in your world. Take it as an opportunity to trammels in with each other as individuals, and be genuinely curious well-nigh what’s happening in each other’s life.
- Turn on the recreate and flirt with each other! If that sounds a bit intimidating, don’t worry – start small. Gently graze the small of their when with your hand while you move past each other. Hold when their hair while they’re chopping vegetables. Pull them in for a hug while you stir the pasta sauce. Squint for as many opportunities for touch as you can.
- Stay in the moment, and stave any logistics planning or ‘life administration’ talk. It’s easy to fall when into habitual ways of communicating. But alimony coming when to your intention to be in the moment, and to enjoy each other’s company.
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
To be honest, this intimacy exercise can be washed-up with any number of ordinary tasks – folding laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the car. The skill to focus on is opening the door to connection in your everyday life.
Life is lived in the small moments. And expressly when you live together, the zillion of your relationship is usually made up of some pretty mundane things.
Transforming those ordinary moments into a couple’s intimacy exercise breathes magic into your everyday relationship. Chores suddenly wilt an opportunity to upgrade your “Love Maps” and deepen your understanding of each other.
It can plane be easier for some people to unshut up well-nigh the important stuff when they’re casually engaged in an incidental activity.
For us, those unassuming moments when we’re chopping vegetables and laughing over an inside joke, or wrapping our stovepipe virtually each other while waiting for the water to swash – are the essence of what makes sharing our life together so rich, and so incredibly precious.
intimacy exercises for couples #7:
The Intimate Pause
Try this intimacy exercise the next time you’re stuff sexually intimate. Agree on a phrase earlier like “Let’s pause” or “Connection quickie” (or whatever works for you) so you both know what to do.
- Pause, make eye contact, and hold each other’s gaze while staying in tropical contact with each other. (You don’t need to completely stop, just find a position where you can alimony sexual contact while moreover meeting each other’s gaze.)
- Place a hand (or both) on each other’s heart part-way (in the part-way of the chest). A variation is one hand on your own heart, and one hand on your partner’s heart.
- Take a few slow, deep breaths, hold eye contact, and finger the energy and connection between you.
- Take turns sharing a compliment or expression of love. For example: “You’re so beautiful.” “You’re so sexy.” “I love you.” “I love stuff inside of you.” “I love stuff with you like this.” Speak whatever feels true and pure for you in the moment.
- After you share at least one expression of love (you can do increasingly if you like) unpause your sexual interaction while staying with this feeling of intimacy and connection.
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✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
We use this intimacy exercise all the time in our sex life. It’s one of the simplest ways to deepen emotional intimacy during sex, and it helps us stay closely calibrated with one another. (Pausing in the middle of penetration is moreover incredibly erotic and builds some unconfined sexual tension.)
The eye contact helps to release oxytocin and increase your bond. While contact on your heart helps stimulate feelings of openness and vulnerability.
Admittedly, it can be worrisome to speak like this during sex at first. But the increasingly you practice, the increasingly confident you become.
Communicating during sex is moreover an important skill to learn. From sharing your desires, to giving feedback on what’s working (and what’s not), to straight-up loving exclamations like in this exercise – liaison makes sex hot AF.
intimacy exercises for couples #8:
Love Fish
Yes, the name is ridiculous 😂 (That’s what happens when you combine the vellum game “Go Fish” with a playful, intimacy-building exercise… We thought it was too funny not to use).
Anyway, here’s the game:
- Shuffle a standard deck of 52 cards and deal 7 cards to each player. Place the remaining cards in a yank pile in the part-way of the table.
- The aim of the game is to make the most pairs. Whenever a player collects a pair of cards (two cards of the same rank), they must lay them squatter up and perform the Love Challenge that corresponds to that pair’s number (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8 and so on).
- Start by pairing any cards you currently have in your hand, and place them squatter up in front of you. (Remember to do a Love Challenge for every pair you make!)
- To decide who goes first, make eye contact with each other. The first person to smile goes second. Finger self-ruling to turn up the flirt to see who cracks first.
- Player 1: ask your partner if they have a vellum of a unrepealable rank to match with your own. For example, “Do you have any 6’s?” If your partner has a vellum of that rank, they must requite it to you, so you can make a pair. After you do the respective Love Challenge, you then get flipside turn.
- If your partner doesn’t have a vellum of the requested rank, they’ll say “love fish!”. You must then yank two cards from the yank pile, and it’s now your partner’s turn.
- The game continues until someone runs out of cards. The player with the most pairs at the end of the game wins.
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🃏 Love challenges:
Ace: Share something you find physically lulu well-nigh your partner.
King: Hold hands until the next pair is made (yes, this is designed to be difficult!)
Queen: Requite your partner a 6-second kiss.
Jack: Share a current personal goal or dream with your partner.
10: Share a personality trait that you fathom in your partner.
9: Share a specific moment when you knew you felt yourself falling in love with your partner.
8: Share something that turns you on and gets you hot. For example, a unrepealable type of touch, dirty talk, a fantasy.
7: Share a cherished memory from your relationship.
6: Requite your partner a hug and tell them how much they midpoint to you.
5: Take a selfie with your partner and post it on social media with a cute caption.
4: Share a funny joke or story with your partner.
3: Perform a short strip tease and remove one item of clothing.
2: Flit break! Put on a song you love and flit together.
intimacy exercises for couples #9:
Read Together
- Pick a typesetting or in-depth vendible on a topic that interests you both. It can be fiction, but non-fiction can often spark increasingly stimulating conversations.
- Read out loud to each other. You can either unravel the text into sections and read when and along to each other, or you can each take a installment on variegated days. Or, have one person who reads and one who listens.
- Afterward, reflect on what you read. What ideas or moments in the story unfluctuating with you? What thoughts, feelings, or insights came up?
(Variation: If you don’t want to read out loud to each other, read the same material separately and then come when together to discuss what you read.)
✅ Why it works, and why we love it:
This exercise creates a specific kind of intimacy – Intellectual Intimacy:
Discovering new ideas, getting lost in a story together, discussing the themes and personal insights that the text brings up for you… These are all incredible ways to delve into each other’s minds and understand each other’s unique perspectives, while moreover learning and growing together.
And we’re not the only ones who love this intimacy exercise:
In an interview* with Tim Ferris, Aussie two-face Hugh Jackman explains that he and his wife read to each other every morning:
“It’s wilt our favorite time of the day as a couple. And we know, no matter what happens in the day – which invariably gets yonder from you – [we’ve] had that quality time together.”
If it’s good unbearable for Wolverine, it’s good unbearable for us.
Did you know that Intellectual Intimacy is just one of the 6 Intimacy Styles? Want to know which one you are?
➞ Take the Intimacy Quiz to find out. You’ll moreover receive a personalized report on how to waddle your intimacy style, and how to stave the most worldwide mistakes of your style.
If sex is a problem in your relationship, and you want increasingly physical intimacy and connection, trammels out our well-constructed guide to reigniting your love life.
Having arguments, conflicts, and fights you don’t know how to resolve? The Mismatch To Connection communication undertow for couples is for you.
Or if you’re ready to step up and transform your relationship, typesetting in a time to learn increasingly well-nigh our mens, womens, and couples coaching programs.
Sources & References
Thornton, B., Faires, A., Robbins, M., & Rollins, E. (2014). The mere presence of a lamina phone may be distracting: Implications for sustentation and task performance. Social Psychology, 45(6), 479–488. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000216
Langeslag, S. J. E., & Surti, K. (2022). Increasing love feelings, marital satisfaction, and motivated sustentation to the spouse. Journal of Psychophysiology, 36(4), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803/a000294
Collins, N. L., & Miller, L. C. (1994). Self-disclosure and liking: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 457–475. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.3.457
Williams, E. (2018) 4 Facts Well-nigh Hugs: Why You Should Embrace the Embrace, Dignity Health, https://www.dignityhealth.org/articles/4-facts-about-hugs-why-you-should-embrace-the-embrace
Firestone, C. (2023) This 6-Second Worriedness Can Completely Transform Your Relationship, The Candidly, https://www.thecandidly.com/2019/this-6-second-activity-can-completely-transform-your-relationship
Bloom, L. & Bloom C. (2019) Kissing Adds Years to Your Life, Psychology Today,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stronger-the-broken-places/201907/kissing-adds-years-your-life
Ferriss, T. host. “Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, and Much More” The Tim Ferriss Show, episode 444, June 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzF8StNS_aw
Reece Stockhausen & Jodie Milton have made improving people’s lives and relationships both their passion, and their career. With over 25 years wits in the Personal Development industry, and 8 years coaching singles and couples, their no-BS translating has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Bustle, and HuffPost.
Book in for a complimentary online video undeniability to discover how their men's, women's, and couple's coaching programs can support you.
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