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I recently read that partners who are close to one another usually when touching have their heart beats and breathing in sync. Why does this occur? What is the benefit of it occurring? How does this occur?

The study linked below states that this phenomenon may reduce pain. Is it possible that is the evolutionary advantage? How is it that 2 peoples bodies sync their heart rates without knowing the other persons heart rate or being able to see the other persons heart beat?

Goldstein, Pavel, Irit Weissman-Fogel, and Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory. "The role of touch in regulating inter-partner physiological coupling during empathy for pain." Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 1-12. APA

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    $\begingroup$ I think you need to make your question a bit more focussed. The proximal reason (how - i.e. the causal physiological mechanism) is very different to the ultimate reason (the 'evolutionary advantage') - but you seem to have asked both. I suspect that the former question could be answered - but question involving the 'evolutionary reasons' of such a trait are often impossible to answer without speculating, since we can't go back in time to investigate the different selection pressures which may have driven it. $\endgroup$
    – user438383
    Oct 16, 2020 at 23:18
  • $\begingroup$ That's a pretty weird study. If you had posted graphs from the study it would be a much better question. The graphs that they researchers drew do not demonstrate very amazing measurements at all. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6421336 $\endgroup$
    – bandybabboon
    Oct 18, 2020 at 7:45

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