Why Kissing Is Good for Your Health
You make eye contact with each other from across a crowded room. You move closer and glance at each other’s lips. Suddenly, it happens. By now either your toes are numb (plus a few more cliches), or your date’s technique reminds you of that Saint Bernard from your friend’s cookout. We’ve all been there. But as turns out, there is much more to kissing than you think. Here are seven benefits of kissing, and how it affects you.
1. It’s a real painkiller.
The act of kissing releases endorphins, your body’s natural remedy for pain. When you and your partner are making out, these neurotransmitters speed through your body. In some cases, endorphins are even more powerful than morphine. Love is a drug anyone?
2. Kissing gets rid of plaque.
Beautiful visual, isn’t it? Now we don’t want you to stop brushing your teeth or anything, but kissing actually helps attack plaque. Heidi Hausauer, a spokeswoman for the Academy of General Dentistry, says that kissing is nature’s cleansing process.
3. Find out who’s right for you.
Kissing transfers crucial information between you and your potential mate via saliva. Beautiful, isn’t it? Your internal computers exchange data and subconsciously want to find a partner whose immune system differs from your own so that your offspring will have the strengths of both.
4. Watch the calories burn.
As you may have guessed, kissing burns calories. Jaiya Kinzabach, author of “Red Hot Touch” says that basic kissing can burn anywhere between 60 to 90 calories per hour (you work over 30 muscles in your face while kissing). If you and your partner are rolling around and making out, you can easily burn over 200 calories per hour each!
5. Fight allergy season.
Leave the Airborne at home this fall as long as your partner is up to the task. By exposing yourself to your partner’s germs (assuming they don’t have the flu) your body produces histamine, which hinders your nose from running and reduces red eyes.
6. Live longer.
In a University College London study, researchers found that couples that kissed each other goodbye each morning lived five years longer than couples who didn’t. Kissing also reduces your chance of wrinkles.
7. Mood enhancement.
A 2009 study showed that kissing produced Oxytocin (our calming hormone) and reduced cortisol (our stress hormone). So unwind with a good kiss and let the stress of the day dissipate.
In the 1800’s American poet Bret Harte wrote, “Never a lip is curved with pain, that can’t be kissed into smiles again.” I think he may have been onto something. Scientists aren’t exactly sure why it is that humans kiss, but we know why kissing is good for you, and apparently it has more than a few benefits. So grab your significant other, and get ready.
