8 Health Benefits of Kissing

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kiss_1482466cIn a recent feature on the website, Upwave, Valerie Reiss lists eight health benefits of kissing:

  1. Kissing helps reduce blood pressure
  2. Kissing zaps cramps and headaches
  3. Kissing fights cavities
  4. Kissing amps up your happy hormones
  5. Kissing burns calories
  6. Kissing boosts self-esteem
  7. Kissing can give you a facelift (kind of)
  8. Kissing is a barometer for sexual compatibility

Much of her research is based on Andrea Demirjian, author of Kissing: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about One of Life’s Sweetest Pleasures.

I was especially intrigued to learn about kissing’s power to lift the mood. Demirjian explains that kissing stimulates the feel-good chemicals in the brain, mainly serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. Kissing boosts your self-esteem by making you feel loved and connected. A German study even found that men who were kissed by their wives before leaving for work made more money.

It turns out hugging has its own benefits. A research study at the University of North Carolina has found that hugging can dramatically lower blood pressure and raise levels of oxytocin, one of the feel-good hormones stimulated by kissing that helps a person chill out, relax, breastfeed, and orgasm, although not all at the same time. The women in the study that got more hugs from their husbands had much higher levels of oxytocin, and had systolic blood pressure that was 10 mm/Hg lower than women with low oxytocin levels.

Published originally on Sanity Break at Everyday Health.

Image: telegraph.co.uk

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Therese Borchard
I am a writer and chaplain trying to live a simple life in Annapolis, Maryland.

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5 Responses
  1. kitty

    When I read this, I feel just as angry as I do when I read how good sex is for someone’s health. This is not something I can go and buy! I am a lifetime wallflower and no guy would ever look at me. And sorry but one cannot kiss oneself. Please suggest things EVERYONE can enjoy. Don’t assume we are all as beautiful as you.

    1. Brenda

      Kitty – I just want to let you know I understand how you feel, and I can totally relate to what you typed. As a long-term single woman, I too get upset when I read articles that assume everyone has a partner/spouse/person they can go to and kiss or have sex with, etc. – such a misguided assumption to make.
      I am sure you are beautiful – regardless of who “looks” at you or not! If a guy can’t see your beauty, it’s his loss.
      I know that sounds a little clichéd, but I do believe we all have positive qualities and our unique beautiful features. One thing I’ve learned is that it can help to avoid basing your entire happiness/self-esteem/sense of self-worth on what other people do/think/say, etc.

      I would give you a hug, and take you on a girl’s night out if I could, Kitty! I would highly recommend reaching out to any good female friends you might have – though I know, as an introvert, that’s not always easy to do and good friends are hard to find….but it can help take the edge off those awful “I’m ugly and no guy ever looks at me” feelings. Good friends and other kind people can help remind us of our beauty (which is far more, and more meaningful and real, than conventional notions of it found in Photoshopped magazines).

      Hugs,
      -From a fellow wallflower 🙂

  2. kitty

    Thank you for such a beautiful reply. I touches me deeply and I believe it will touch many others who walk in our moccasins.

  3. Most folks consider kissing as an act of affection and keenness between companions. They are proper, however kissing, if you get to the fundamentals is an act of rubbing faces in opposition to one another and exchanging saliva. And this has many health benefits. Kisses serve many functions other than essentially the most obvious one of how it makes you feel. It reveals who you might be, the way you see your self, who you need your associate to be; it may possibly heal you, boost your immunity, hold your enamel wholesome; and it may possibly even enable you to burn (a couple of) further energy.