Pucker Up! Kissing Is Great For Your Health

Love More

Pucker up!

If it’s been a minute since you’ve engaged in a saucy smooch session, may we suggest you dim the lights and get to work? Not just because it’s fun (and it so is), but because kissing is great for your health.

Wait, kissing is healthy? (Yep, it is.)

The health benefits of kissing are surprisingly vast. They range from immediate hormone releases to preventing cavities over time (really!). Dive into the many reasons kissing is good for you below and share this article with your friends. No one should be left out of this fun.

Kissing Partner Perks

When you and your partner engage in a lip-lock, both of your bodies jump into health-boosting action without you having to do a single thing other than enjoy yourselves.

Help Out Your Hormones

Kissing releases our favorite feel-good hormone, oxytocin, which can lower anxiety, increase feelings of trust between partners, and help us feel relaxed. Kissing also triggers the release of endorphins, which may lessen stress and depression and increase positive feelings.

Together, oxytocin and endorphins also stimulate a metabolic process that may reduce calorie intake, tamper down hunger pangs, and slow the digestion of fat. All vital components to living a nutritious life.

Spark Some Sexy-Times

Not surprisingly, a passionate kiss can get you and your partner in the mood for something more, if you catch our drift.

As you kiss, testosterone is released, and this can have a big impact on your sex drive. Kissing also decreases levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which can definitely help get you in the mood. And since getting horizontal burns calories, this is just another health benefit of locking lips.

Personal Health Benefits of Kissing

Smooching not only delivers partner-centric health benefits, it packs a healthy punch for you as an individual too.

Get Mouthy

When you kiss, you produce more saliva. Adequate saliva production is important for everything from tasting, chewing, and swallowing, to washing away oral germs and keeping bad breath at bay.

Since tasting and fully enjoying your meals (AKA mindful eating) is a huge contributor to building a great relationship with food, you’re getting a double whammy of awesome when you share a kiss before eating.

Extra bonus: When you swap spit, you’re exposed to your partner’s mouth microbiota, which can help boost your immunity over time.

Jump Start Your Heart

Kissing of all types (but espesh the super-heated kind), increases your heart rate, which causes your blood vessels to dilate. The dilated vessels increase your blood flow, which then decreases your blood pressure. Aren’t our bodies amazing?

Since a healthy blood pressure is part of living a nutritious life, we say let that heart of yours get a workout—both from the metaphorical “flutters” and from its actual pumped-up pumping.

Kissing is part of a healthy lifestyle and can leave you feeling connected, self-assured, and even a little bit healthier. Pucker up … and enjoy!

For more tips on how to have happy relationships and a fulfilling sex life—all part of the Love More pillar of living a Nutritious Life—check out our top stories.

(Image: Shutterstock)