International Kissing Day 2021: Health Benefits of Kissing Including Weight Loss and Long Life Will Leave You Pleasantly Surprised

Pucker up, everyone! It’s International Kissing Day. Every year on July 6, the world celebrates the universal gesture of affection and love. Smooching, snogging or tonsil-hockey, whatever you call it, kissing evolved as a form of social bonding or love and not all forms of kissing are sexual. Parents may kiss their little ones as a mark of affections and lovers kiss each other to express their desire. Scientists are not sure whether kissing is instinctual or learnt. But one thing is certain – it sure has a lot of health benefits! So don’t underestimate the power of a kiss. Here are some reasons why you should kiss whom you love more often.

Kissing Makes You Feel Good

Everyone needs a pick-me-up from time to time. But instead of reaching for the bar of chocolate every time you need a boost, kiss someone you love. Kissing activates the reward system of your brain, which helps in releasing your feel-good hormones like oxytocin, dopamine and vasopressin. It instantly lifts your mood and makes you feel good from within. How to Kiss? On This International Kissing Day, Here Are Tips to Master the Perfect Kiss.

Kissing Can Burn Calories

If you are tired of looking for “enjoyable” ways to burn calories, look no further. All you need to do is pucker up! The calorie-burning powers for a kiss has long been known. But how many calories is the question. If you are a man weighing around 80 kg, kissing for 30 minutes straight can burn as much as 60 calories. And if you are a woman, the same activity can torch 50 calories. (Calculated using coolconversion.com). Although it’s not a great weight loss tool on its own, it’s a lot more enjoyable than running on the treadmill.

Kissing Improves Your Immunity

Mouth-to-mouth or sexual kissing is a part of 90 percent of human cultures around the world. Scientists believe that it could have an evolutionary purpose. Kissing your partner for 10 minutes helps swap around 80 million bacteria between the two of you. As gross as that sounds, sharing the bacteria helps equip the human body with powers to fend off infections.

Kissing Reduces Stress

Although this one’s a no-brainer, kissing has been shown to reduce stress and promote better health. Anything related to love and pleasure, which includes kissing, has a stress-relieving effect on the human body. A 2005 study Western Journal of Communication confirms that any exchange of physical affection, including, kiss can lower your stress levels. Kissing Day 2021: Know 7 Crazy Facts About Kissing That Will Put a Big Smile on Your Face!

Kissing Heals

Stress can throw your body’s functioning off balance. The body puts important processes on hold to tend to the stress situation. That’s when a little canoodling and cuddling can help. Since kissing is a great stress buster, it frees your body to focus on more important things like healing.

Kissing Improves Allergy Symptoms

If you are prone to allergies, there something else that can help you apart from antihistamines. In a 2003 study published in Physiology and Behaviour tested some subjects with allergies to kiss for 30 minutes in a private room, with soft music. By the end of it, the participants showed drastic improvement in their symptoms.

Kissing Makes Your Teeth Healthy

A simple logic explains why kissing could be an important part of your oral hygiene routine. Kissing stimulates the production of saliva, which in turn neutralises the acids in the mouth and helps in remineralising the teeth. The excessive saliva also cleans food particles from the mouth. It even helps against bad breath by alleviating a dry mouth.

Kissing Improves Your Life Span

Given all the health benefits of kissing, it will obviously impact your overall well-being. Studies also suggest that kissing your loved ones every day has the power to impact your lifespan. The more you kiss, the longer you live!

The universality of kissing simply means that nature intended us to kiss for a reason. Apart from its obvious purpose, it has so many other benefits. So celebrate the day by laying a big sloppy one on the one you can’t do without! It’s good for you both.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 05, 2021 01:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).