Kissing your partner is one of the commonest ways to show your love. It can also be a prelude to other things.
However, besides the pleasure of kissing, it has other health benefits; from boosting your immune system to lowering your anxiety.
So, there are more reason to lock lips.
* Kissing to lower blood pressure:
The lips are made up of blood vessels and these vessels become dilated during kissing.
According to Dr. Ryan Neinstein, a plastic surgeon in New York, “The blood is then directed toward the face and away from the rest of the body, so the demand on the heart goes down, resulting in lower blood pressure.”
He goes on to say, “The more you kiss, the more your heart races, and the more your blood flows, ultimately reducing high blood pressure.”
You want a fun way to regulate your blood pressure? Kiss more!
* Kissing and bacteria swapping:
A study in a journal Microbome found that a 10 second French Kiss can spread up to 80 million bacteria between the two people kissing. While this sounds overwhelming, if the person you’re kissing has good hygiene this may actually be a good thing.
Some of those bacteria can be useful for things like promoting the repair of the tooth enamel. So both partners should take care of their oral hygiene and then get to saliva swapping.
* Kissing can boost your immune system:
There are more than 700 types of bacteria present in the mouth and no two people have the same makeup.
Kissing helps swap saliva and hence introduces new germs to your mouth thereby boosting your immunity to that particular bacteria.
* Kissing can lower your anxiety:
Research has shown that kissing reduces the level of cortisol in the body. This is the hormone associated with stress. Kissing also releases the hormone oxytocin that is known to induce calmness, relaxation and bonds humans.
* Kissing is like exercise for your face:
Kissing burns calories and kissing with tongue uses all the muscles in your face and can burn up to 26 calories per minute.
There are 43 facial muscles and eight are in the tongue. Kissing increases the blood supply to those areas and it’s similar to what happens in a workout. This allows your facial muscles to be healthier.
* Kissing as an anti-aging agent
While kissing, the increased blood flow to your face can stimulate collagen production and contribute to anti-aging.
Dr. Neinstein says “The higher blood flow increases the number of small blood vessels helping to nourish the machinery of the skin. It also stimulates the production of collagen and elastin, which is the substance that beautiful skin is made up of.
He goes on to add: “In order to move your lips, your whole face has to get involved, which increases elasticity.”