Why do kisses make you feel good

According to experts, when you are kissing someone, your brain releases chemicals called oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. These act as a feel-good cocktail that ignites pleasure and makes you feel euphoric and with the mood of giving and receiving more affections.

A person who feels happy will be aware of their self-worth. According to a Journal of Behavioral Medicine study, people who have low levels of self-esteem or are not satisfied with their appearance have higher cortisol levels. If kissing helps you manage your stress, it can also do wonders with your anxiety. When you give or receive a kiss from someone you love, the affection will promote relaxation and wellness.

When you kiss someone you are crazy about, your heart rate will increase; therefore, your blood vessels will dilate, making your blood pressure decrease. When you kiss, your brain is triggered to release chemicals such as oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, that make you feel happy, euphoric and lower your cortisol levels stress-inducing hormones.

This concoction of happy hormones helps to keep mood changes in check and makes you feel elated. As kissing helps reduce cortisol levels, it could potentially enhance your feelings of self-worth, as the stress levels are on a decline. The stress-reducing effect of kissing facilitates motivation in our behaviour, and hence reduces anxiety.

Kissing dilates the blood vessels, which helps reduce blood pressure levels. This happens as your heart rate increases while kissing, thereby dilating the blood vessels, which increases the blood flow and triggers a decrease in your blood pressure. Also, as the cortisol levels decrease when you kiss, the cholesterol levels also take a plunge as stress is a major contributor to it. In , this study won an Ig Nobel prize. When you kiss someone on the lips you exchange bacteria.

This can either make you sick, or it can help boost your immunity by exposing you to new germs that strengthen your immune system's ability to fight these bacteria. A study in the journal Microbiome found that couples who kissed frequently were more likely to share the same microbiota in their saliva and on the surface of the tongue.

How frequently? At least nine times per day. The act of kissing stimulates your salivary glands to produce saliva, the fluid that moistens the mouth to make swallowing easier. Saliva also helps remove cavity-causing particles that stick in your teeth after eating.

According to a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior , kissing "might facilitate the subconscious appraisal of a potential mate by utilizing pheromonal cues to assess genetic … compatibility, general health, underlying genetic fitness or menstrual cycle phase and fertility. In fact, the authors write, in a handful of societies where mouth-to-mouth partner contact is unknown or frowned upon, such as the Mehinaku of Brazil in fact, only 46 percent of cultures are known to kiss romantically , romantic partners still engage in "kissing traditions of close face-to-face contact involving sniffing, licking or rubbing.

Kissing also stimulates the brain hormones, dopamine and oxytocin— both of which promote bonding and attachment in human beings. Women also tend to view kissing as an important way to show affection in long-term relationships. Well, I guess that depends on your definition of a good kisser and a good lover.

A study by Wlodaski found that being a good kisser can make some people more attractive for short-term relationships. A silly question maybe when you consider how many people kiss each other on the cheek in greetings. But, when is a kiss not just a kiss, depends on the honesty and sincerity of the kissers. We suggest you just watch a few romantic comedies to solve this one. Yes, because kissing stimulates the production of the so-called happy hormones or neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin while reducing the production of the stress hormone, cortisol.

And no, because there are about 80 million bacteria, some harmful, some harmless - in the bodily fluids kissers exchange. Well, it depends on what other forms of intimacy they partake in. Manwatching author Morris suggests that couples who have been bonded for a long time are less likely to indulge in prolonged intense mouth kissing.

But, evolutionary psychologist, Gordon Gallup from the University of Albany says that in long-term relationships, the frequency of kissing is a good barometer of the health and wellbeing of that particular bond.