Tension relief -- that's what good lovin' brings, says Stamford.
"Sex and love are probably the Rodney Dangerfield of stress management. Because
of all the negative energy we take in during the day, it's a very positive
benefit."
All in all, kissing and
everything it engenders keeps us going strong, living long, says Stamford. "The
process of being active -- and that can include kissing, sex, and any other
whole-body activities -- that's what keeps you healthy."
Sex, sensuality, and sensual touch have profound effects on
well-being, says Joy Davidson, PhD, psychologist and clinical sexologist in
Seattle, and former columnist for an online column called "Underwire."
"Kissing is an exciting excursion into the sensual," Davidson
tells WebMD. "If we happen to be connecting with someone we care about, it
produces a sense of well-being and a kind of full-bodied pleasure."
Kissing is also "a sensual meditation," she says. "It stops the
buzz in your mind, it quells anxiety, and it heightens the experience of being
present in the moment. It actually produces a lot of the physiological changes
that meditation produces."
And while kissing may be nature's way of "opening the door to the
sexual experience," she says, "it also has all that lusciousness that we need to
pull us out of the mundane and the ordinary and take us into moments of the
extraordinary."
Birds, Bees, and More
Birds do it -- tap their bills together, that is.
"We don't know if bees do it," says Helen Fisher, PhD, professor
of anthropology at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., and author of several
books, including The Sex Contract and Anatomy of Love. Romantic
love is her research specialty.
"All kinds of animals kiss," says Fisher. "Insects will stroke
each other with a leg, or stroke another's abdomen. Even turtles, moles, and
cats rub noses. Dogs lick each other's faces. Elephants put their trunks in
another elephant's mouth."
When chimpanzees kiss, "it's with a deep French kiss," she says.
"They do it for all kinds of reasons -- there's social kissing, kissing to
relieve tension, to express friendship, to make up after an argument. Two males
will kiss, two females will kiss, a mother and child will kiss on the lips. They
don't choose mates; it's whomever they're interacting with."
Kissing is a very investigatory process, Fisher explains.
"By the time you're kissing someone, you're right up next to them,
you are in their personal space," she says. "That in itself means you have
trusted them. You're also learning quite a bit about them -- you touch them,
smell them, taste them, see the expressions on their face, learn something about
their health status, learn a great deal about their intentions."
The brain contains "a huge amount of receptors devoted to picking
sensations from the lips," Fisher says. "When people have been stabbed in the
back, they often don't know it. They think someone has pounded them with their
fist, because there aren't many receptor sites for nerve endings."
Why? All these sensors aid our survival. They direct a baby toward
milk; they helped our ancestors -- for millions of years -- to discern whether
their food was poisonous or not. "The mouth is absolutely essential to survival
-- everything passes through there, and if it's the wrong thing, you're cooked,"
she says.
"The receptors on the lips are incredible," she tells WebMD. "I've
heard hookers say they would rather copulate with somebody than kiss them
because the intensity of kissing somebody is so meaningful. There's tremendous
intimacy. ... Even the genitals do not have the sensitivity that the lips
have."
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/kissing-benefits?page=3
The Bonding Power of Locking Lips
For man and animals, kissing is a bonding behavior, she says.
"There are all kinds of social reasons that humans and animals kiss, and they
don't all have to do with sex. Most cultures in the world do kiss sexually. [But
some] peoples in South America, some in the Himalaya Mountains, do not kiss.
They find it revolting to exchange saliva."
Kissing also engenders
touch, often called "the mother of the senses, because of its power," says
Fisher. "We know that massaging someone produces increased levels of oxytocin,
which is a calming hormone. So there's every reason to think kissing is
extremely calming, if you know the person well, or extremely stimulating if you
are in love with somebody."
Studies of rodents -- voles, specifically -- have shown that
oxytocin makes a mother vole become attached to its offspring, says Larry Young,
PhD, professor of psychiatry in the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Emory
University Medical School in Atlanta.
Whether a guy vole sticks around "afterward" seems to be driven by
oxytocin, Young tells WebMD.
Prairie voles are the only vole species that mate for life; their
genetic makeup drives them to produce satisfying amounts of oxytocin. On the
other hand, mountain voles are loners and breed promiscuously; they produce
virtually no oxytocin.
In humans, this translates into the bonding benefits of kissing,
foreplay, every bit of touching you do.
Here's a tip: "One of most powerful releases of oxytocin is
stimulation of the nipples," Young tells WebMD. It's the same biological
mechanism that triggers milk flow during nursing. Sucking triggers oxytocin
release, and thus the bond is created.
Humans, interestingly enough, are the only species that includes
nipple stimulation in lovemaking, he adds.
Romance, Love -- or Lust?
That rush that sweeps through your body, during those particularly
great kisses? Fisher knows it well.
"Kissing is contextual," she says. "A kiss can be wildly sexual,
wildly romantic, or it can be deeply gratifying because it's an affirmation of
attachment. Kissing somebody for the first time, rather than the 200th or
2,000th time, creates a situation of incredible novelty."
That rush you feel is probably from two natural stimulants --
dopamine and norepinephrine, Fisher says. "They tend to be activated when you
get into a novel situation."
Fisher says there are three different stages one typically goes
through:
- lust -- the craving for sexual gratification
- romantic love -- the feeling of giddiness, euphoria, sleeplessness, and loss
of appetite when you meet a new love
- attachment -- that sense of security you find with a with long-term
partner.
"Each of these is associated with different chemical systems in
the brain," says Fisher. Sex drive and lust are triggered by testosterone, in
both men and women. Dopamine and norepinephrine kick in when romance begins.
Oxytocin is a factor in at the attachment phase, bringing the sense of calm and
peace you find with "the one."
If you're in the midst
of a "mad love affair, it's quite possible you simply feel levels of dopamine,
that zing of romantic infatuation," Fisher tells WebMD. "If all you're doing is
having a sexual fling with someone you like very well -- but are not in love
with and don't feel attached to -- then all you may feel is sex drive, the
effects of testosterone."
Unless you're kissing the wrong person, kissing quite likely is
good for us, says Fisher.
"I've often thought it would boost the immune system," she says.
"If you're sharing your germs with somebody, you're adding to your internal
defense system."
Kissing also stimulates the brain, and when the experience is a
positive one, "you notice it," she says. "That translates into the euphoria, or
the sex drive, or the sense of calm and peace.
"Kissing helps your state of mind," she adds. "Infatuation can be
perfectly divine. If you're madly in love with somebody, it's perfectly
wonderful to kiss them. It creates incredible intimacy. It boosts self-esteem.
It's wonderful to be kissed by somebody."
