A good kiss is like drinking an ice cold coke on a hot summer’s day; it’s refreshing and sends good tingles down your body. Well, this is what I felt the first time I locked lips with my puppy love-mate back in the day, and I’m glad it was a good locking session. Since then, kissing has been one of those cool, fun and sensual necessities of life that actually have pretty good benefits besides the obvious. I can say without a doubt that a smooch a day keeps the doctor away and also keeps the brain at bay. Thank goodness for science, because it bears testimony to this fact.

So it turns out that saliva that’s exchanged between two people while kissing isn’t bad at all. In fact, scientists say that extra saliva received washes bacteria off your teeth, which can help break down oral plaque. First make sure that you brush your teeth and that you keep you keep your breath mints at bay before attempting a smooch. Nothing is as bad as kissing a human sewage holder.

Couch potatoes will be pleased to know that kissing will give their facial muscles some exercise. Deep, tongue-wrangling French kissing allows facial muscles to get their fair share exercise, and this has the benefit of keeping your looks intact. Beauty surely does come from within (the mouth of another person). And while tongue-tying with your dearly beloved crush, fling or lover, you could burn two calories a minute. Add this to your daily exercise routine, and you’ll as fit as a fiddle in no time.

Who needs to sit crossed-legged with all your fingers pointed up and saying ‘ummmmm’ for years on end when you can engage in some sensual meditation through kissing? Lip locking does wonders in stopping the buzz in your mind; it subdues anxiety and heightens the experience of being present in the moment. In actual fact, many of the psychological changes that meditation produces can also be produced through kissing.

We all judge our partners by they way they kiss; if they’re bad, then the relationship is already on a downward spiral, and if they’re good, then it’s all systems go. That’s because kissing is an intimate, investigatory process where you gain access into someone’s private space and you’re able to find out all their intimate nitty-gritties. You learn their touch, their smell and taste; you get to see their expressions and reactions, and by allowing them into your own private space, it means you’ve developed some sort of trusted bond with them. And you get a platform to whisper all those crazy-sensual things that you’ve been dying to say to someone.

Above all else, kissing is just down-right awesome. Because it’s like level one of a sexual experience, you’re bound to feel all good and fuzzy and excited inside. Scientists say that lip locking on its own is enough to pull us out if the mundane and ordinary that suffocates us on almost a daily basis.

So dear sexual beings of this world, do be a happy kissing sport and make sure that you do it to the best of your abilities. And if you are certain that lip locking is your favourite hobby, make sure that breath mints become your constant companion or else the reaping of the kissing benefits will be heavily compromised.

*picture sourced from fuckyeahkissing.tumblr.com