Kissing is a common way to show your affection to your partner. Depending on the type of kiss, you can feel various emotions – giddiness, contentment, or passion. What you may not be aware of is that kissing offers a lot of benefits for your health, too. It even helps you burn calories! Check out the different types of kissing and the unique calorie-burning capacity of each. Read on to find out the answer to “1 kiss burns how many calories?”

1 Kiss Burns How Many Calories?

Thinking about how many calories are burned while kissing requires some understanding of the other factors that might come into play. For instance, what type of kiss did you engage in? Were you standing, sitting, or lying down? Did you use your hands?

To further understand kissing and its calorie-burning benefit, we’ll categorize it into the following types:

Casual Kissing

Casual kissing is when you give your partner a simple peck on the lips. Think about kissing him or her before going to work – that’s casual kissing.

Experts say that only about 2 muscles work when you kiss someone casually. Hence, it’s not surprising that in this type of kiss, you only burn around 2 to 3 calories per minute.

Passionate Kissing

A step up from a casual kiss, a passionate kiss typically uses more facial muscles (about 24 to 34). Additionally, you could use up to 112 postural muscles in this type of kiss.

Are you wondering about 1 passionate kiss and how many calories it burns? Well, reports say it’s somewhere around 5 to 26 calories per minute.

But, remember: What you do while you are kissing also matters a great deal. In a passionate kiss, things usually become “hot and heavy,” so you might use your hands and move your body a lot.

In other words, the amount of calories you burn in a passionate kiss generally depends on how passionate you are during the act.

Making Out

Now, what if you’re making out with your partner? Experts say the numbers are the same: You can also burn anywhere from 5 to 26 calories per minute.

But, since making out usually leads to lovemaking, you might get more action from it. Is it full-body? Do you do things seen in the movies, like lifting your partner or pressing them against the wall? Things like these will affect how many calories you burn.

Other Benefits of Kissing

At this point, you might have already realized that it’s not advisable to replace a 30-minute aerobic exercise with a smooch or make-out session, but don’t be disappointed. The benefits of kissing are not confined to how many calories it burns.

Below are some of its other science-backed benefits:

It Helps You “Assess” Your Compatibility with Your Partner

One of the benefits of kissing on the lips is it helps you “check” your potential partner. This is quite a useful benefit if your relationship is new and you are still in the process of deciding whether you are going to take the relationship to the next level.

One study reveals that different courtship activities, such as kissing romantically, “may convey useful mate quality information.” This is because when you are engaged in kissing, you become close enough to your partner that your senses can “assess” your compatibility with him or her.

It Makes You Feel Good

Did you know that one of the benefits of kissing is that gives you a “natural high”?

During a kiss, the brain creates a “chemical cocktail” composed of three hormones, namely oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. What’s interesting is that these three hormones make you feel good by lighting up your pleasure centers.

Dopamine, for instance, activates the same areas in the brain that euphoric drugs such as heroin and cocaine activate. Oxytocin, the love hormone, gives you a feeling of affection. Finally, serotonin can help improve your mood.

The euphoric effect of kissing, according to experts, is one of the reasons why you can remember a good kiss even after years have passed.

It Helps Reduce Stress

We have already established that kissing can make you feel elated due to the chemical cocktail that the brain creates. However, it’s still worth noting that when you feel particularly stressed, a simple smooch could help.

In one study, the researchers divided 52 adults who were in a romantic relationship into 2 groups, experimental and control. They instructed the experimental group to “increase the frequency of their romantic kissing,” while the control group is asked to keep their status quo.

After 6 weeks, those in the experimental group reported improvement in perceived stress compared to those in the control group.

It Nurtures Your Relationship

It is no secret that one of the benefits of kissing is it nurtures the relationship. After all, kissing is a great way to show love and affection. So when you do it more often, there’s a chance that you will get closer to your partner.

In the same 6-week study we had discussed, the researchers discovered that those in the experimental group also reported improvement in their relationship satisfaction.

It Helps Improve Allergy Symptoms

And finally, one of the most surprising benefits of kissing is it can alleviate mild allergy symptoms.

The researchers in one study instructed 24 patients with mild allergic rhinitis and 24 patients with mild atopic eczema to freely kiss their lovers for 30 minutes while listening to soft music.

Before and immediately after kissing, they measured the participants’ allergen-specific immunoglobulin and cytokine. In the end, they discovered that kissing can decrease the production of allergen-specific IgE, which may improve allergy symptoms.

Key Takeaways

1 kiss burns how many calories? Well, according to experts, if it’s just a smooch, you can burn anywhere from 2 to 3 calories per minute. If it is passionate and you are making out, you can burn between 5 and 26 calories in a minute.

But there’s more to kissing than just the calories. It nurtures your relationship with your partner, it can reduce stress, and of course, it makes you feel good.

Learn more about Sexual Wellness here.