“When I think about it, just holding a kiss in my relationship changes the whole dynamic in that moment,” Nina Westbrook tells me over Zoom from London. “Rather than just moving along in your routine, it helps you to boost the positive feelings that you have towards your partner.” A licensed marriage therapist, founder of the wellness platform Bene by Nina, and host of the relationship podcast Do Tell, Westbrook is used to talking about what real life with her husband, NBA star and Vogue fashion darling Russell Westbrook, looks like. (Cute photos of the couple, below.) Ahead of back-to-back makeout holidays, today's National Kissing Day and July 6th's International Kissing Day, we’re gabbing about clips circulating in social feeds of Drs. John and Julie Gottman recommending the 6-second kiss in which “oxytocin gets secreted” at that point” which “can create a sense of psychological safety and connection and bonding.”
Westbrook recognizes the health and wellness benefits of intimacy in our daily routine. By doing more activities that release oxytocin (“the love hormone”), you can boost happiness naturally and foster closeness in relationships at any stage. Then, there’s stress relief: “It's been studied that kissing can help reduce cortisol levels in your body, which we refer to as the stress hormone,” Westbrook explains. “When you have chronic cortisol, it leads to anxiety, which so many of us are experiencing. Kissing helps to reduce that hormone secretion and, in turn, stress levels.” It’s reason enough to consider the way you’re approaching intimacy in your day-to-day life, whether for long-term couples or new flames as “a mood booster and it's good for your mental health and wellness.”
It’s a helpful reminder in her own life, Westbrook says. “It's so funny because my love language is not physical touch, so it is something that I've had to work into my relationship,” she shares. “I don't need that physical touch, but it has grown on me over time, especially after having kids—there's no way to avoid them being all over me physically every single day, all day—but when it comes to my relationship, I'm extremely intentional about the way that we spend time together.” Weekly date nights offer essential bonding, too. “My husband and I love going to movies,” Westbrook says. “We realized a long time ago that if we didn't create these moments to really connect and talk about our lives outside of our busy schedules and outside of our children, then we were going to both lose ourselves each other.” Now, she says, “kissing is definitely a part of our ritual.”
Our cultural response to PDA is always changing, so don’t be discouraged. Kissing is out of style, reads one makeout-scathing article in Halls Journal of Health, “The Habit of Kissing,” published well over a century ago in 1888 with claims that “in society a woman is not kissed but twice a season” and “married women are more addicted to kissing than single ones.” I tell her about one time my husband and I were impressed by an elderly couple romantically making out in the Louvre, and how strong (and sometimes shaming) American reactions can be. “Some people love PDA, some people don't, but really what matters is how it makes you feel,” she says wisely. “Live a little,” she suggests. And living in the moment, inside of “a little kissing bubble” can help escape a mental stress loop. “I can imagine kissing my husband, the long six-second kiss, and it totally changes the trajectory of what I'm thinking in that moment,” says Westbrook. “I'm going straight to intimacy mode rather than whatever else is going on.” It’s good for your heart to have less stress, she notes, and all of these positive interactions and hormone releases could help us live longer, happier lives.
“We get wrapped up in this idea of mental health as mental illness rather than seeing it as something that has to do with our everyday lives and our lifestyle,” says Westbrook. “Taking these little steps and doing these really small things like kissing your partner for six seconds whenever you get a chance, it only takes a lot of small things to have a really big impact on your mental health.” Let’s not forget the classics as we prioritize our health. “I'm going to be implementing more of these six-second kisses for myself and my own personal life,” Westbrook says. It’s good advice for all of us. “We want to see a lot more PDA this summer.”
