Before a stressful moment, kissing your partner would reduce stress for women… but not for men.
- Acute stress can also become chronic, such as post-traumatic stress.
- Stress is a risk factor for several pathologies such as depression, skin problems, autoimmune diseases and certain types of cancer.
There are two forms of stress: the so-called chronic, which can be defined as a lasting state linked to various known and / or sometimes unsuspected sources of stress, and the so-called acute, which is due to an event experienced as difficult and sudden. The latter results in an intense and brutal emotion.
Stress, a natural reaction of the body
Whether it is one or the other, stress is a natural adaptation reaction of the body to external physical and psychological aggressions or to difficult situations.
Researchers wanted to know if kissing your partner before a stressful moment could lower the level of cortisol, one of the stress hormones, and therefore anxiety in general. Their work has just been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
76 participants as a couple
Cortisol is released in a person’s body when they experience a stressful situation. To measure its rate, it is possible to do a urine or saliva test, a blood test or directly by hair analysis.
In their experiments, the scientists paired up 76 participants and confronted them with a stressful situation: keeping one hand in an ice-cold water bath for three minutes while being observed and staring at a camera. Before taking this test, half had to kiss their partner.
In women, kissing your partner reduces stress
Before and after the experiment, the participants took saliva tests to assess their cortisol levels. According to the results, women who kissed their partner had a lower rate than those who did not kiss.
On the other hand, in men, this physical contact had no impact on their level of stress, either on cortisol levels, on blood pressure or emotional state also measured by the researchers.
Future research on friendly physical contact
“As a woman, hugging your partner can prevent your body’s acute stress response.”, explain the researchers who now intend to continue their research to determine if this relationship also exists when physical contact is friendly.
Finally, they also want to work on the impact of social restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic on the level of stress and depression of the population.
