How to Stop Motion Sickness Before It Starts
On our first family trip, I was delighted to play the navigator. I looked down at the map, looked up to see where we were, down to the map again, then up again. I was doing a decent enough job until after about five minutes my upper lip started to sweat. My head and guts were spinning. I’ll spare you the details of how this story ends, but it’s not pretty.
Motion sickness can be hell. As someone who loves to travel and is immediately nauseous, I regularly face this discomfort, but I have learned to deal with it.
The science of motion sickness is actually quite interesting. It is caused by a mismatch between what your brain and body are experiencing. Dr. Sujana Chandrasekhar, an ENT surgeon at the New York Head and Neck Institute, tells Popular Science :
When motion sickness occurs, inner ear fluids move with you in a moving vehicle. The brain interprets this movement, [and] instead of saying “yes, you are in a moving car,” it interprets it as a wrong stimulus.
This contradiction is nauseous, but why? Gizmodo explains that this may be a natural defense mechanism. The conflicting signals make your brain think that you are experiencing some kind of hallucination caused by a poison, and as a reflex, your brain induces vomiting.
It’s a fascinating hypothesis, but you get a little less fascinated by it when you lose your lunch aboard a boat. Once motion sickness has begun, there is no real way to cure it. Luckily, there are several ways to make this a little less crap. Here’s how to deal with motion sickness while traveling.
Prepare for your trip
Pay special attention to your health before traveling. Don’t forget what you eat and drink the night before. Dr. Robert Stern, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who has studied motion sickness for the past 15 years, told WebMD :
It is important not to travel on an empty stomach. Any small, low-fat food should help. Fat is very bad. Fatty, fatty foods cause changes in the body that will contribute to the development of nausea. Take a snack with you every couple of hours.
Of course, you want to avoid drinking large amounts of alcohol, and you can avoid alcohol altogether. The University of Maryland Health Center offers the following additional tips to reduce symptoms:
- Avoid spicy, greasy, or greasy foods.
- Don’t overeat.
- To drink a lot of water.
- Dry crackers and sodas (such as ginger ale) can help some people avoid nausea.
- People prone to motion sickness should eat small meals often.
Rest is important too. Netwellness explains that lack of sleep often makes motion sickness worse .
Sinus congestion can also make motion sickness worse. Make sure your sinuses are cleaned before leaving for a trip. Sinus congestion on its own can make you feel dizzy, which can make your nausea or air sickness even more unbearable.
Stock up on preventive foods
There are several foods that can help reduce the effects of motion sickness. Ginger doesn’t work for everyone, but there is evidence that it is effective in treating nausea. A study published in the American Journal of Physiology reports:
Ginger also extended the latency to nausea and shortened the recovery time after cessation of the eyelid … Ginger effectively reduces nausea, tachygastric activity, and vasopressin release caused by circular branching. Thus, ginger may act as a new agent in the prevention and treatment of motion sickness.
You can take ginger in the form of ginger tablets, and we also recommend drinking ginger tea to relieve nausea. During my travels, I stopped in stores to buy candied ginger and that helps too.
In addition to ginger ale and ginger candies, Dr. Stephen Ehrlich, via USA Today, suggests taking a 250 milligram capsule of ginger three times daily before and during travel. If ginger doesn’t work, try peppermint. The University of Maryland recommends “1 enteric coated tablet two to three times daily as needed.”
Of course, there is also traditional medicine. A number of prescription and over-the-counter medications can help relieve motion sickness or even prevent it entirely. There are obviously side effects. Meclizine (also known as the Bonin) and dimenhydrinate (DRAMAMINE) may cause drowsiness, and you probably will not want to waste time exploring the city of destination. Meclizine is said to make you less sleepy, and I’ve learned from my own experience that this is true. But it still causes some drowsiness.
Stern says the prescribed scopolamine patch can be very effective, but there are “serious side effects,” including dry mouth and blurred vision. When I used the patch, I put it on before going on a day trip including flying, driving and boating. As someone who gets sick, just talking about nausea, it was quite surprising that I didn’t feel anything. But I experienced the side effect of blurry vision. Also, I couldn’t look at the landscape without my sunglasses because the light was so bright and it was frustrating while I was abroad.
Choose your seats wisely
Some seats are more bumpy than others, so choosing the optimal one is a good idea when traveling.
At One Medical, Dr. Helen Xenos writes that the middle of the plane next to the wing is the quietest zone. You may also find it helpful to sit at the front of the plane. And a window seat will keep your eyes on the horizon, which will help you keep your balance.
Xenos notes that on a ship, passengers in lower level cabins near the center of the ship tend to get less sick than passengers in higher and outer cabins.
On road trips, you probably already know that the driver’s seat helps. Xenos explains why this works:
Not sitting in the driver’s seat can cause motion sickness when traveling by car. The driver of a car is less prone to motion sickness than a passenger, presumably because the driver’s brain uses its motor commands to control the car and can predict movement. Get behind the wheel to relieve nausea. If you must ride as a passenger, try sitting in the front seat, which gives you more control than riding in the back.
If you do find yourself in the backwoods, again, it will help you focus on the horizon. Xenos says that when you have motion sickness, it can also help you lie down until your “sensory systems are coherent.”
Maintain your balance
Motion sickness is caused by sensory conflict between the brain and body. Thus, it helps to keep these signals as cute as possible, which means trying to maintain a sense of balance.
One way to do this is to anticipate changing movement. This is why focusing on the horizon works: your brain has a better understanding of where you are going and fewer sensory contradictions. Scientific American further explains :
Consider a situation in which you are reading in the back seat of a car. Your eyes, fixed on the book with your peripheral vision seeing the interior of the car, tell you that you are still there. But when the car passes bumps, turns or changes speed, your ears go open. This is why motion sickness is common in this situation. If this is your reaction, it is usually helpful to stop reading and look out the window. The driver of a car tends to suffer the least from motion sickness because not only does he receive accurate sensory information from ears, eyes and touch, but he also controls the car and can therefore anticipate turns, acceleration and deceleration.
Dr. Chandrasekhar says it is a common misconception that closing the eyes helps with motion sickness. In fact, he says this is the worst thing you can do:
By closing your eyes, you turn off a very powerful coping tool. If you open your eyes and focus either on a single point in the distance, or focus as if you were driving a car, you can indeed undo the misinterpretation of ear input.
Anything you can do to match your visual cues with the signals from your inner ear will help. It means not looking down and keeping your eyes open and focused on the horizon.
Try some coping techniques
Finally, some people use various other methods to combat motion sickness. Even if there isn’t a lot of evidence for their effectiveness, it might be worth a try.
For example, acupressure is a popular way to deal with problems. The idea is that pressure on the inside of the wrists can relieve symptoms. I’ve tried this with mixed results, but some swear it works and there are even bracelets you can buy to put constant pressure on this area. One Medical explains that there is conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of this method, but it might be worth a try.
One interesting study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that a “verbal placebo” could be effective in preventing motion sickness. The researchers worked with naval cadets and were told during the experiment that they were unlikely to experience seasickness, and if they did, it probably would not affect their work at sea. In the study abstract, the researchers wrote:
Applying a self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) approach to dealing with seasickness, the authors experimentally increased the self-efficacy of naval cadets by telling them that they were unlikely to experience seasickness and that if they did, they were unlikely to affect their performance at sea. IDF cadets (N = 25) were randomly assigned to test and test conditions. At the end of the 5-day training voyage, experimental cadets reported less motion sickness and were rated by naive instructors as more effective performers than control cadets.
Of course, this is just one study and there are many factors to consider when interpreting these results. But when you’re feeling bad enough, it’s worth trying a few words of encouragement. There is also research showing thatpleasant music andpleasant smells can help relieve visually-induced motion sickness.
Motion sickness is one of the most intense discomforts, and it can be especially unpleasant when you are traveling. After all, you want to enjoy your vacation and not worry about where to find the nearest bar bag. But with a few preventative measures and some survival techniques, you can work to manage your nausea and enjoy the ride.