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Motion Sickness – Causes and Prevention

Posted by in Travel: Automotive  ~  May 03, 2012 11:29:37 PM

Motion sickness is a condition that you really don’t want to have while you are traveling. The best thing about the vacation is the travel itself, and you really don’t want to miss out on what you will see during the trip. But instead of enjoying the great view around you, you sit in a corner looking out while trying to concentrate in an attempt to avoid being nauseated from motion sickness.

There are many factors that could trigger motion sickness. For one, our body can experience motion sickness because of conflicting ideas that enter our brain. The eyes only see one place, and they tell the brain about it. However, other senses in our body, especially the motion senses, tell us that we are moving. This results in conflicting information sent to our brain, and thus triggers nausea and ultimately motion sickness. Similarly, if we are traveling on a constantly changing elevation, our inner ear will tell us that we are not in one place while our eyes tell us otherwise.

There are also actions on our end that will trigger motion sickness. For example, if you have even a little bit of alcohol before traveling, motion sickness may be triggered. Alcohol triggers many things in your body, and especially when you are traveling, the alcohol in your body will inhibit the brain from concentrating and controlling the conflicting ideas that go into it. If you have just had a full meal, it will also heighten the chances of having motion sickness.

The only thing that you can do about motion sickness is to prevent it. If the motion sickness is already happening to a person, the only thing that you can do is to neutralize the effect. The only way to stop this completely is to stop the motion. If you can’t do that, let the person sit on the nearest window or a place where the person can just look at one place without feeling really bad. It is important to stop the conflicting messages that your brain receives.

Right now there are lots of medicines on the market that you can take at least an hour before travel time to prevent motion sickness. Staying away from alcohol is also a great idea. But the age old tactic of preventing this condition is to bring ginger when you travel.

That’s right, raw ginger. The properties of ginger are really strong in combating vomiting and nausea. If you take a little bit of these before you travel, it will trigger your body to be alert, and the conflicting ideas that the brain receives won’t be there. However, if you really can’t bring raw ginger for travel, then a ginger tea will hands down be the better alternative to prevent motion sickness.

The best way out of motion sickness is to prevent it. If you don’t feel good before your travel, you may need to drink some ginger tea to prevent motion sickness from happening and enjoy the ride.