More and more of us are travelling again, eager to make up for trips and holidays lost to the pandemic.
But while some of us can’t wait to take off – whether by train, plane, boat or automobile – others might be dreading the journey if they’re susceptible to travel sickness.
My article for The Daily Mirror and Daily Express showed that around 65% of us are said to suffer from some degree of motion sickness.
In basic terms, it happens because your brain can’t make sense of the mismatch in information it receives from different parts of your body. You dinner east sense movement as you travel in a car, but your body tells your brain you’re sitting still. Cue confusion and the horrible sweaty sickly feelings!
I was inspired to write the article because of research from the University of Warwick that suggests we could ‘train our brains’ to become less prone to motion sickness by doing visuospatial exercises. In the study, participants were asked to do pen-and-paper visuospatial training tasks, once a day for 15 minutes per day, over two weeks. The exercises included things like looking at a pattern of boxes and identifying which image out of three is the original one rotated, plus paper folding and spatial pattern tasks. After two weeks of training like this, the participants saw their motion sickness reduced by 58% on the road. There are plenty of free apps such as ‘Spatial Ability’ and ‘Unfold It’ where you can practise visuospatial exercises like this yourself. Fascinating!
There’s lots more you can do to help prevent motion sickness – things like snacking on an apple, steering clear of fatty, salty and sugary foods and avoiding things like reading or looking at maps as a passenger – and looking out of the window instead.