posted by Travel Cat on Jun 29
Can’t take yourself on long driving or flying holidays because of travel sickness?
If you are travelling long distance for your next vacation and want to make sure that you are going to enjoy it – plan ahead. A large percentage of people are ‘travel sick’ or do not enjoy the journey even though a few adaptations can easily change that.
What Is Travel Sickness?
A person who is ‘travel sick’ is not necessarily physically sick, but they may be feeling pretty rough all the same!
Also known as motion sickness, this ‘illness’ can affect anyone – but it depends on a whole host of other factors, such as where you sit, what you look at and how anxious you are.
Basically, the eyes and the brain work closely together to keep your balance, however when your brain has conflicting information from these 2 sources – it thinks that 1 or both senses are not ‘working’ properly and tries to figure out why. One current thought is that if your sight and balance aren’t ‘thinking’ the same thing then you have been poisoned.
Now, poisoning to the body doesn’t necessarily mean arsenic or cyanide – it could mean alcohol or other drugs – hence being sick after too much drinking. When you are drunk your eyes see things differently and your body doesn’t react – very similar to motion sickness!
What You Can Do:
There are a whole host of things that you can do to lessen the effects of travel sickness and it depends on how you are travelling.
By Car – Firstly you want to have fresh air coming into the vehicle and preferably have you sitting up straight in the front seat. This way you can look ahead at the horizon which doesn’t really move. If you are looking at a whizz of different things from the back seat this can antagonise the feeling of nausea.
Make sure that you have an empty tummy or having only eaten something bland before heading off and ideally have some peaceful music on as a distraction. Try not to read maps or words as this can sometimes make it worse!
It would be better if you were driving as this will be a great distraction for your brain!
By Plane – Again, make sure that you have some cool air blowing on you and are sitting up straight. Flying during the day would be best by the window so that your eyes had a point of reference – like the planes wings or the ground below – to help balance the senses.
Some people prefer not to see outside at all, and so would be better in the middle of the plane (to reduce the stress of thinking about looking out of the window) and to take a sedative or a long nap. Both will calm the body and take the bodies thought away from the travel aspect. Watching a good film on-board can also sometimes help – but reading may make it worse!
By Boat – Even if you have never been travel sick before – you may well be on a boat!
Add together the foul smell of the ocean, the nerves of drowning, a hot stuffy environment and then the rolling of the waves and no discernable land – then try to not feel a bit sick!
Just be prepared. Eat less, take mild relaxants, get fresh air, distract yourself with a film or go to sleep! Keep your anti-sickness pills close by as the smell of sick – yours or other passengers will no doubt make you even more sick!
Try to go on-board ships or boats that are less likely to make you nervous – sort of acclimatise yourself to them. If you can take away the fear of not seeing land and can swim if you need to, then there are less things to make your stressed which in turn can make motion sickness worse.
Planning & Medication.
If you are nervous or stressed before a journey – food can stay in your stomach rather than move on to the intestines. You can only be sick what is in your stomach – so if there is nothing there at least it cuts down on that!
There are also many preparations that claim to help, but read the directions first.
Many anti-nausea tablets are not effective for motion sickness, anti-sickness tablets (anti-emetic) only stop the sickness – not the nausea, and many sedatives may just cause problems if you change you plans – or you need to panic about something else!
Hypnosis can help to eliminate any fear you have of certain modes of travel, therefore lessening the effects of travel stress and limiting nausea and sickness.
