Facts on Travel / Motion Sickness

Are you the kind of person who:

	(a) Eats eggs, bacon and chips and asks cheerily ‘What’s the problem then?’ when everyone else is throwing up all over the floor of a cross channel ferry in a howling force 9 gale, sloshing through the sick on the floor
	(b) Feels vaguely unwell when your father tries to pretend that he’s a formula 1 racing driver whilst your family is on their way through the back roads of the peak district for your family holiday?
	(c) Gets violently sick when you are sitting at home looking at photos of a friend’s sailing holiday?

Well – it takes all sorts – but unfortunately – we don’t yet know exactly why some people get travel sick, and other’s don’t. It is a strange business – because some people:

• Never get sea sick when they are young, but get it when they get older
• Get travel sick when they are young but grow out of it as they get older
• Get sick on the killer rides at Alton towers but not in small dinghies when the waves are higher than the mast
• Never get any kind of travel sickness (lucky, lucky people!)

Motion sickness (seasick, carsick, airsick etc) is caused by lots of things

• Inside your ears are semicircular bony canals responsible for sending messages to your brain about which way up you are compared with gravity and how your body is moving in space at any one time. If the messages from these organs are confused and out of sync with the messages that your eyes are giving your brain – then it can cause you to feel sick
• All these messages from your semicircular canals can also be mixed up with other sick making messages to your brain like - ‘I remember getting sick last time this happened’ – ‘I can smell and hear someone else throwing up’ , ‘I wasn’t feeling very well anyhow’, ‘I shouldn’t have eaten all that greasy food before we started!’

What helps you stopping getting travel sick?

• Don’t eat vast loads of greasy food before you are going to travel 
• Do take a travel sickness pill –the chemist has lots of different sorts so find out which suits you best 
• In a car – ask for the front seat and keep your window open and don’t try to read 
• At sea – try and stay on deck for as long as possible (as long as you are not going to get washed away!). Otherwise go below decks and lie flat on your face on a bunk with your body lying along the same axis (front to back or back to front) of the boat 
• Stay away (if you can) from other people who are being sick Ask your formula 1 racing car driver father to slow down

Sorry, I can’t write anymore about this, ‘cos I think I am going to be sick!!!!!