If you or your loved one suffer from car sickness, here’s what you need to know ahead of the festive travel season.
Queasiness during car journeys can blight your Christmas plans and nothing says ‘Bah humbug!’ quite like having to decontaminate a vehicle after a vomiting mishap.
But there are ways to alleviate the effects of motion sickness, and it’s a subject that has been studied for years by scientists from across the globe.
Here we take a look at the advice from both academics and from parents who’ve posted on online message boards to give you as many tools in your armoury as possible to beat the dreaded barf.
Get a good night’s kip before travelling
The more sleep-deprived you are, the more likely you are to be queasy in the car.
A recent study from America’s Brandeis University, Massachusetts, warned that a lack of sleep can hinder a person’s ability to ‘adapt’ to the sensation of motion in a car, making them more likely to feel poorly.
So, make sure you and the entire family have an early night before hitting the road.
Other studies have shown that having a nap in the car while on the move can actually help to alleviate the symptoms.
Ditch the iPad - and the book
Reading or watching a movie in the car can put you in the fast lane to chunder-ville.
It’s all down to what scientists call a ‘sensory conflict’.
If your eyes are down focusing on a screen, you lose the sensation of ‘movement’ because you’re not actually watching the world go by in front of you.
Meanwhile your inner ear is fully aware of the movement.
It’s this confusion and disagreement between your eyes and your ears that causes nausea.
If you’re prone to motion sickness - and it’s children aged between 6 and 9 years who are most susceptible - try to look straight ahead at a fixed point, such as the horizon, rather than down at a tablet screen or book.
Pack light
As explained above, people prone to motion sickness need to be able to see out of the window ahead of them so that you can fully take-in the sensation of movement.
If you’ve loaded the car in a way that means windows are obstructed, passengers - particularly young children sitting in the rear on low child seats - might suffer from sensory deprivation and find themselves getting motion sickness.
The NHS advises that queasy folks sit in the front of the car if they can, as the wide view ahead when riding shot-gun reduces in-car sickness.
Eat a ginger biscuit
Ginger has long been used as a medication for motion sickness.
It’s so trusted, some studies have shown that it can actually be more effective than proper motion sickness medication - and you can get dissolvable tablets for children from your nearest pharmacy.
Weirdly, the precise mechanics of how ginger suppresses motion sickness is still unclear.
One recent study from National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, suggested it was down to ginger protecting the natural ‘rhythm’ of the stomach - and preventing abnormal ‘gastric dysrhythmias’ which bring on feelings of sickness.
The NHS recommends taking ginger as either a tablet, biscuit or tea.
Train your brain
Last year scientists from the University of Warwick, Coventry, teamed up with Jaguar Land Rover to try a novel approach to combating motion sickness - and one that doesn’t rely on medication.
The idea was for participants in a trial to undergo training to improve their ‘visuospatial’ ability in the hope that it would improve their motion sickness.
The training tasks included things such as folding paper and matching 3D shapes made out of blocks.
After 14 days of visuospatial training, nausea scores among the test subjects actually decreased by 68%.
A quick internet search of ‘visuospatial training tasks’ will bring up a list of your own exercises to try - and it might just help.
Wristband and special glasses
Wristbands to beat motion sickness have been around for years, and they’re based on ancient acupressure principals. A plastic stud on the inside of the band applies pressure to the ‘P6’ acupressure point on your wrist, and is said to prevent nausea and vomiting.
As the NHS points out, they work for some people but not for others.
A more recent invention is motion sickness goggles. The glasses have hollow rims, with each half filled with a blue liquid. There are four rims in all - two over the eyes, and two to the side in your peripheral vision.
The idea is that the glasses create a ‘virtual horizon’ which helps keep the connection between what your eyes are seeing and what your inner ear is feeling, hence holding-back the nausea.
Antihistamines
Cinnarizine is a type of antihistamine which most adults and children over five years old can take.
And there’s evidence that the antihistamine can prevent motion sickness, particularly in adults who are prone to it.
One word of warning, though - one side effect is drowsiness.
Avoid rear-facing seats
With some seven-seat cars, such as the Tesla Model S (above) the third row of seats faces the rear rather than the front.
And science shows us that travelling backwards can actually exacerbate motion sickness. You might experience a similar effect when travelling in a rear-facing seat on the train.
Remember, though, that if you’re using a height-based ‘i-Size’ child seat, it must be rear facing until they are 15 months old.
Drive as smoothly as you can
Any abrupt braking or accelerating can exacerbate motion sickness, as can tearing into corners.
If you’re behind the wheel, try to smooth-out your speed and really slow down for any sharp turns.
Lease a car with ‘active suspension’ if you can…
A lot of modern cars now come with something called an ‘active suspension’ management system. A computer essentially calculates how much pressure to apply to the wheels according to the surface under the rubber, helping to reduce vibrations and promote a more serene ride.
You see it in cars like the new Citroen C5 X (above), the Mercedes-Benz EQE and the Range Rover Sport.
And some experts think active suspension might work to counteract motion sickness.
A 2019 study published in the journal Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance put active suspension to the test against regular suspension.
And it found active suspension not only reduced ‘motion sickness’ it also increased reading comfort.
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