The Zen of Motion Sickness

Every time I get into a moving vehicle, by necessity I become a master of zen. Fighting motion sickness is a bit of a mental battle, and in an effort to minimize the pain and discomfort I suffer every time I have to drive, sail, or even fly somewhere, not to mention minimizing the risk of ejecting my breakfast all over the dashboard, I have a long list of rituals that help me cope. I honestly have no idea how well these precautions apply to other people, but I shall share them here anyway, if nothing else then to help me explain to others what I go through whenever I travel.

You may think I’m making this whole thing out to be worse than it really is, but frankly my motion sickness is one of two problems I suffer from so badly I don’t believe it is possible for me to exaggerate them (the other being arachnophobia).

• Drink cola. Cola has a life-savingly soothing effect on your stomach, which really helps to settle it down when it’s going “OMG OMG WHAT IS GOING ON JETTISON EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY”.
• Do not drink orange juice. It’s very acidic, which has the complete opposite effect on your stomach than cola, and it tastes absolutely dreadful when it comes back up again.
• Bring a bottle of water. Mineral water helps because it has that slightly crisp, healthy taste. Hydrating is always good, especially to counteract the clammy, sweaty feeling you get when your motion sickness is getting really bad. Most of all, you will need the water to get the taste out of your mouth if your zen is too weak to avert disaster.
• Bring at least one opague plastic bag to throw up in. Aside from the obvious damage control purpose, it actually has some significant preventive qualities because the last thing you want is to be worrying about how long you can hold out before you have to ask the driver to pull over. If you have a plan in case you need to puke, it’s much easier to think about something other than how sick you are.
• Sit in the front seat. If there is somebody else in the front seat, threaten to sit in the seat behind them and aim for the back of their head when you inevitably have to vomit because they wouldn’t give you the front seat.
• Look straight ahead and focus on the horizon. Do not look at anything too close to the vehicle. Do not look out the side windows for more than a few seconds at a time.
• Do not talk to anybody. When you get into the vehicle, warn any of your friends or acquaintances with whom you are travelling that you are going to be the most boring roadtrip companion ever because conversation will bring about disaster.
• Open a window if possible. Fresh air is a life-saver.
• Try not to breathe through your nose. If you’ve suffered from motion sickness for a while, the smell of a car or a bus is hard-wired into your brain in such a way that just walking past a bus with its door open is often enough to make you queasy. If you don’t smell the inside of the vehicle, you remove a large part of the problem.
• Regulate your breathing. If you’re not breathing through your nose, this becomes slightly easier. You want to breathe in during acceleration or deceleration and try not to breathe out until your speed is level. Long, slow intakes are good for this, but if you have to choose, breathe in during deceleration and out during acceleration, since deceleration is usually worse.
• If your situation allows it, ask the driver to stick to country roads or highways, and plan your route to take you out of the city as fast as possible. Stop-lights and heavy traffic are the banes of your existence if you have motion sickness.
• Listen to music. Headphones are good because they make the music more intimate so it’s easier to focus on, but a car radio will usually do the trick. The point is to use the music to distract yourself from how terrible you feel and how close you are to upchucking. Try to find new instrumental patterns that you hadn’t noticed before in familiar songs. Mouth the lyrics if you have to.

By adhering to these rules, I’ve managed to endure several car rides while I’ve been in Canada without throwing up. In North America where all of society appears to have been designed around everybody driving everywhere, motion sickness seems like a far worse handicap than it is in Denmark, where the trains can take you anywhere your bicycle can’t (modes of transportation in order of relatively unproblematic to apocalyptically bad: planes, trains, ships, boats, cars, buses).

Fighting motion sickness tends to feel like you’re locked in mental combat against your own body, but I guess it’s the price you have to pay if you want to see a bit of the world, so you may as well take your precautions and accept that you probably will feel terrible a lot of the time while you’re on vacation. There are far worse things in life than motion sickness, it just doesn’t feel that way while it’s kicking your ass.