You Can Train Your Brain to Prevent Motion Sickness

Imagine stepping into a sleek, driverless car, opening your laptop, and preparing to answer emails — only to feel a wave of nausea wash over you before you’ve gone two blocks. As autonomous vehicles promise to free us from the steering wheel, scientists are discovering an unexpected side effect of this freedom: more motion sickness, not less. But what if the solution isn’t a pill but a simple brain exercise that cuts symptoms in half?

Key Takeaways

Motion sickness stems from sensory conflict between what your eyes see and what your inner ear and body detect.
Improving visuospatial brain skills reduced symptoms by over 50% in both simulator and real-world trials.
Practical relief options today include gradual exposure, deep breathing, ginger, and pressure bands.

Motion Sickness Isn’t in Your Stomach — It’s in Your Brain

Car sickness and other forms of motion sickness are surprisingly common, with up to one in three people highly susceptible to the condition. Being a driver rather than a passenger is protective. But with driverless cars coming to our roads in the near future, drivers will become passengers, and many will want to use their time away from the wheel productively.

This expectation has sparked interest among scientists, who are now seeking a solution to motion sickness. One research group in the United Kingdom thinks they've found one.

What Really Causes Motion Sickness?

The main symptoms suffered by people with motion sickness are nausea and vomiting, but there can be many others such as dizziness, drowsiness, sweating, and headaches. Motion sickness can occur when using any form of transportation, as well as during leisure activities such as skiing, amusement park rides, and virtual reality headsets and simulators.

The reason for motion sickness isn't known for certain. Researchers believe there is a genetic component, but it’s mainly thought to stem from a "sensory mismatch." The brain receives movement signals from the eyes, inner ears, muscles, and joints.

In a car, for instance, the eyes see the body as being still, but the other parts of the body tell a different story. These conflicting 'moving yet not moving' messages trigger the symptoms of motion sickness. Drivers are protected because they can anticipate directional and motion changes and prepare for them. This helps the brain to resolve the sensory conflict because it feels as if it's in control of the movement.

Passengers cannot anticipate these changes, especially when sitting in the back seat, because their field of view is restricted, and this limits the brain's ability to resolve the sensory conflict. Despite motion sickness being common, research in this area has been remarkably thin.

Researchers from the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, England, set about testing a possible solution to this problem.

Cuts Motion Sickness by Half

The research team enrolled 42 volunteers and split them into two groups. One used a driving simulator, while the other took part in an on-road journey as a back-seat passenger. Researchers provided both groups with questionnaires to obtain real-time feedback on symptom severity.

The second part of the trial tested visuospatial ability. This is the kind of brain activity we use to draw, button a shirt, make a bed, construct models, or assemble furniture. After testing their current abilities, participants were given 15-minute visuospatial tasks to complete each day for two weeks. The tasks improved their abilities by 40 percent. Then they repeated the first part of the trial, which involved a road trip or a driving simulator. Researchers found that the increase in visuospatial ability was directly responsible for a 51 percent reduction in motion sickness in the driving simulator, and a 58 percent reduction in the on-road trial. A member of the project team, Dr. Joseph Smyth, explained, "Being able to reduce an individual’s personal susceptibility to motion-sickness using simple ‘brain training style’ tasks training is a massive step forward in the development of future transport systems, including autonomous vehicles. "I hope that in the future we can optimize the training into a short, highly impactful method."

Getting Relief Now

While we wait for the brain-training system to be perfected, there are several methods for relieving motion sickness we can use right now. In addition to medication, John Golding, a car sickness expert from the University of Westminster, suggests the following:

Take regular short car trips to "habituate" to car sickness through repeated exposure.
Practice deep yogic-style breaths. "If you can get good control of your breathing, you can start to override feelings of nausea."
Take two tablets of powdered ginger 20 minutes before the journey. "There's an active ingredient in ginger called gingerol, which probably does tend to calm the gut..."
Try pressure bands. These stimulate an acupuncture point to interrupt the 'I'm sick' message. "There's a great element of suggestion here - some studies say they work, and others say they don't. The placebo effect is probably quite large," says Professor Golding.

Summary

Motion sickness affects up to one in three people and is caused largely by a sensory mismatch between what the eyes see and what the inner ear and body feel. Drivers are less susceptible because they can anticipate movement, helping the brain resolve conflicting signals. With autonomous vehicles poised to turn drivers into passengers, researchers are seeking new solutions. A University of Warwick study found that improving visuospatial ability through short daily brain-training exercises reduced motion sickness symptoms by up to 58 percent. While this training is still being refined, practical relief strategies include gradual exposure, controlled breathing, ginger supplementation, and pressure bands. The findings suggest that strengthening certain brain skills may significantly reduce susceptibility to motion sickness in the future.

Meet
The Expert:

Susan Clark is an award-winning, Emmy-nominated journalist and author who has written about nutrition, health, and wellness for 27 years. She has developed content for articles, reports, books, videos, and television news segments featuring some of today’s top alternative and integrative doctors. She earned a bachelor of science in broadcast journalism from Texas Christian University. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two sons, and numerous pets.

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