Hey friends,
I just got back from two weeks sailing in the Ionian Sea with my dear friends Andres, Riaz and the sailing cat, Ida.
If you’d known me 10, 20, 30 years ago, and I told you that my preferred vacation nowadays is to go for long sailing trips - you would never believe me.
I’ve suffered from severe motion sickness since I was a child.
Boats were impossible.
Planes sometimes led to vomiting.
Winding roads through the northern California mountains where I grew up were the worst.
I remember wanting to lay down in the back of the car to feel less nauseous, but for the seatbelt to work properly and keep me safe, my parents wanted me to sit up and I would…inevitably throw up.
Driving with me was a challenge.
Now the thing about motion sickness is that you never quite know when it will strike.
Some winding car rides will be OK.
But most of them make me nauseous.
Most plane rides I could handle.
But some would surprise me and I’d vomit.
Overall, all buses are horrible.
Trains are hit or miss.
Some boat rides, I could survive.
When I say “survive” I really mean, not vomiting.
Because…again as motion sickness is a strange thing, usually from an outsider’s perspective, it isn’t that bad unless you vomit.
But that is hardly the case.
For a motion sickness sufferer, you are spending most of the journey trying not to vomit, which is also its own exercise in mental strength, while simultaneously feeling dizzy, tired, nauseous and unpleasant.
One thing that does fight motion sickness is a sense of control, or being able to predict the next motion.
Learning to drive was a game changer for me, since as the driver you see the curve ahead and you can anticipate how much your body is going to move.
By driving, you can feel no motion sickness or very little, so this really saved me when I was 16.
Up until then, wow I suffered.
The same happened with sailing.
Once I learned how to sail, once I learned what to look for in the wind, to predict the motion the waves would cause in the boat, I could feel a lot better.
This doesn’t mean I’m completely cured by any means.
If it was, I wish I could bottle this up and give it to everyone who suffers with motion sickness.
But learning to sail helped me tremendously, because before that…bringing me on a boat was impossible.
Even cruise ships made me nauseous and I would use anything I could to help - the ginger chews, the wristbands, dramamine.
There have been a few motion sickness “cures” over the years.
You may remember when these motion sickness glasses came out.
They look crazy…but if you suffer from motion sickness, you’re really willing to try anything.
The rims are hollow and partly filled with colored liquid. When the car or boat tilts, the liquid tilts too, so you always have a horizon line in the corner of your eye.
The idea is that your eyes finally see the same motion your inner ear is feeling, and your brain stops panicking.
I never bought a pair, although I was tempted. But I couldn’t convince myself that wearing these on the train or bus would be realistic.
They look so so ridiculous.
And when I searched for them on Amazon this week, I found them sold in a bundle with the acupressure anti-vomiting wristbands, which did not give me much faith.
The wristbands have a little plastic ball on the inside that presses on a point on the inside of your wrist, about 3 finger-widths below your palm.
I’ve worn them on ferries, buses and that cruise ship.
But they do very little, other than bruising my inner wrist after wearing them all day, everyday for several days in a row.
So maybe the glasses would do the same. A bit better than nothing.
I really felt totally out of luck until 10 years ago I found one product that works.
It’s an Australian over-the-counter product called Travacalm. It’s a miracle, in my opinion.
The first time I tried it I was going on a snorkeling trip with my dad at the Great Barrier Reef.
I was really nervous about the trip because I was 28 years old, still getting super nauseous on boats (I hadn’t learned to sail yet), so I was going to take all the precautions.
Dad and I went to the pharmacy, bought ginger chews, and the pharmacist recommended Travacalm.
Take the first pill 12 hours before you are on the water, the next one a few hours before.
I did it, I went on that rocky boat, and I really enjoyed myself.
My Dad, on the other hand, felt horrible.
Almost immediately into the journey out to our snorkel spot, my Dad said “Oh Neen, I’m so nauseous and tired.”
Since my Dad is diabetic (Read: #169: 🩸 How I Fixed My Dad’s Diabetes Crashes in 4 Weeks
), my first instinct was that his blood sugar was low/high.
But…that wasn’t it.
Then I told him “OMG, you’re motion sick.”
Dad’s response” “I don’t get motion sick”
“Well, hate to break it to you…but you are…this is how motion sickness feels.”
And his reply, “This is horrible! This is how you feel all the time in the car?”
Seeing the look of shock on his face and empathy after he finally understood what I had been through with all my episodes of motion sickness was gratifying.
I gave him a suggestion that I was often told, to get in the water.
Since this trip, back in 2016 to Australia, I’ve kept a stash of Travacalm at home.
I ask friends to bring it back to me if they are coming to the US or Europe from Australia. Because it’s not sold outside of Australia unfortunately.
So if you get motion sick, and you are in Australia or know someone traveling to it, have them pick this up for you.
I swear by it.
But, if you don’t have a way to source your way to Travacalm, I just learned of something else new.
Apple has a feature called “Vehicle Motion Cues” for the iPhone.
With this on, you can use your phone as a passenger without getting motion sickness.
It adds dynamic dots to the right and left sides of your screen that move down the screen as you accelerate forwards, and then fall down the screen when you make turns.
Somehow this tricks your brain and somehow…it works.
When I have the Vehicle Motion Cues on, I somehow feel less nauseous, and I can actually use my phone in the car.
Want to add this to your phone?
Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Accessibility, then tap Motion.
Tap Vehicle Motion Cues, then tap an option. If you choose Automatic, animated dots appear on the screen when iPhone detects that you’re riding in a car or other on-road vehicle; the dots are hidden when the motion stops.
To manually show or hide Vehicle Motion Cues, open Control Center, tap the Vehicle Motion Cues button, then tap an option.
What I’ve Learned
When I line it all up, almost everything that has ever helped me does the same thing.
Driving lets me see the curve before my body feels it.
Sailing taught me to read the wind and the waves before the boat moves.
The glasses and the dots on my iPhone show my eyes the motion my body is already feeling.
My brain just wants to know what's coming next.
Travacalm is my backup for the days it can't.
As for why I don't carry it everywhere...motion sickness doesn't strike every day, so I forget until it's too late.
So this is my reminder, to you and to me: if you get motion sick, keep something in your bag.
And if you've found something that works for you, hit reply and tell me. I'm always looking for the next thing to try
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