For as long as I can remember, as an adult at least, I have easily gotten motion sickness whether in a car or on a boat. There are occasions when it hasn’t hit me much, but most of the time if I look down in a car or experience any kind of movement that is not stable, I start to get sick.
Usually, my physical response is to start yawning until eventually I fall asleep. It seems that my body/brain is rather adept at shutting me down to reset or escape the source of a problem.
The typical recommendation to watch the horizon while on a boat or try to get cool air work to some small degree, but not enough to remedy the oncoming discomfort. So, when it came to prepare for our Croatia and Adriatic Sea vacation, I wanted to do something to ensure that I could enjoy it as much as possible.
Since others may suffer in a similar way, I thought I’d share some of the things I did, and that worked, to avoid major motion sickness.
Puma Method
First, I read somewhere online about the Puma Method. This is a series of exercises that you do to basically make yourself dizzy and help train your brain to adjust to the motions to avoid sickness. It says it takes about two weeks to fully benefit, but I did it for four days and noticed results in the car straightaway. This was a major result as M’s driving often leaves me feeling nauseous.
You do have to pay for the video and PDF tracking sheet, but I would say it’s definitely worth it if you’re a sensitive sufferer like me. I will be continuing to do these exercises regularly as being car sick is a constant that I’d like to be free of.
Eye Exercises
A friend helped me out before we went with some herbal, natural remedies and these preventative eye excercises.
- Start by thinking of your eyes as a perfect circle, a clock where every second, every minute and every hour counts.
- Bring your focus to 12 o ‘clock, then using your eyes as a pencil, draw a line down to 6 o ‘clock. If the line wavers use your finger to guide your eyes. Do five repetitions, center your eyes, then close them.
- Open your eyes directly at 3 o’ clock, then straight to nine o’clock and draw a line from three to nine. If the line is wavy or shaky, just work the line slowly until it feels smooth. Do five repetitions, center, then close eyes.
- Open eyes and draw a line between 11 and five, then five and 11 again. Five reps. Center then close.
- Draw a line between one and seven again, five reps. then center and close.
- If there is a weak pattern just work through that line until it becomes a perfectly straight line.
- Now, imagining your eyes as a perfect circle, start at 12 o’clock and go clockwise making every second, every minute and every hour count (a good life lesson in general.)
- After five circles, center, then close your eyes.
- Lastly, starting at 12 o clock go counterclockwise, five reps. When you end at 12, center and close your eyes.
- Rub your hands together to create a good heat then cup your hands over your eyes and allow the heat to be absorbed.
I’m not sure how much they worked, but they definitely didn’t hurt anything.
Pressure Point Bands
These were amazingly helpful and almost instantaneous in smoothing out my stomach or dizziness on the ferry, the boat and in the car. Don’t wait until symptoms arise, just wear them. I did wear them on both wrists, then wore just one the day after we returned to land as I still felt I was moving on a boat…. I also wore just one on the ferry ride the following day, but then didn’t need them after that. I now keep one set in each of our cars.
Vagus Nerve Reset and Ear Pressure Points
My friend mentioned above also taught me how to reset my vagus nerve, which is super helpful for other aspects of our health and balance. She further showed me how to find the pressure points in my ear, which helped with any dizzy spells.
- Vagus nerve reset – the easiest way to do this is to hum. Hum normally, then hum putting lower lip above upper lip, then move lower lip back and forth from normal to above upper lip, then hum normally again.
- Ear pressure points – push firmly into ear canal just before the finger goes into the opening of your ear, move it around until saliva begins to increase in your mouth, repeat on the other side. Do the same for the upper inner lobe of your ear on both sides.
Other Helpful Aids
- Homeopathic nausea pills (work well for a quick fix)
- Ear patches (heard they work well though you have to wean yourself off of them, but didn’t use any)
- Travel gum (made my tongue numb, so didn’t try again, but can distract!)
- Ginger chews (everyone recommends, but couldn’t find them in our pharmacy)
So, perhaps this will help you, reader, if you suffer from motion sickness. It made all the difference for an enjoyable holiday on the water. I think the highest recommendation is for the pressure point bands as our friend on the boat also had some which seemed to work great for her as well!
~T 🔥🐉♋️
