What Causes Motion Sickness?

Motion sickness is also known as kinetosis, and is a defense mechanism that occurs when the eyes and ears are sending contradictory signals to the brain.  The brain assumes that you are hallucinating due to poison, and orders the stomach to expel  its contents just in case.

There are several parts of your body that keeps the brain informed of the state of your body and some of them are the ears, skin and eyes. When you are in a moving object such as a car, ship or plane, which are usually the places where you get motion sickness, your ears and skin detect that your body is moving but sometimes your eyes cannot see that. For instance when you are in a plane and and the window is shut or when in a car and you are reading a book and/or when you are on a ship in the cabin where you cannot see outside.

When the eyes are telling the brain that you are stationary, but the ears are saying that you are moving, the brain gets confused, and this is what causes the motion sickness.  It can sometimes be aggravated if you are nervous – for example if you are on a plane and there is turbulence, or if you are on a boat and the weather is bad.

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