Stuff You Should Know - How Motion Sickness Works

Episode Date: June 7, 2016

Motion sickness is the worst and hits about 25 to 40 percent of humans when they ride in cars, boats, or simply watch the wrong 3-D movie. Join us as we break down the science behind this nausea-inducing affliction. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Joshua Clark. There's Charles W. Truck Bryant and Jerry's over there.

I'm speaking in a monotone kind of. Hey, dude. Hey, how's it going? It's going well. I'm not motion sick, so things are fine. Do you get motion sick? Sometimes, I mean, if the conditions are right. I was really surprised to find

that not everybody gets motion sick. What are your conditions? Poor ventilation and like lots of movement. Backseat of a car, but anytime I read in a car, even like glancing at my phone on a map. Really? Yeah, if I have to read anything, it gets me very quick. So I've just learned that, like I can't do it.

I cannot do it, so I don't. I get it a little bit too. I used to get it more, I think, when I was younger. Supposedly it's normal. Supposedly it is, but I remember a very specific story that my brother still laughs at. And by the way, boy, I'm glad I said that. I owe my brother, my big brother, a big apology,

because I saw him over the weekend and he said, oh, by the way, I was just doing an old episode and he said you'd never been a groom, a best man. I was the best man at my brother's wedding. Oh, wow. Man, I felt like a jerk. Man, Scott, I'm sorry. I know, and what happened was when I said I hadn't,

I just quickly scanned through my friends that have gotten married and I didn't think about my brother and I was his best man. Boy. I know, man, what a jerk. Well, it's rectified now. Well, I told him, I was like, you're gonna get a public apology, so there it is.

That's pretty public. Yeah, it's public as it gets. You could have also started a Squarespace website if you wanted to. It would have been really easy. I might do that. So anyway, this is old story when we went to Disney. Geez, which is the one where Body Wars is at?

You should have asked Holly from Stuff You Miss in History class. No, she probably senses that someone's talking about Disney right now. Body Wars either was or still is. I don't know if it's still there. One of those rides that you sit in, you know, it was one of those first sort of virtual things

where they show you a movie and then they move the car. Like the Amazing Voyage or something, wasn't it? Yeah, you went inside a human body and were traveling around it. I want to say Disney World, but I can't remember. So I went in that and... Wait, you grew up in Atlanta. I'm guessing you went to Disney World.

Well, it definitely was at Disneyland, but I don't know if it was Epcot or Universal Studios or Disney World. It was in Orlando. So from what I understand, we have a buddy who works for Disney and he's sent me straight on this before. And I think I've got it. So Disney World is all of those.

The Magic Kingdom is what you're specifying. So Disney World includes Epcot and Universal Studios. If I'm not mistaken, I really hope I'm not mistaken. And the Magic Kingdom is specifically the one with the castle. If I did get that wrong, Brandon, I apologize. It's one with the castle and all the weird adults that think they're children.

Like Holly from Stuff Who Missed an History Club. So body wars anyway, you're traveling through the body and I remember at one point I was like, man, it's getting hot in here. And Scott was like, this is great. I was like, I'm not feeling so good, man. I was like, do they have the heat going? He's like, what are you talking about?

It feels great. And I didn't vomit, but I got really sick and made it through the ride and left. And he still teases me to this day. He was like, it was temperature air controlled. And you thought it was like 90 degrees and they were like pumping in heat. It's funny, it got to you like that, like your own body.

Cold sweats, the whole deal. Yeah, that's bad. But generally, you actually did puke. No, no, no, I did not puke. Oh, you didn't. Generally, I don't, like it takes a certain thing, like a really hardcore roller coaster going in fast, fast circles,

but I don't get sick on planes or the one cruise I went on, I didn't get sick. Yeah, you know. I've gotten sick before like on vacation, but and on planes, it's usually fairly fleeting. It's when I introduce reading that it's like, you're in big trouble for a long time. You can read on a plane though.

I can. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think about it. It's reading in a car. I just got to stay away from that. But usually it does come about with like poor ventilation, that kind of thing.

Yeah, which is another trigger. It's a big one or like a rough odor or something like that. I'm sure all those things don't help. The thing is for as much as like we kind of commonly understand motion sickness, science really doesn't have a full explanation for it. I'm picturing little Josh because riding backwards is bad

and like a rumble seat and a station wagon. In a Subaru brat. With like your dad has like salami socks on or something that stink. What? Like the windows are rolled up. I don't know, it's just I don't think it's something gross.

Salami socks? Like socks made of salami? Sure. Like wouldn't that smell gross? He's wearing the skin of another person. Well, no, I was thinking socks. And salami socks. Smelled like old salami,

but made of salamis even better. Right. I think I'm just picturing you back there. Like reading your mad magazine, feeling bad. Yeah. Yeah. No, I do remember being a kid and figuring out, I can't read in cars.

There was a period where I could, which is kind of surprising because when you're younger, you're more susceptible to motion sickness. Yeah. But I could read in the car while I was younger. And then probably around the time of puberty, I was like, can't do this anymore. So you went opposite.

Weird. Yeah. Well, maybe you developed your hips. Right. Because that's a tease. We'll just leave that out there. All right. So 25 to 40% of people supposedly

are susceptible to motion sickness. So weird. And it can happen on planes. It can happen. It's weird. This one University of Maryland side, I went to said, the following are the most common risk factors.

Riding in a car, boat, airplane, or space shuttle. Really? Yeah. Nerds? They didn't even put amusement park ride. They just went straight to space shuttle. You know one that I hadn't seen before, but apparently as a thing is looking through a microscope.

Yeah, that makes a little bit of sense though. Yeah, because the slide can move and your eyes are seeing movement, but you're not moving. And I'll get to you. Another nerdy motion sickness. Space shuttles and microscopes. So like you said, age between two and 12,

you're more likely, and then you're also more likely to grow out of it after puberty. And one of the reasons that women are more motion sickness than men, or get motion sickness more than men, is because one of the theories is that after puberty, they develop more in the hips.

Men develop more in the chest. And I guess that makes a difference. They didn't really explain why though, did they? Well, it all has to do with sway theory, which we'll talk about. Oh, that's right, sway theory. Yeah. But it is true that women are more susceptible

just on average to motion sickness than men are. Yeah, I saw some studies. Apparently also Asian women. Well, Asian period. Yeah. Because Penn State did a study and they put people in situations that make them motion sick or not.

Did you look into those? Oh, is it like a Tilt-A-Whirl? Dude, like if you went in for just a clinical study, like I'm gonna make some scratch and maybe they'll give me a cool drug or something. And it turns out to be a motion sickness study, you should leave. No, I totally would.

So there's this thing called a opticonetic drum, I believe is what it's called. Oh, I did see that. Yeah, opticonetic drum. I couldn't handle that. It's like a drum, like a big drum that you sit inside of and it's got vertical black and white painted stripes

and it spins around you. Crazy. And the motion, the movement is really emphasized and it's designed to make anybody motion sick and that's how they induce motion sickness. And I saw another one where they use a chair that just kind of moves you around whether you like it or not

and it induces motion sickness. Like what a terrible thing to have happened to you. Man, there was a ride at Six Flags Over Georgia growing up that they got rid of cause someone got hurt supposedly, where it's this barrel that you all get in, you stand, it's like kind of below ground, you stand against the wall.

I love those. And it spins so fast, then they drop the floor beneath you and the centrifugal force holds you against the wall. It's like the spin cycle in a washing machine. You mean I was just talking about that the other day. That thing was awful. That was my favorite of all time.

Really? Uh-huh. I just thought it was so cool. Well, the old story was that someone's leg got trapped when the floor came back up. I remember hearing that. Now that I look back, I'm sure that was an old wives tale.

Although I was on Snopes the other day and I was reading an early article and they were talking about the urban legend about some girl who got scalp because her hair got caught in an amusement park ride or something. It actually happened. Really?

Yeah. That girl's ponytail got caught in there and just got pulled right off of her head. Oh man. I know, but it actually did happen. So it's possible someone's leg got sucked into the TILTA world. Well, but then what happens is

it happened at every amusement park. Right, right. And it happened to my cousin's friend. Right. All right, so the Penn State study, they put people in these torture machines. And interestingly, they did confirm 80% of Asian people got sick when it was less than 50% for Caucasian and non-Caucasian.

Which is really, it's very crazy. But it kind of underscores a growing awareness among motion sickness researchers, aka the evil ones, that genetics play a big role in susceptibility to motion sickness. Well, yeah, because there were another couple of findings that lend to that.

Twins, they studied 200 sets of identical twins. And 100% of the identical twins were both affected. Really? Yeah, and some of that, they can't prove that it's genetics because it also could be just where they were raised and how they were raised, what's that called? Nurture. Environment.

Environment, environmental. And if parents are both susceptible to motion sickness, they found that their children are five times more likely. So it sort of points to genetics, but then other things point away from genetics. Like, why would two people in the same family in the same conditions not get sick? Or why did two people, period, not get sick?

Right, under the same conditions. Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is- Same salami, sock, smell. Yeah, yeah. Same backwards-facing seat. Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is they haven't figured it out. No, they haven't. But if we do figure out that it's genetic,

thanks to the magic of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing process, we'll be able to knock that right out for you. What else, pregnant? Yeah, pregnant women are more susceptible to it. Women who are menstruating, I think, also are. And people who get migraines are more susceptible. And then people who sleep poorly are more susceptible to motion sickness.

Yeah, it says if you're prone to nausea or vomiting, but I don't know if that's sort of a chicken or the egg thing. Yeah, so we're going to get into, again, we said science doesn't understand exactly what's going on here, but there's some good theories. We're going to talk about them right after this. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey, Dude,

bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey, Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends,

and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey, Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice

would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there

for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So, Chuck. Yeah. Let's talk about some theories for motion sickness, because it's kind of two. Yeah. I saw, I think it was this Atlantic article you sent. That was good, actually. It's not so much, um, it's not so much science,

it's a debate. Yeah. Over, you know, the likelier explanation, but they actually kind of fit together. I think so, yeah. But if you ask the people, apparently the author in the Atlantic, it's called the Mysterious Science of Motion Sickness, he sort of pokes fun a little bit.

He's like, to me, they sound sort of the same, but don't tell that to those people who believe one or the other, because they're like, no, they're nothing like each other. Yeah. She, Julie Beck. Oh, is that who it was? Yeah.

All right, nice job, Julie. Good article. Um, Pat on the back for you. Cold star. So, here's the first one is, and this one, they both make a lot of sense to me. Um, basically there's a dissonance between the parts of your body that sense motion.

Right. That's the easiest way to say it. It's called the Sensory Conflict Theory. Yeah. So you got your eyeballs? Yeah, that it senses motion. It's weird if you think about your eyes doing that, but that's one of the roles that they play in your body.

Well, yeah, you see motion. Right, sure. You also have the vestibular system, which is centered around your inner ear. Yep. And that definitely senses motion, movement, acceleration, gravity. Yeah.

And then you have all the sensors, the sensors in like your muscles and joints and stuff, right? Yeah, I didn't really think about that as being one, but for sure. Yeah. Like your body actually feels it. Yeah, well, think about it.

Like if you feel yourself kind of moving backward, you're definitely sensing it through your inner ear, but you can also feel it in your feet as well. Yeah. And they're sending a bullet into your brain saying, lean forward, dummy. You're going to fall back. Yeah.

What's your problem, friend? Yeah. That's what it says. So this dissonance occurs when basically like, let's say you're sitting in a movie theater like an IMAX, and it's a scene where you're flying with Superman or something. Like you're seeing this with your eyeballs,

like a first person perspective shot of flight. Right. But you're sitting in your seat. So your eyes are saying, you're flying, and your butt's going, you're sitting here. And your brain's like a witch. Yeah, pretty much. Witchcraft.

So it creates motion sickness. That's when the nausea might kick in, dizziness, those cold sweats, salivation. I like how the author of the House of Works article pointed out she specifically mentioned Avatar. Yeah. Who is the dude, the guy who is like the friend on the flight of the Concords?

Mary? No. The other dude, the guy who worked in the Poland. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, what is his name? It's not Ardish Barker, is it? Ardish Barker, yes, it was. I always want to call him Bozler,

and I know it's definitely not the same dude. Great comedian. Ardish Barker, you mean I went to go see him. He did some stand-up, right? And he was talking about Avatar, and he said when it first came up, we were like, oh, Avatar, have you seen Avatar? Yeah, yeah.

Great, and then everything you heard was, have you seen Avatar? You got to see Avatar. He said, after a couple of weeks, you'd just be walking down the sidewalk, and people would pull up alongside you in their car and roll down the window and go, Avatar! And this is, I think, a great example of that.

Well, it's interesting. I posted an article on Facebook not too long ago on the Stuff You Should Know page about this person wrote an article about Avatar, and their argument was that it, for such a huge movie, it had like zero cultural impact. Like, it was big at the time, but does anyone care now? Like, it's not like the Star Wars world,

or Star Trek, or all these things. And I totally agreed. I saw Avatar once, and I was like, done with it, typical James Cameron schlock. I've seen it zero times. No, it sucks. But, dude, there are Avatar people, though. I know.

That piled on, and were like, no idea what he's talking about. It's totally relevant. Oh, I'm sure they're going to be all over our Facebook page after this episode comes out. I hate Chuck forever now. I like some of James Cameron stuff, but if he wrote the script, then it's, I'm not going to like it. No, I know what you mean.

I think he's a hack writer. Yeah. Did I just say that to hundreds of thousands of people? Yeah, and I'm sure James Cameron cares what you think. He's at the bottom of the Mariana trench right now. He's not listening to stuff you should know. I'm picking out my future burial site. So, Chuck, we were talking about the sensory conflict theory,

right? Yes. That's one big explanation. And it definitely kind of makes sense, right? Your brain just basically gets overloaded and is like, oh, I need to sit down. I've got the vapors, right? Yeah.

I'm doing a lot of bad impressions in this episode. Who's that supposed to be? Somebody fainting in the late 19th century? Oh, no, it's great. So was your Arch Barker? Fop. That's what it was. It was a fop.

The dandy fop? Mm-hmm. There's another competing idea. And that is, we kind of talked about. It's called sway theory. Yeah. And there's a dude, Thomas Stauffrigan, or Stauffrigan. I'm going with the gin.

What's gin? G. Stauffrigan, University of Minnesota professor of kinesiology. And listen to this. He's the director of its affordance perception action laboratory. Nerd.

He gets motion sickness so he can do microscopes. So he proposes the sway theory, which basically has nothing to do with the vestibular system, he said. He says that. I don't necessarily agree with that, but OK. Agree that he thinks that? No, I know that he thinks that. I don't agree with his take on that.

I think it's still tied together. But his theory is, and this first part is a theory, it's true, is that everyone sways, unless you're one of those people that stand motionless in the middle of New Orleans for money. Mm-hmm, yeah. Or the Statue of Liberty. That paint themselves silver or something like that.

They're good at it. But if you're just a regular dope like you and I, when we stand there, we're going to be moving in a little bit. You may sway in a little bit. It's weird, if you stop and really pay attention to it, you notice it. But you'll never notice it unless you are focused on it. Yeah, you're always moving a little bit.

Yeah, swaying. If you're standing up, you're swaying for the most part. Yes, and the point he makes is if everyone truly relaxed every muscle in their body, they'd fall over. Right, so the whole point, the whole thing of swaying, is it's the byproduct of us standing upright, which is not something we've been doing for all of the time we've been on earth, because we evolved from things

that walked on four legs. Standing up's kind of new. Well, sure, and babies don't stand up. Right, they have to learn as well. Yeah, exactly. So Stoffrogen's whole idea is that motion sickness comes about when you're exposed to movement that contradicts the natural swaying

that you've learned to do to stand upright. Right, and it undermines it and your brain goes. Which makes sense in a way, because let's say you're on a boat and the boat's tilting to the left. And so what your feet do, or they account for that. And maybe you lean in on the inside of your foot and your toes flex. So you want to make yourself more upright again.

And then the boat turns again in a direction you're not expecting. You're correcting for that first move. The second move happens, and your body doesn't know what to do. So here's the thing, the sensory conflict one makes a little more sense to me than this one. Because that sounds to me like if that were the case,

if that's what's going on, and it clearly is, like when you get your sea legs or whatever, you're moving along, you're trying to stay standing under these weird conditions. Why would that translate into something like dizziness, or nausea, or vomiting, or cold sweats? That doesn't make sense to me. Sensory conflict, I can see translating into it.

But even beyond that, a lot of people are like, no, still it doesn't make sense why you would vomit. And this one guy named Michael Treisman in 1977 came up with a pretty awesome explanation for why we should get nauseated when we get motion sick. Well, yeah, should we take a break and talk about that? Oh, sure. MUSIC

On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it

and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Josh Michael Treisman, 1977 in the Journal Science, what did he say? Oh, he said that we get nauseated for motion sickness, because there are some toxins out there that can mess with our vestibular system, right? Yes.

So the body is tricked into thinking that it's possibly been exposed to some sort of toxin, because the vestibular, the vestibular system is out of whack for motion sickness. So it gets nauseated and ultimately might vomit as a reflex to get rid of whatever toxin it thinks has been ingested. Yeah.

It's basically a case of mistaken identity. I think it, it explains it perfectly. Yeah. It makes sense to me. I could see a little bit. I think what Stauffergin is saying is that you're used to regaining your balance. You spend your entire life learning this system.

Right. And that if it's thrown off, what he doesn't do is connect it. I believe you're right. He doesn't connect it in the end to like something that happens in your brain. Right. Why the physiological reaction? Yeah, agreed.

Yeah. He does have some pretty good evidence backing his idea of sway theory up though. So again, women are more susceptible to, to motion sickness than men, right? Yes, is what they say. Well, he says, aha, well, sway theory explains this. Kids are equally susceptible to both genders

are equally susceptible to motion sickness before puberty. Right. Then after puberty, the bodies change. And where women and men hold most of their weight is different, right? Women hold it mostly around their hips. Men hold it more around their chest. And that means that the center of gravity is different,

which means the amount that we sway is different, right? Yeah, I think, who does he say sways? Women sway farther. But slower. But slower. Men sway faster, but within a tighter area. Right. And these are micro sways.

Yeah, I mean, I think that most people move no more than like an inch to any given side. Yeah. And even then, you're like Barney on the Simpsons when he walked out for that bachelor auction. Yeah. Then there's also land sickness, which is interesting. I didn't look too much into it, but I have heard of it,

which is basically the concept that if you're a sailor, then you've gotten, or just somebody who's been on boats enough, you don't have to be a professional. You get your sea legs so well that you get land sickness. Yeah, when you get back. Yeah, and you're on solid ground, you're like, I don't know what to do. Right.

Because your brain's so used to things moving that it perceives that it's moving, even though it's not. You want to say the French name for it? Mal de Barquemont. Close. Let me look. I wasn't even looking. That was out of the.

You forgot the middle part. Well, then you say it. There's a QUE in the middle. So maybe Mal de Barquemont. I said, Mal de Barquemont. Mal de Barquemont. Barquemont. Yeah, barbecue malt.

I love that when we do this stuff, it's probably literally 50% people laughing, and 50% people want to kill us. Yeah. You know? Yeah. A lot of people want to kill us. I can live with that.

As long as they never do. All right. So should we go over some things that you can do to prevent it? Because, I mean, that whole segment on what explains motion sickness is kind of petered out, but that's the state of science right now. Yeah. I will say they have looked at the 23andMe for the genetic side

and have found some support for both claims. I think that they're together. I do, too. Like, I think, yes, your swaying system is set up in a certain way. And why can't that be a component that, along with the vestibular system and your site and all that, is affected and creates motion sickness?

I just don't understand why it has to be one or the other. That was the impression that I had. He was trying to really come and get across, is that it's, no, it's his own thing. Yeah, yeah. I just think that's weird. So what do you go to if you get motion sick? Well, they say to keep your eyes on the horizon,

whether you're in a car or a boat or whatever, that that'll help. Cuts down on motion, right? Or the sensation of motion? I'm not sure. I think so, because think about it. When you look at stuff that's close to the car, it's blurring by.

It's going so fast. Horizons staying constant. Look at you. Keep your head still so you can lay down if you're able to somewhere. Or at least put your head back against the seat. Just sort of keep it as still as possible. Don't smoke.

Sure. That's just good advice all around. Exactly. If you're going to fly, they say to avoid big greasy meals and alcohol the night before, and eat light meals or snacks, low in calories, the day of. But yeah, you do want to have something in your stomach, though, because that's just going to help.

Empty stomach, no good. Right. Turn that air vent, whether you're in your car or a plane or a boat, you want some fresh air blowing on your face, ideally, or at least recycled air. I haven't felt this bed since I didn't need a Bryant console. Sit in the front of the airplane or over a wing, supposedly.

Yeah, the rear of the airplane. Can you tell the difference? Oh, man. Really? You just get whipped around back and forth. It's way worse. If you get motion sick, you should never sit behind the wings of the airplane.

See, I love the last car of a roller coaster, though. Well, yeah, you're feeling it more. Yeah. You're enjoying it more. You don't get motion sick. What else, avoid salty foods before you travel? There's also remedies, too, right? So the jury's out on whether ginger actually helps or not,

or if it's just the placebo effect. Ginger, peppermint, and black whorehound, apparently, are some of the herbs that may or may not work. Who knows? I can tell you firsthand, and I looked it up, C bands, acupressure bracelets that go on your wrist, three fingers widths down from the heel of your palm. The pericardium 6 is the acupuncture point.

I saw research that showed that neither placebo nor the acupressure bands had any effect on motion sickness. I can tell you that even if it is just placebo, they still work. Oh, yeah? First hand, they work. All right. Even if it's placebo, I don't care.

That's fine. I got a C band. As long as it keeps me from being motion sick. Yeah. It kept me and you me from being motion sick on an entire cruise. But would you have been motion sick without it? Yeah, because we didn't use it for one day, and we felt it immediately.

Gotcha. Yeah. I brought one on my only cruise that I went to, and I don't think I wore it because I didn't need to. We had divots on our wrist because we just hang on like the whole time. Yeah, you should bring it just in case. Yeah, sure.

We also had scopolamine, and we didn't even use it, because the C bands work so well. Dramamine, is that the same thing, or is it different? No, scopolamine is that stuff that they drug people with, and then it's like, remember in our Truth Seer episode, we talked about scopolamine? Oh, yeah. It's like a drug in South America

where they'll dose you with it, and then you end up just basically becoming zombified and don't remember anything. Yeah. It's the same stuff. But it doles the messages from your inner ear to your brain, so your sensation of motion is decreased. Nice.

Homeopathy, there haven't been a ton of studies about the effectiveness of specific remedies, but they do say things like borax, calculus, petroleum, sepia, tabicum. Dude, we're going to hear from so many people just for having even uttered the word homeopathy. Does that say it, homeopathy? No, it goes both ways.

Yeah, I know. I mean, nothing drives people more crazy than that. I know. They're going to go berserk, mark my words. Because it's not, you know, well, well, I said that take it or leave it, basically. Yeah. Some people swear by it.

Yeah. Some people think it's. From what I have ever seen, it's like the biggest flash point of anything. Of anything that skeptics talk about, nothing drives them crazier than homeopathy. Yeah, yeah. Like make some nuts.

It's kind of funny to watch. It does, because then you people say you shouldn't even say Western versus Eastern medicine. You should say proven science versus, like, witchcraft. Did the people say that on Facebook? Yeah, they get really like you shouldn't even say Western medicine. Don't even say it.

I said you can't say it. Don't even say it, Josh. What else? Yeah, I'm making fun of you. Mind body medicine, biofeedback training and relaxation. They did a study of 55 pilots who had to stop flying due to motion sickness, which by the way, I didn't know that, like that frightens me just knowing that.

That a pilot can get motion sickness. But think about it for the pilot. It's like career ending. Oh, I'm sure. 76% of them got over their motion sickness and were able to return to work after biofeedback training and relaxation programs. So basically, they sit in that tilt-a-whirl, bring it on,

and then biofeedback instruments record temperature, muscle tension, and they use relaxation techniques and mental imagery in the chair. And over time, it's sort of like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is another thing that they use, which is, like, you know, get in the chair and do it until it doesn't affect you any longer. Exposure therapy, right?

Yeah. There's this guy named Sam Puma, who's a physician and aeronautics engineer, I think, maybe. At the very least, he's worked in the aerospace industry for a really long time. And he has come up with some habituation exercises, where basically, you kind of mildly expose your body to the kind of movement it's going

to expect on like a space shuttle or whatever ahead of your trip. And he says you can be prepared and not have any motion sickness as little as a week. Yeah. And I guess it checks out. Yeah, because it sounds like, you know, come on, what's this guy selling me?

Right. But then the Atlantic author, she said, you know, no, apparently it's a real thing. Yeah. And then another good tip that I saw was if you're in a car and you're not driving, pretend like you're driving. You might feel silly, but you know, pretend like you're driving. Maybe even do your hands and anticipate the curves and things.

Yeah. Maybe give them a little horn, a little imaginary horn once in a while. Yeah, the reason why the best seat in a car is the driver is because you can anticipate the movements the car's going to make, which supports sway theory if you think about it. True. Because you can counteract it.

Do you ever have one of those passengers in your car that hits the fake brake because you're nervous? Sure. It's like just an involuntary action. You see them stomp their foot on the floor board. It's pretty funny. I have one friend in particular that does that. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Let's see, I guess that's it, right? I got nothing else. If you want to learn more about motion sickness, you can type those words in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Bonsai Tutu.

Hey, guys, love the show. I'm a tutu maker. Who knew? But you know, somebody makes them. Sure. They don't just grow on trees. Not anymore. I'm a tutu maker and work alone in my studio a lot,

making tutus. You guys are my company, and thank you for that. Also have a Bachelor of Science in ornamental horticulture. So listening to the Bonsai episode reminded me of an experience ad with a Bonsai master in a class I had in college. The professor covered the art of Bonsai leading up to this man's visit.

He covered the art, meticulous decisions made in the shaping of the tree, et cetera. The day came when the master was there to speak with us. We came into class, and all of his amazing work was displayed around the classroom. It was really beautiful. Everyone sort of spoke about it in hush tones, very reverent to each other.

Finally, the master, who was a rather tiny Japanese man, was ready to demonstrate the technique for us. He unpotted the plant in front of him, spoke about the shape and what he felt would be the best way to train it. And after this, he pulled out a club the size of a baseball bat and beat the crap out of the root ball, explaining the need to control the plant. And no one knew exactly.

Who's boss? How to react. I had not thought about that for a really long time. And I listened to the show chuckling the whole time because I thought you might appreciate the story. That is from Nancy Gallagher, the tutu maker. Well, thanks a lot, Nancy. Maybe he was just trying to get the dirt away from the roots.

I don't know. Or maybe it was a bad Bonsai. Mr. Miyagi would never do that. I worked with Pat Merida. Did I mention that on the show? No. Was it? He did a music video that I worked on, a Karate Kid spoof.

Oh, yeah. Alien ant farm. And I worked with him, and he was super nice. And it was just a couple years before he died. He's dead? Oh, yeah. That's a shame. Yeah, he liked the white wine.

Oh, yeah. I think he told me a story before. It sounds familiar. I had to go fetch him some Chardonnay at noon. I was like, you know what? That was Pat Merida on the set of the music video. Sure, I'd be like. I'd have a PA fetch me some Chardonnay, too.

Yeah, remember he played Al, the replacement Al? Arnold. On Happy Days? Arnold. Yeah. Al was the name of the actor. Yeah. He's from California.

Pat Merida. What does that have to do with it? Nothing. Oh, that was an additional fact? Yeah, I just mean some people might see the Karate Kid and only know that and think he's from Japan. Right. But he was putting on that accident.

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a California dude. Totally. Yeah. He's like laid back kind of Chardonnay guy. If you want to know more about Pat Merida or get in touch with us or whatever, you can send off for more info to SYSK Podcast on Twitter

or on Instagram. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher

and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to use the same thing. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it.

And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

Do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.