Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Mini: Car-Sick
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
- 0:15Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do Mini. I am
- 0:18Speaker 1: your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
- 0:21Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
- 0:24Speaker 1: and non human animals do and sometimes the things that
- 0:27Speaker 1: make us just so uncomfortable.
- 0:29Speaker 2: M h yeah. And so today we're going to talk
- 0:31Speaker 2: about carsickness, which is a thing that I suffer from.
- 0:34Speaker 1: Indeed, and this is a mini which means it's short
- 0:37Speaker 1: because it's mini, and we're going to just get into
- 0:41Speaker 1: this topic and try and be out of here in
- 0:43Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes or less. We put these out on Mondays.
- 0:46Speaker 1: We put out full length episodes on Wednesdays. And if
- 0:49Speaker 1: you're joining us for the first time, then welcome. I
- 0:50Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy what you hear in this discussion
- 0:53Speaker 1: and that you continue to come back to us. And
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- 1:04Speaker 1: neither way. If you'd like to support us, you can
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- 1:08Speaker 1: like subscribe, tell a friend. I'll talk more about those
- 1:11Speaker 1: things at the end of this discussion. But I think
- 1:14Speaker 1: that we're ready to dive into this. Is there anything
- 1:16Speaker 1: we need to preamble before we start?
- 1:19Speaker 2: No, I think we're good.
- 1:20Speaker 1: All right, Well, welcome everybody. Car sickness, motion sickness, that's
- 1:24Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Car sickness isn't actually isolated to cars,
- 1:28Speaker 1: and you could argue it's not really a sickness, but
- 1:31Speaker 1: I digress a little. We're to talk about motion sickness
- 1:33Speaker 1: sickness argument aside, and which is when we are in
- 1:37Speaker 1: a moving vehicle or perceived to be moving and we
- 1:40Speaker 1: experience as part of this symptoms of nausea, dizziness, headache, fatigue,
- 1:46Speaker 1: heavy breathing, sweating, irritation, and or excessive salivating.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're going to unpack why it happens and
- 1:54Speaker 2: what you can do about it. I'm so excited about
- 1:57Speaker 2: this because I am somebody who suffers from this greatly.
- 2:00Speaker 2: The first night I ever went on a cruise, I
- 2:01Speaker 2: slept on the bathroom floor of the cruise because I
- 2:04Speaker 2: was so sickikes from the moment the boat touched the
- 2:07Speaker 2: water and we went off I went, oh, no, so
- 2:10Speaker 2: I was sick. And then also Ben Affleck Daredevil was
- 2:12Speaker 2: playing in the background NonStop, so it was a really
- 2:14Speaker 2: terrible experience.
- 2:18Speaker 3: Maybe that was actually the problem.
- 2:20Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to watch Colin Ferrell be Bullseye for
- 2:23Speaker 2: an hour and a half and I just was like, no, thanks,
- 2:25Speaker 2: this isn't enough.
- 2:27Speaker 1: All right, well, I think we're ready to really dig
- 2:29Speaker 1: into our topic. Then the experience of feeling motion sick
- 2:33Speaker 1: arises when we I guess receive as the word, when
- 2:38Speaker 1: we have contradictory and unexpected sensory information, and specifically, we
- 2:43Speaker 1: can perceive that things around us are moving past us,
- 2:47Speaker 1: but at the same time, we're not exerting very much
- 2:50Speaker 1: effort to move, so our own locomotion is not causing
- 2:54Speaker 1: those things to pass us. And what happens is we
- 2:56Speaker 1: with that disconnect between the facts that we're moving, but
- 2:59Speaker 1: we're not compelling ourselves. We are experiencing both standing still
- 3:04Speaker 1: and moving simultaneously, and our bodies don't like that very much.
- 3:09Speaker 3: No, it does not.
- 3:10Speaker 2: The conflicting information from our eyes, inner ear, muscles, and
- 3:13Speaker 2: joints can be disorienting and results in the symptoms we
- 3:16Speaker 2: listed at the beginning of the episode. And as we mentioned,
- 3:19Speaker 2: this is common when we're traveling in vehicles, cars, planes,
- 3:22Speaker 2: and boats mostly, but this can also be experienced on
- 3:25Speaker 2: a music part rides for sure, and particularly immersive VR
- 3:28Speaker 2: experiences also for sure.
- 3:31Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they can elicit the exact same thing. And again,
- 3:33Speaker 1: you're sort of standing still, but you are receiving visual
- 3:37Speaker 1: information that you are and sometimes the stimular information that
- 3:41Speaker 1: you are moving. Now, this idea that it's the disconnect
- 3:47Speaker 1: between the sensor information we're receiving and the fact that
- 3:51Speaker 1: we're not actually propelling ourselves. That is the prevailing theory
- 3:55Speaker 1: about why this happens. There are actually a couple other
- 3:58Speaker 1: theories I'll go ahead and just unpack really quickly. So
- 4:00Speaker 1: ecological theory about why we experience motion sickness. It attempts
- 4:04Speaker 1: to account for motion sickness as a loss of or
- 4:07Speaker 1: failure of controlling one's posture. So their argument essentially is
- 4:12Speaker 1: if you have better posture, you will be able to
- 4:14Speaker 1: alleviate the symptoms of motion sickness. It has to do
- 4:17Speaker 1: with how our bodies are oriented in space. Another one
- 4:21Speaker 1: is evolutionary theory, and this accounts for motion sickness as
- 4:24Speaker 1: an adaptive trait that may have developed from our body's
- 4:27Speaker 1: reaction to such things as like venom or poisons, because
- 4:31Speaker 1: those can have a similar effect where we feel like
- 4:34Speaker 1: there's a disconnect between the movement we're seeing, because we
- 4:36Speaker 1: can have the experience of sort of a visually shifting
- 4:40Speaker 1: environment and our body stains still that's a result of poison,
- 4:46Speaker 1: and so our body attempts to rectify that by purging
- 4:49Speaker 1: the poison, causing us to.
- 4:50Speaker 3: Vomit and whatnot.
- 4:51Speaker 1: And so it's sort of like the evolutionary hypothesis or
- 4:55Speaker 1: theory suggests that this dizziness or disconnect that we feel
- 5:00Speaker 1: is why we have those symptoms of feeling nauseous and
- 5:03Speaker 1: wanted to vomit, And the ecological theory is that our
- 5:06Speaker 1: bodies are positioned in such a way that it's that
- 5:09Speaker 1: is what causes the disconnect. As possible that all three
- 5:11Speaker 1: of these things have some aspect of accuracy to them,
- 5:14Speaker 1: but the most common prevailing theory is that it is
- 5:17Speaker 1: the disconnect itself that is why our bodies struggle with
- 5:21Speaker 1: those experiences and tend to result then in us vomiting.
- 5:24Speaker 1: And I kind of wondered, you know, all of these
- 5:26Speaker 1: feel like they have testable hypotheses, and I wanted to
- 5:29Speaker 1: look this up, but I didn't actually bother to do so.
- 5:31Speaker 1: But I'm like, this would suggest that people who are
- 5:35Speaker 1: riding bicycles or are running or otherwise propelling themselves should
- 5:40Speaker 1: be unlikely to ever experience any motion sickness. Sure, I
- 5:43Speaker 1: didn't look to see if there's any research on this,
- 5:45Speaker 1: but it feels intuitively correct to me. I don't feel
- 5:48Speaker 1: like I've ever heard of anyone reporting mentioning that they
- 5:51Speaker 1: experienced motion sickness while they were running or riding a bicycle.
- 5:54Speaker 1: Bicycle might be more possible because you could technically be
- 5:57Speaker 1: stationary if you like going downhill, you know your body
- 6:00Speaker 1: is not really moving but you're flying through space. But running,
- 6:02Speaker 1: I feel like, is just impossible. I don't know that
- 6:04Speaker 1: you could ever experience motion sickness and running. I could
- 6:06Speaker 1: be wrong, but I'm sure someone will write in it
- 6:09Speaker 1: and tell me. Yeah, But it feels like that's a
- 6:11Speaker 1: very testable hypothesis, right, Yeah.
- 6:13Speaker 2: I mean, I know I've had the feeling of that on,
- 6:17Speaker 2: like something that I wasn't in control of. I know
- 6:20Speaker 2: that I get it in the cars. I mostly get
- 6:22Speaker 2: it when I listen to ads, though. Okay, so we
- 6:32Speaker 2: are continuing to talk about motion sickness, and we've kind
- 6:35Speaker 2: of established the maybe some theories around this. But it
- 6:38Speaker 2: is most commonly experienced in children ages two to twelve,
- 6:41Speaker 2: but can also happen to people who are pregnant, have
- 6:44Speaker 2: family history of motion sickness, have inner ear disorders, migraine, headaches, Parkinson's,
- 6:48Speaker 2: and reportedly menstruation. Also, of note, being dizzy is not
- 6:52Speaker 2: the same as motion sickness, although they share a lot
- 6:55Speaker 2: of common features.
- 6:56Speaker 1: Yeah, you might be dizzy in but not necessarily be
- 6:58Speaker 1: motion sick And of course we say it's most commonly
- 7:01Speaker 1: experienced in ages two to twelve, but I mean that
- 7:03Speaker 1: just means that, that means specifically that sentence that people
- 7:07Speaker 1: outside of the age range can experience it. Just that's
- 7:10Speaker 1: where it happens the most often. So you can fully
- 7:13Speaker 1: be an adult as Shane is and get motion sickness.
- 7:16Speaker 2: Oh God, I get it all the time too.
- 7:18Speaker 3: All right.
- 7:18Speaker 1: There is not a formal diagnostic test for motion sickness,
- 7:21Speaker 1: but if you get sick when in motion, you're probably
- 7:23Speaker 1: experiencing it right most of the time, it clears up
- 7:28Speaker 1: on its own once you once or shortly after you
- 7:32Speaker 1: stop moving. So once you're able to get off the plane,
- 7:35Speaker 1: boat car, or roller coaster, give a little time, it'll
- 7:38Speaker 1: usually come back to normal without too much time afterwards.
- 7:42Speaker 1: Some people will last longer than others, but usually once
- 7:44Speaker 1: you stop the thing you're in stops moving, then it
- 7:47Speaker 1: will subside.
- 7:49Speaker 3: Yes, that's accurate.
- 7:50Speaker 2: Now in the moment, you can help relieve the symptoms
- 7:53Speaker 2: of motions likeness by getting fresh air or directing air
- 7:55Speaker 2: vents into your face. If you can't get fresh air,
- 7:58Speaker 2: you can lie down drink ginger tea or ginger ale, which,
- 8:01Speaker 2: by the way, is like a panacea. Ginger ale. It
- 8:04Speaker 2: cures everything. It seems to right, ginger ale price is right,
- 8:08Speaker 2: You're good. That's a millennial cure. Also, you can direct
- 8:12Speaker 2: your gaze at something far off in the distance that
- 8:14Speaker 2: isn't moving, at least moving very much in relation to you.
- 8:17Speaker 2: Peppermint or ginger candies help. And some people are susceptible
- 8:20Speaker 2: to the placebo effect created by bracelets or glasses that
- 8:23Speaker 2: actually do nothing but make convince you that they do
- 8:26Speaker 2: and actually work in that way. So those motion sickness
- 8:29Speaker 2: glasses that have like the water that like the levels
- 8:33Speaker 2: that have you seen those where it's like that's what
- 8:34Speaker 2: you're talking about, right, Yeah, that is a.
- 8:36Speaker 3: But I've never really seen or warn them or anything.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they don't do anything for you.
- 8:41Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they can do something insofar as you
- 8:44Speaker 1: want to believe that they do something and therefore they
- 8:46Speaker 1: do something. I mean, it'd be the same thing as
- 8:47Speaker 1: like they work the exact same way that like a
- 8:50Speaker 1: topaz crystal would work. Like if you're like, I believe
- 8:53Speaker 1: this will cure me of my emotion sickness, and you
- 8:55Speaker 1: put in your pocket and you don't get sick.
- 8:57Speaker 3: Same thing.
- 8:58Speaker 1: If you're wearing a giant sun visor, you can put
- 8:59Speaker 1: it another hat on top of that and you'd be like,
- 9:01Speaker 1: that's the one that's protecting me from the sun and
- 9:03Speaker 1: be like sure whatever, Like right, I guess if that
- 9:06Speaker 1: makes you feel better, then okay. You can wear your
- 9:09Speaker 1: favorite colored T shirt if you believe that that helps
- 9:11Speaker 1: you not get motion sickness. And if that if that
- 9:13Speaker 1: placebo effect works.
- 9:14Speaker 3: Same thing.
- 9:14Speaker 1: The bracelets and the glasses, your favorite colored T shirt
- 9:17Speaker 1: all they all work the same way. But the other
- 9:19Speaker 1: things that we mentioned, Peppermans, ginger candies, those can help.
- 9:23Speaker 1: And yeah, the if you are specifically focusing your vision
- 9:26Speaker 1: on things that are like passing you by, Like that'll
- 9:29Speaker 1: actually make it worse. Like you want to try and
- 9:30Speaker 1: see something that's off in the distance that does not
- 9:34Speaker 1: exacerbate the experience of motion, So it's like, does not
- 9:38Speaker 1: seem to be moving very much relative to you, right,
- 9:41Speaker 1: And I don't think I really need to say this,
- 9:42Speaker 1: but just in case, I'm going to say it. Don't
- 9:44Speaker 1: stare at the sun. Yeah, that will look like it's
- 9:47Speaker 1: not moving, but that will cause other problems. So find
- 9:50Speaker 1: something besides a giant a super super bright source of light. Yes, agreed, Okay,
- 9:55Speaker 1: you can't do a lot to prevent motion sickness, but
- 9:57Speaker 1: there are some strategies for different vehicles that can help
- 10:00Speaker 1: or help alleviate it if it's on set. So for boats,
- 10:03Speaker 1: they recommend moving toward the middle of the boat, and
- 10:06Speaker 1: they generally say you want to be like as close
- 10:08Speaker 1: to the water as possible, so a lower level toward
- 10:11Speaker 1: the middle that has that reduces like how much motion
- 10:14Speaker 1: you're really experiencing. On buses, they recommend sitting next to
- 10:17Speaker 1: the window, and cars they recommend the front passenger seat,
- 10:21Speaker 1: assuming you're not the one driving. In a plane, they
- 10:23Speaker 1: recommend the wings section. I believe this is because it
- 10:26Speaker 1: helps block your view of some of the things that
- 10:28Speaker 1: are moving, but I'm not one hundred percent sure that's the rationale.
- 10:31Speaker 1: And then on trains they recommend a forward facing windows seat.
- 10:35Speaker 3: Sure.
- 10:36Speaker 2: Now, of course, behaviorally you can habituate to this. There
- 10:38Speaker 2: are actually places you can go to build a habituation
- 10:41Speaker 2: to motions that you might experience that would otherwise cause
- 10:44Speaker 2: motion ticckness, like mock roller coasters, cars, et cetera, et cetera.
- 10:47Speaker 2: You can also distract yourself while in motion, and this
- 10:50Speaker 2: can help reduce the experience of motion tickness as well.
- 10:52Speaker 2: For me, I know that I taking big deep breaths
- 10:55Speaker 2: can really help, kind of like I can focus on
- 10:58Speaker 2: something that's not the nausea. Also, don't read or look
- 11:01Speaker 2: at a screen while I'm traveling. That is something that
- 11:03Speaker 2: really makes a difference for me. So, yeah, unless I'm
- 11:06Speaker 2: on a plane, I can read on a plane, but
- 11:07Speaker 2: I can't read in a car. So's those are just
- 11:09Speaker 2: a couple of things that I've noticed.
- 11:11Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly it is. Like distraction in this case
- 11:14Speaker 1: does not mean a screen of some sort or a book.
- 11:18Speaker 1: Those actually can make things worse. But as you said it,
- 11:21Speaker 1: in a plane, I think you have the benefit that
- 11:23Speaker 1: you it's easier for you to block out how salient
- 11:26Speaker 1: the motion is, so it's easier I think, to read
- 11:29Speaker 1: and look at a screen on a plane, but in
- 11:30Speaker 1: cars and boats, like, you're really close to where the
- 11:32Speaker 1: movement is happening, and so the juxtaposition of your eyes
- 11:37Speaker 1: are like reading something that's still while motion is flashing
- 11:40Speaker 1: past your perperal vision. And you can also probably feel
- 11:43Speaker 1: yourself being shifted about as gravity sort of moves and
- 11:46Speaker 1: inertia pulls you one way or the other. So other
- 11:49Speaker 1: distractions can help, but reading in screens can be particularly
- 11:53Speaker 1: bad for motion sickness, so avoid those, and by places
- 11:56Speaker 1: you can go, they're like clinics that specialize in this.
- 11:59Speaker 1: They're like, if you go, you can find places where
- 12:01Speaker 1: they're like, we'll help you habituate to motions, okay, so
- 12:03Speaker 1: that it doesn't bother you as much, and they basically
- 12:06Speaker 1: just put you through like desensitization procedures. But all this
- 12:11Speaker 1: is to say you can essentially help yourself get used
- 12:15Speaker 1: to it by doing it a lot, and you can
- 12:19Speaker 1: obviously take medications such as antihistamines. Dramamine is a really
- 12:23Speaker 1: popular one. Yeah, sure, yeah, it'll it'll it's pretty good.
- 12:28Speaker 1: And patches such as scope lamine I think is how
- 12:30Speaker 1: you say that are also really popular for helping to
- 12:34Speaker 1: prevent the nausea part of it at least.
- 12:36Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. Yeah.
- 12:37Speaker 2: I have to take dramamine whenever I go on roller
- 12:39Speaker 2: coasters because like, some roller coasters just really mess me up.
- 12:42Speaker 2: Like I've noticed too, like roller coasters is that just
- 12:44Speaker 2: go straight, you know, they can go fast, they can
- 12:47Speaker 2: move a certain way, but the car stays straight. Not
- 12:49Speaker 2: a problem. The ones where the car turns or like
- 12:52Speaker 2: the actual scene spin changes to a spin. Oh those
- 12:56Speaker 2: get me.
- 12:56Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 12:56Speaker 2: The Guardians of the Galaxy ride is the coolest roller
- 12:59Speaker 2: coaster I've ever been on. Yeah, but it makes me
- 13:01Speaker 2: so sick because the cars spin while you're traveling, so
- 13:05Speaker 2: like almost like you're drifting around turns, the like Farers.
- 13:08Speaker 1: They'll have that one where you like you get pressed
- 13:10Speaker 1: up against the wall and those like sort of uh
- 13:12Speaker 1: it's like the Gravitron.
- 13:14Speaker 3: Yeah, it spins really fast. That is the worst for me. Like,
- 13:17Speaker 3: I don't know if I'll ever go on one again.
- 13:19Speaker 3: They're so bad.
- 13:20Speaker 2: That was my favorite ride as a kid, and that
- 13:22Speaker 2: made me so sick. The last time I was honest,
- 13:24Speaker 2: I was like, why does anybody do this?
- 13:25Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's exactly the same. Yeah.
- 13:28Speaker 2: So a quick fun fact, we want to share the
- 13:30Speaker 2: word nas naus, not nas the rapper nas, but naus
- 13:35Speaker 2: is Greek four ship and forms the root of nausea
- 13:39Speaker 2: and nautical. It makes sense that one of the only
- 13:41Speaker 2: ways to get motion sickness back then would have been
- 13:43Speaker 2: on a boat. So it's cultural selection at its finest.
- 13:47Speaker 2: It's why the word is carried on.
- 13:49Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so fun fun stuff there.
- 13:51Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, that's what I have to say about
- 13:53Speaker 1: car sickness or motion sickness, what have you. If you'd
- 13:56Speaker 1: like to write it in, tell us your thoughts are
- 13:57Speaker 1: experiences with this. No pictures are graphic details. Please for
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- 14:36Speaker 1: And I think that is what I have to say
- 14:38Speaker 1: about that part. I would also say thank you to
- 14:40Speaker 1: my team of people writing in fact checking from Shane
- 14:42Speaker 1: to myself.
- 14:42Speaker 3: Thank you for recording with me today.
- 14:44Speaker 2: Shane anytime, thanks for having me.
- 14:46Speaker 1: Our social media coordinators Emma Wilson, and our god Emperor
- 14:51Speaker 1: Producer Extraordinary.
- 14:52Speaker 3: Lord of all that is good in producing is justin.
- 14:56Speaker 2: Yes, that you nailed it.
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- 15:01Speaker 1: I feel like I'm missing something. Is there anything you
- 15:02Speaker 1: would like to add or that I'm missing before we
- 15:04Speaker 1: wrap up this Mini? Uh?
- 15:05Speaker 2: Be well, folks, just be well.
- 15:07Speaker 3: Yes, go forth and be not motion sick as much
- 15:09Speaker 3: as possible. Yes, I think that's it. Then, thank you
- 15:11Speaker 3: for listening. This is Abraham and this is Shane. Why
- 15:14Speaker 3: we do what we do. Mini is out. Bye, you've
- 15:18Speaker 3: been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
- 15:21Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
- 15:23Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
- 15:29Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.