the.com/carsickness
your eyes say still, your inner ear says moving, your stomach files a complaint
means The nausea, dizziness, and general queasiness some people feel while riding in a moving vehicle, caused by a mismatch between what the eyes see and what the inner ear senses.
from A plain compound of "car" plus "sickness," a modern descendant of the older "seasickness" — the same complaint, just landlubbed. "Sick" traces back to Old English "seoc," meaning ill or unwell, while "car" comes through Old French and ultimately Latin "carrus," a wheeled wagon (a cousin of "chariot" and "carry"). As automobiles spread, the queasiness once reserved for ships followed people onto the road, and the word simply swapped the vessel.
- sensory feud
- Brain panics at conflicting motion signals
- poison theory
- Body suspects hallucination, triggers vomiting to expel toxins
- driver immunity
- Drivers predict motion, so they rarely get sick
- horizon cure
- Looking far ahead realigns eyes with inner ear
- age curve
- Peaks around age nine, often fades by adulthood
motion sickness in vehicles — affects 1 in 3 people during car travel due to sensory conflict between eyes and inner ear
sea sickness on cruises — carnival cruise lines report 25-30% of passengers experience nausea in rough waters