8.Feeling bad in the air – Flight problems

There are many people who suffer motion sickness of one form or another, with one of the most common forms being airsickness. This is a condition that is most commonly suffered by women and younger children, although it is one that can be suffered by anyone.

All forms of motion sickness happen because there is a lack of balance between the information being fed to the brain by the three parts of the human body where motion is sensed being the eyes, the inner ear and the body.

In the labyrinth or inner ear, motion sickness has an adverse effect on your normal sense of equilibrium and balance hence your spatial orientation is also adversely affected:



As an example, when your motion is voluntary (if you are walking or running for instance) the messages being sent to your brain by all three points of reference tie together as what your eye is seeing and your body and vestibular system (the inner ear) are feeling are all in agreement with one another.

However, when the motion is involuntary such as when you are in a plane going through an area of turbulence or on a ship that is rolling in heavy seas, what your eyes are telling your brain and what you are feeling are in direct conflict with one another.

It is believed or hypothesized that this conflict is a major cause of motion sickness although it should be noted that because of the complexity of motion sickness, this is only a hypothesis.

It is however a hypothesis that is generally supported and believed by the majority of the medical profession because tests have indicated that this is most likely to be the cause of motion sickness.

One interesting fact is that in animals that do not have a vestibular system or people whose vestibular system is damaged, motion sickness never occurs. This suggests that it is the inner ear that is most critical in deciding whether airsickness will develop whilst the information sent to the brain from the eyes and the deeper tissues of the bodily surface do not seem to be as important.

This theory is supported by the fact that blind people are not immune to suffering motion sickness.

All forms of motion sickness are more likely to occur when complex involuntary movements are involved, with both horizontal and vertical movement together being far more likely to cause airsickness than one or the other on their own.

The kind of turbulence that is most often experienced in a plane generally involves up-and-down as well side to side movement, hence the susceptibility of many people to air sickness in turbulent conditions.

In this situation, you can certainly feel the motion it through the seat of your pants and your inner ear senses it too yet all you see is the inside of the plane which looks exactly the same as it did when you first boarded. Consequently, there is spatial confusion, a mismatch between what you see and feel, hence you feel sick.

Although the exact causes of the airsickness are not fully understood, it is generally believed that the imbalance between the messages being sent to the brain from various different parts of the body causes problems with various different neurotransmitters. These are naturally produced chemicals that enable the transmission of ‘signals’ throughout the brain and nervous system.

It is believed that an imbalance of neurotransmitters like histamine and norepinephrine is the most likely cause of motion sickness, hence the fact that many medicines that ‘treat’ motion sickness contain these particular neurotransmitters which you take in an effort to restore neurotransmitter balance.

The most common symptoms of suffering air sickness are nausea which often leads to vomiting, loss of appetite, cold sweats and pallid skin, lack of concentration, vertigo, headache and increased tiredness.