Why do I get car sick and my boyfriend doesn’t? I asked experts

The other day, I tried to read an email on my phone while in the backseat of a moving car. Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed with nausea. Next to me, my boyfriend was happily scrolling through news articles. He tried to show me a headline, but I was too busy staring out the window, breathing deeply and trying not to vomit.

This happens basically any time I am in a moving vehicle that I am not personally piloting. It’s a little embarrassing. But I’m in good company: approximately one in three people are considered “highly susceptible to motion sickness”.

What exactly is motion sickness, and why do some people experience it so much more than others? We asked experts.

What is motion sickness?

Motion sickness is a generic term that encompasses all sorts of travel sickness, including sea sickness, air sickness and car sickness, says Dr John Golding, professor of applied psychology at the University of Westminster, in London.

But you don’t need to travel to experience its unpleasant symptoms, which can include nausea, vomiting, burping, drowsiness, dizziness, headaches and blurred vision. When the Lumière brothers first screened a motion picture for the public in 1895, some people in the audience started feeling dizzy and sick, says Golding. This is known as “visually induced motion sickness”.

Science isn’t entirely sure what causes motion sickness, experts say, but the most widely agreed-upon explanation is the “sensory conflict theory”. Your body uses visual stimuli, proprioception (the body’s ability to perceive itself in space) and the vestibular system (structures inside the inner ear that help you maintain a sense of balance) to sense where your body is and how it is moving.

Usually, these three mechanisms are in sync. But when one of them isn’t – say, you’re reading a static page in the car, but your vestibular system still senses that you’re moving – this sensory conflict confuses the brain. “This neurological tension is what triggers common symptoms such as nausea, dizziness and vomiting,” explains Dr Safia Debar, a general practitioner and executive health physician at Mayo Clinic Healthcare in London.

In the case of the Lumière brothers’ first audiences, their vestibular systems and senses of proprioception told them they were still, but their eyes told them they were moving. Today, many people experience this sort of visually induced motion sickness when using virtual-reality headsets.

What kinds of movements cause motion sickness?

One of the most common misconceptions about motion sickness is that the strength of the movement determines the severity of the reaction, says Golding.

But people don’t tend to get motion sickness when they’re bouncing up and down on horseback; that is a “higher frequency” movement, says Golding. Slower-frequency movements, like the rocking of a ship at sea, or the swaying of a bus, are more likely to result in motion sickness.

Why do some people experience motion sickness more than others?

So why can one person read endlessly in a car while even a quick glimpse at a phone turns another person green?

A number of factors seem to influence one’s proneness to motion sickness, says Dr Behrang Keshavarz, senior scientist at the Kite Research Institute and professor in the department of psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University.

One is age: motion sickness tends to peak in children between the ages of 8 and 12. “Adults are usually better than kids with motion sickness,” says Keshavarz. But that’s not true for everyone, he clarifies.

Research suggests people assigned female at birth are more likely to experience motion sickness than those assigned male at birth, says Keshavarz, though no one’s quite sure why. Genetics may also play a role, says Golding, adding that studies indicate motion sickness might be 50-70% heritable.

Some individuals may also be better at adapting to strange new motions than others, suggests Dr Thomas A Stoffregen, emeritus professor of kinesiology at the University of Minnesota.

“Some people are ‘naturally coordinated’ and can learn new motor skills quickly,” he says over email. “Others (like me) are klutzes and take forever to learn new movements.” The latter are more at risk for motion sickness, he argues.

One thing is certain: motion sickness is not a sign of weak character. (I would like to see this printed on the little airplane vomit bags I so often end up breathing into during landings.)

“It’s not about being delicate or anxious,” says Debar. “Some people are simply more sensitive to motion.”

About half of novice astronauts get space sick during training, Golding adds. “They’re very fit, very highly motivated and not weak-willed,” he says.

I nod. Sitting in the back of a Kia Sorento is a lot like going into space, I tell myself.

Is it possible to reduce the effects of motion sickness?

There are two approaches to dealing with motion sickness: behavioral and pharmacological.

Behaviorally, a number of easy measures can help. Sit in the front seat of a car when you can, keep your eyes on the horizon, and avoid reading and screens, says Debar. She also notes that ginger has some natural anti-nausea effects.

Pleasant music, fresh air, nice smells and a generally pleasant ambiance may be able to distract you, says Keshavarz. He also suggests car passengers copy the movements of the driver. Drivers rarely get motion sickness because they can anticipate the movements of the car and lean into turns, for example. “If you mimic what the driver does, that helps,” Keshavarz says.

Unfortunately, the most effective way to combat motion sickness is also the least pleasant: habituation. In other words, doing the activity over and over again until it doesn’t give you motion sickness anymore.

“This is by far the most effective countermeasure,” says Golding, who used it to help desensitize Royal Air Force pilots to air sickness. “It doesn’t have side effects, but it’s very time consuming and can be stimulus specific,” he says – meaning that habituating to car sickness won’t necessarily help you with sea sickness.

Over-the-counter anti-nausea medication can be effective, experts say, but they often cause drowsiness. Transdermal patches such as Scopolamine are also helpful for up to three days, but can take six to 10 hours to take effect.

Timing is important for such medications, says Golding. Even pills might take 30 minutes to an hour to take effect. And you must take them before you start to feel sick, because once you start to experience motion sickness, your stomach goes into gastric stasis, meaning it is no longer emptying its contents into the gut. “That means you might have taken the pill, but it’s not going anywhere,” says Golding.

Finally, you can always “vote with your feet”, says Golding. “Avoid situations where you get sick.”