There is nothing worse than having a sick kid in the back of your car except for maybe having a sick kid on a train or a plane.
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.
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
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.
The good news is that for most people (both adults and children), airsickness is not a serious condition whilst it is one that is likely to cease affecting you once the motion that causes it ceases as well. In the next blog I will explain what the doctors can do for motion sickness.

Most kids are not born with a fear of flying but looking at footage of things like the 9/11 disaster gives them the idea. I blame a lot of the fear that kids have of flying on watching too much reality television in general.
The majority of children do not have a natural fear of flying, so unless your child has previously been involved in a flying situation that was traumatic or scary, it is likely that there is some other underlying reason if your child is scared of flying. In fact child psychologists say that many times the fear of flying has nothing at all to do with your kid’s
Sometimes, children will have exactly the same scenario in their life as highlighted in the previous section of this report. Something bad happens in their life and they transferred the negative feelings about whatever it was that happened to flying.
For instance, in a modern world where divorce is becoming increasingly common, it is not especially unusual for children to have to fly from one estranged parent to visit the other. In this scenario, it is fairly obvious that the child involved will have mixed or negative emotions and not unnaturally, these negative emotions could very easily be transferred to the process of flying itself.
It is also a fact that children are often very well tuned to their parents emotions and feelings, so if you feel somehow upset or concerned about flying, it is quite likely that your children will feel exactly the same as a reflection of your psychological mien.
So, if your child starts to exhibit signs of being scared of flying, consider whether there is anything in the surrounding psychological situation that could be causing them to feel this way.
Air travel is a fact of modern life, something that even the youngest child now takes for granted. If you want to get from point A to point B, flying is generally the quickest option – sometimes the only option, especially if it involves overseas travel – and with prices at an all time low, anyone and everyone can fly nowadays.
This ability to jet off to all corners of the globe is one that has allowed people greater travel freedoms than they have ever had before, but for some, this freedom comes with a price tag attached. Not everyone is a good flyer, and certainly, not everyone actually enjoys flying.
For instance, whilst statistics compiled by the US Department of Transport suggest that flying is 29 times safer than travelling in an automobile, many people are simply terrified of getting on a plane ever.
If you want your kid to be okay psychologically on a plane just explain the odds of an accident happening in plain English. This should allay the fears that have been instilled in the kid by the media.