30 Ways to Beat Seasickness and Motion Sickness Without Medication
/Want to know what it really feels like to be seasick? What do you do when you can’t use seasick medication (or if meds don’t work for you)? Here is a descriptive account of what it feels like and 30 creative and helpful ways to beat seasickness or motion sickness without using medication.
By Michelle Segrest — How to Get Your Sea Legs
Watch the video to learn what it really feels like to be seasick and how to beat it without medication
In my experience, there are two kinds of sailors. Those who get seasick, and those who lie about it.
If you’ve never been seasick or experienced motion sickness, let me try to describe it for you.
Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had, combined with the worst possible food poisoning. Then throw in a nasty case of Type A flu complete with vomiting, chills, cold sweat, and a pounding, throbbing headache.
Then, feeling all of this simultaneously, put yourself inside a washing machine and turn it on the fast spin cycle. Then, just to get the full effect, hop onto the fastest, most swirly, most topsy-turvy roller coaster you can find. As your insides are spinning with the rest of you and you begin to feel the contents of your belly rise to your throat, well, this is kind of what it feels like.
Complete disorientation. Boiling vile in your stomach and throat ripping through your innards and tossing and turning your insides out. Gut-wrenching heaving that you can feel in every part of your body. It literally jerks your body from your waist as if it were attached to a hook on a crane.
Then imagine all your muscles starting to cramp as the dehydration paralyzes you. Some people see visions, and others just completely black out.
You can try to hide from it, but you can’t stop it. You can quell it a bit, though. For some reason, when you can’t see the motion, your body tells you it’s not there, even though you can feel it. At least this seems to be how it for me. I’ve read a lot about seasickness. It is an interesting phenomenon. Research shows that it has a lot to do with balance of the inner ear, the sinuses, blood flow, heart rhythm, hydration, and many psychological factors including nerves, excitement, and fear.
I am not a medical doctor, but I have read in medical journals that different parts of your body send different signals to your brain. The wires get tangled and the confusion of all these crossed signals to the brain can cause the uneasiness.
I can remember sailing from Rönne, Denmark to Karlskrona, Sweden a few years ago on a 24-foot sailboat in heavy conditions with 3-meter waves. That was the first time I ever experienced seasickness. I spent 10 hours dangling over the side of the boat.
You never forget your first time.
The captain had to D-ring strap me to the boat to keep me from falling out—or from throwing myself out, because that is what I wanted to do. The one good thing is that you may lose some weight, but I will never recommend the Nordic Seafarer’s Diet to anyone!
Is There a Cure for Seasickness or Motion Sickness?
All this doesn’t stop until the motion stops. Curiously, when the motion does finally stop, you feel just fine. When I’m not experiencing seasickness, I’m completely fascinated by it.
I have a friend who was once a sailing instructor. She can confirm through experience that seasickness can be psychological. She told me that she would tell students that if they just held a potato in their left hand, then they wouldn’t get seasick. This mind over matter worked for most of them. I always keep potatoes on board.
Since that first time, I have had EPIC battles with seasickness. While sailing the world on a 43-foot sailboat, I experienced brutal seasickness on almost every passage. You can read about some of them by following the links at the bottom of this article. While crossing the Bay of Biscay, I was brutally seasick for four straight days and nights without any relief and still had to cover my watch every 2 to 4 hours.
Through these battles I have tried every medical remedy I’ve ever heard about and took advice from dozens of other sailors. For me, none of the medications helped. Some made me too drowsy to be effective taking my shift at the helm. Others gave me severe headaches that were worse than the seasickness. Because of this, I worked on ways to beat seasickness without medication.
Whether you are in a sailboat, cruise ship, fishing boat, recreational boat, or in a car, train, airplane, bus or any other moving thing that may make you seasick or motion sick, I hope these tips will help you!
These are My 30 Tips for Beating Seasickness & Motion Sickness Without Medication
Strap yourself securely in the cockpit to prevent falling out of the boat. (Or to prevent throwing yourself overboard, which may be what you feel like doing.)
Stay away from areas with strong smells, like the locker containing the diesel tanks.
Try to stay hydrated to prevent dehydration and muscle cramps. Drink plenty of fluids before departure and avoid alcohol.
Try to eat something, even if you throw it back up. Try to digest some calories. Anything with GINGER helps (ginger snaps, ginger tea, raw ginger, ginger ale, ginger candy, ginger chews). See the links above for some of my favorites! Peppermint candy also helps. Sometimes I even just put a small bit of toothpaste on my tongue and this seems to help with the nausea.
Consider the reverse taste of foods. (For example, an apple tastes the same on the way down as it does on the way back up, but tuna or yogurt will leave an icky taste in your mouth that will add to the queasiness.)
Get back out there as soon as possible so you don’t lose your nerve later.
Nerves, excitement, and fear can contribute to seasickness. Try to stay calm the day of departure.
When you begin to feel queasy, stay busy. Grab the wheel to feel a sense of control, or focus on a small task.
Stay in the fresh air, if possible.
Lie flat in the center part of the ship with your eyes closed. Try to sleep, if possible. The bow of the boat is the worst place to be if you are seasick.
Rest when you can, even if you don’t feel tired.
Either stand up or lie flat on your back when you feel the seasickness set in. Sitting adds to the queasiness.
Hold a potato in your left hand. Sometimes mind over matter works if you truly believe it.
Try not to let fear paralyze you.
Trust your captain to alleviate the fear that you may be in danger.
Trust your ship to get you to your destination safely.
Trust yourself and try to reassure yourself that everything will be Ok.
Embrace the things you love about being on the water and try to focus on the good things rather than the queasiness or the fear. Try to enjoy the journey and focus on the excitement of the destination.
Arm yourself with information but try to avoid doing too much research about bodies of water or conditions that scare you.
Try some non-medical devices like wrist bands and sea bands, and wear loose, comfortable clothing.
When captain and crew are seasick, shorten the shifts (for example, from four hours to two hours).
Find a comfortable place in the cabin to sleep when you are not on watch—one in which you won’t be tossed around too much (for example, on the floor between the bunks).
Don’t try to cook in rough conditions. Instead, prepare in advance some snacks and cold meals and have them available to grab and eat quickly in the cockpit.
Have plenty of drinks available in the cockpit to stay hydrated.
When you feel the uneasiness set in, try to distract yourself with something that requires concentration (for example, recite the Greek Alphabet, count to 100 in German, sing or recite all the lyrics of a song, recite dialogue from your favorite movie). Distractions help.
Focus on the horizon.
Challenge yourself. (For example, I made it a goal to never miss a shift, no matter how bad I felt). This will give you something to strive for and a happy feeling of accomplishment.
Find something stable to hold on to for balance (for example, a drum winch).
Spread your legs about shoulder width apart and try to offset the movement of the ship with movement from your body. I describe this as being like trying to use an imaginary hula hoop.
If you are prone to seasickness, accept that it’s going to happen and focus more on fighting through it. This will help to calm the nerves and quell the fear. Focus on the things that help you rather than trying to beat it.
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