Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Joshua Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking in a monotone kind of Hey, dude, Hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going. It's going well. I'm not motionsick, so
Speaker 1: things are fine. Do you get motion sick sometimes? I mean,
Speaker 1: if the conditions are right. I was really surprised to
Speaker 1: find that not everybody gets motion sick. What are your conditions? Um,
Speaker 1: poor ventilation and like lots of movement, um, backseat of
Speaker 1: a car. Okay, uh, but anytime I read in a car,
Speaker 1: even like glancing at my phone on a map. Really,
Speaker 1: if I have to read anything, it gets me very quick.
Speaker 1: So I've just learned that, like, I can't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I cannot do it. So I don't I get it
Speaker 1: a little bit too. I used to get it more,
Speaker 1: I think when I was younger. Supposedly it's normal. Supposedly
Speaker 1: it is. But I remember a very specific story that
Speaker 1: my brother still laughs at. And by the way, boy,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I said that I owe my brother, my
Speaker 1: big brother, a big apology because I saw him over
Speaker 1: the weekend and he said, oh, by the way, I
Speaker 1: was just done an old episode and he said, you've
Speaker 1: never been a groom's a best man. I was the
Speaker 1: best man at my brother's wedding. Man. I felt like
Speaker 1: a jerk, man, Scott, I'm sorry, I know. And what
Speaker 1: happened was when I said I hadn't, I just like
Speaker 1: quickly scanned through my friends that have gotten married, and
Speaker 1: I didn't think about my brother and I was his
Speaker 1: best man. A jerk. Well, it's it's rectified now. Well
Speaker 1: I told him. I was like, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: public apology. So there it is. That's pretty public. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets. You could have also started a scores based
Speaker 1: website if you wanted, but it's really easy that. Um So, anyway,
Speaker 1: this is old story. When we went to Disney, uh geez,
Speaker 1: which is the one where Body Wars is at. You
Speaker 1: should have asked Holly from stuff you missed in history,
Speaker 1: she would know if she probably senses that someone's talking
Speaker 1: about Disney right now. Body Wars either was or still is.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's still there. One of those
Speaker 1: rides that you sit in a you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those first sort of virtual things where they show
Speaker 1: you a movie and then they moved the car, like
Speaker 1: The Amazing Voyage or something, wasn't it. Yeah, you went
Speaker 1: inside a human body and we're traveling around. I want
Speaker 1: to say disney World, but I can't remember. Um so
Speaker 1: I went in that, And I mean, wait, I'm getting
Speaker 1: you grew up in Atlanta. I'm guessing you went to
Speaker 1: disney World. Well, it definitely was at Disneyland, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if he was Epcot, Universal Studio Guys, or
Speaker 1: Disney World. It was in Orlando. So from what I
Speaker 1: under stand, we have a buddy who works for Disney
Speaker 1: and he set me straight on this before, and I
Speaker 1: think I've got it. So disney World is all of those.
Speaker 1: The Magic Kingdom is what you're specifying. So disney World
Speaker 1: includes Epcott and Universal Studios. If I'm not mistaken, I
Speaker 1: really hope I'm not missing. The Magic Kingdom is specifically
Speaker 1: with the Castle. Right. If I did get that wrong, Brandon,
Speaker 1: I apologize. It's one with the castle. All the weird
Speaker 1: adults that think their children like, uh so, body wars. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you're traveling through the body, and I remember at one
Speaker 1: point I was like, man, it's getting hot in here,
Speaker 1: and Scott's like, this is great. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not feeling so good man. It's like, do they have
Speaker 1: the heat going. It's like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: It feels great? And I got I didn't vomit, but
Speaker 1: I got really sick and made it through the ride
Speaker 1: and left. And he still teases me to this day.
Speaker 1: He was like, it was temperature air controlled, and you
Speaker 1: thought it was like ninety degrees and they were like
Speaker 1: pumping in heat. It's funny, like it got to you
Speaker 1: like that, like your own body cold sweats the who while, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's bad, but generally you you actually did puke, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I did not, you didn't. But generally I don't like
Speaker 1: it takes a certain thing, like a really hardcore roller
Speaker 1: coaster going in fast, fast circles, but I don't get
Speaker 1: sick complaints or the one cruise I went on, it
Speaker 1: didn't get sick. Yeah, you know, I've gotten. I've gotten
Speaker 1: sick before, like on vacation. But and I'm planes, it's
Speaker 1: usually fairly fleeting. It's when I introduced reading that it's
Speaker 1: like you're in big trouble for a long time. You
Speaker 1: can read on a plane though I can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: now I think about it's reading in a car. I
Speaker 1: just gotta stay away from that. But usually it does
Speaker 1: come about with like poor ventilation that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: um yeah, which is another trigger, it's a big one,
Speaker 1: or like a rough odor or something like that. I'm
Speaker 1: sure all those things don't help. The thing is for
Speaker 1: for as much as like we kind of commonly understand
Speaker 1: and motion sickness, science really doesn't have a full explanation
Speaker 1: for it. I'm picturing little Josh because riding backwards is
Speaker 1: bad and like a rumble seat in a station wagon,
Speaker 1: in a in a super u brat with like your
Speaker 1: dad has like salami socks on or something that stink
Speaker 1: what like the windows are rolled up. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just anything. It's something gross salamie socks, like socks
Speaker 1: made of salami, Like, wouldn't that smelled gross? He's wearing
Speaker 1: the skin of another person. Well, now I was thinking
Speaker 1: smelled like old salami, but made of salamis even better, right.
Speaker 1: I think I'm just picturing you back there, like reading
Speaker 1: your Mad magazine feeling bad. Yeah, yeah, no, I do
Speaker 1: remember being a kid and figuring out I can't read
Speaker 1: in cars. There was a period where I could, which
Speaker 1: is kind of surprising because when you're younger, you're more
Speaker 1: susceptible to motion sickness. But I could read in the
Speaker 1: car while I was younger, and then probably around the
Speaker 1: time of puberty, I was like, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: You went opposite weird. Yeah, well maybe you developed your hips, right,
Speaker 1: because that's a tease. We'll just leave that out there,
Speaker 1: all right. So people supposedly are susceptible to motion sickness. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it can happen on planes, it can happen. It's weird.
Speaker 1: This one University of Maryland side I went to said, uh,
Speaker 1: the following are the most common risk factors riding in
Speaker 1: a car, boat, airplane, or space shuttle. Really, yeah, nerds,
Speaker 1: Just like they didn't even put the amusement park ride.
Speaker 1: They just went straight to space shuttle. You know, one
Speaker 1: that I hadn't seen before. But apparently as the thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm looking through a microscope, Yeah I hadn't. That makes
Speaker 1: a little bit of sense though, Yeah, because the slide
Speaker 1: can move in. Your eyes are seeing movement, but you're
Speaker 1: not moving, and yeah, I'll get to you. Uh. Like
Speaker 1: another nerdy motion sickness space shuttles and microscope. Uh So,
Speaker 1: like you said, age between two and twelve, you're more
Speaker 1: likely uh, and then you're also more likely to grow
Speaker 1: out of it after puberty. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that women are more motion sickness than men or get
Speaker 1: motion sickness more than men is because one of the
Speaker 1: theories is that after puberty they developed more in the hips.
Speaker 1: Men develop more in the chest, and I guess that
Speaker 1: makes a difference. They didn't really explain why they did that. Well,
Speaker 1: it all has to do with sway theory, which Will's right,
Speaker 1: sway theory. Yeah, but it is true that, like, women
Speaker 1: are more susceptible just on average, to motion sickness than
Speaker 1: men are. Yeah, studies apparently also Asian women, well Asian
Speaker 1: period because Pinn State did a study and they put
Speaker 1: people in situations that make emotion sick or not. Did
Speaker 1: you look into those Oh is it like a tilted world, dude?
Speaker 1: Like if you went in for just a clinical study,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna make some scratch or maybe they'll give
Speaker 1: me a cool drug or something, and it turns out
Speaker 1: to be a motion sickness study, you should leave. No,
Speaker 1: I totally was. So there's this thing called a um
Speaker 1: opt to kinetic drum, I believe is what it's called.
Speaker 1: Oh I did see that. Yeah, I have to connectic.
Speaker 1: It's it's like um a drum, like a big drum
Speaker 1: that you sit inside of, and it's got a vertical
Speaker 1: black and white painted stretched and it spins around you
Speaker 1: and the motion, the movement is really emphasized and like
Speaker 1: it's designed to make anybody motion sick and that's how
Speaker 1: they induce motion sickness. And I saw another one UM
Speaker 1: where they use a chair that just kind of moves
Speaker 1: you around, whether you like it or not, and it
Speaker 1: induces motion sickness. Like, what a terrible thing to have
Speaker 1: happened to you. Man. There was a ride at six
Speaker 1: Flags over Georgia growing up that they got rid of
Speaker 1: because someone got hurt, supposedly where it's this barrel that
Speaker 1: you all get in. You stand it, it's like kind
Speaker 1: of below ground. You stand against the wall. Love those
Speaker 1: and it's spins so fast. Then they dropped the floor
Speaker 1: beneath you and then some trifical force holds you against
Speaker 1: the wall. It's like the spin cycle in the washing machine.
Speaker 1: You mean, I were just talking about that. The other
Speaker 1: thing was awful. That was my favorite of all time. Really,
Speaker 1: I just thought it was so cool. Well, the old
Speaker 1: story was that someone's leg got trapped when the floor
Speaker 1: came back up. But I remember here now that I
Speaker 1: look back, because I'm sure that was an old live stale.
Speaker 1: Although I was on Snoops the other day and I
Speaker 1: was reading an early article and they were talking about, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the urban legend about some girl who got
Speaker 1: scalped because her hair got caught in an amusement park
Speaker 1: ride or something. It actually happened, really, Yeah, the girl's
Speaker 1: ponytail got caught in there. It just got pulled right
Speaker 1: off of her head. I know, but it actually did happen.
Speaker 1: So it's possible someone's leg got got sucked into the
Speaker 1: tiltal world. Well, but then what happens is it happened
Speaker 1: at every amusement park, right, It happened to my cousin's friend, right, Alright.
Speaker 1: So the Penn State study, uh, they put people in
Speaker 1: these torture machines, and interestingly, they did confirm eight of
Speaker 1: Asian people got sick when it was less than fifty
Speaker 1: percent for Caucasian and non Caucasian, which is really it's
Speaker 1: very crazy. Um, but it kind of underscores a growing
Speaker 1: awareness among motion sickness researchers a K that the evil
Speaker 1: ones um that genetics play a big role in susceptibility
Speaker 1: to motion sickness. Well, yeah, because there were another couple
Speaker 1: of findings that lend to that. UM. Twins. They study
Speaker 1: two hundred sets of identical twins, and one percent of
Speaker 1: the identical twins were both affected. Um. Yeah, and some
Speaker 1: of that, you know, they can't prove that it's genetics
Speaker 1: because it also could be the uh just where they
Speaker 1: were raised and how were they were raised. What's it
Speaker 1: called uh nurture environment environment environmental um. And if parents
Speaker 1: are both susceptible to motion sickness, they found that their
Speaker 1: children are five times more likely. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: points to genetics. But then other things point away from genetics,
Speaker 1: like why why would you know two people in the
Speaker 1: same family in the same conditions not get sick? Or
Speaker 1: why did why why did two people period not get
Speaker 1: sick under the same conditions. Yeah, Like, I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, salami socks smell same backwards facing seat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is they haven't figured it out, No,
Speaker 1: they haven't. But if we do figure out that it's genetic,
Speaker 1: thanks to the magic of the Crisper Casts nine gene
Speaker 1: editing process to be able to knock that right out
Speaker 1: for you, what else is pregnant? Yeah, pregnant women are
Speaker 1: more susceptible to it. Um, women who are menstruating, I
Speaker 1: think also are, and people who get migraines are more susceptible.
Speaker 1: And then people who sleep poorly are more susceptible to
Speaker 1: um uh. Motion sickness. Yeah, it says if you're prone
Speaker 1: to nausea or vomiting, but I don't know if that's like,
Speaker 1: that's sort of a chicken or the egg thing. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into again. We said science as to
Speaker 1: understand exactly what's going on here. But there's some good theories.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about them right after, so chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some theories for motion sickness because it's
Speaker 1: kind of two Yeah. I saw I think it was
Speaker 1: this Atlantic article you sent. It's not so much um,
Speaker 1: it's not so much science. It's a debate over you know,
Speaker 1: the likelier explanation, but they actually kind of fit together.
Speaker 1: I think so, but if you ask the people, apparently
Speaker 1: the author in the Atlantic, Uh, it's called the Mysterious
Speaker 1: Science Emotion Sickness. He's sort of pokes fun a little bit.
Speaker 1: He's like, to me, they sound sort of the same.
Speaker 1: But don't tell that to those people who believe one
Speaker 1: or the other, because they're like, no, they're nothing like
Speaker 1: each other. She Julie beck I was that, who wasn't nice? Job,
Speaker 1: Julie good article. Um, pat on the back for you,
Speaker 1: cold star. So, uh, here's the first one is and
Speaker 1: this one. They both make a lot of sense to me. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: there's a dissonance between the parts of your body that
Speaker 1: sense motion. Right, that's the easiest way to say it.
Speaker 1: It's called the sensory conflict theory. To get dryballs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it senses motion. It's it's weird if you think
Speaker 1: about your eyes doing that, but that's one of the
Speaker 1: roles that they play in motion. You also have the
Speaker 1: vestibular system, which is centered around your inner ear, and
Speaker 1: that definitely senses motion, movement, acceleration, gravity. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: you have all the sensors, the sensors and like your
Speaker 1: muscles and joints and stuff, right, Yeah, I didn't really
Speaker 1: think about that is being one, but for sure, like
Speaker 1: your body actually feels it. Yeah, well, think about it,
Speaker 1: like if you if you feel yourself kind of moving backward,
Speaker 1: you're definitely sensing it through your inner ear, but you
Speaker 1: can also feel it in your feet as well, and
Speaker 1: they're sending a a bulletin to your brain saying, lean forward, dummy,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fall back. What's your problem? Friend? So, this
Speaker 1: dissonance occurs when basically, like let's say you're sitting in
Speaker 1: a movie theater like an IMAX and it's a scene
Speaker 1: where you're you're flying with Superman or something like. You're
Speaker 1: seeing this with your eyeballs like a first person perspective
Speaker 1: shot of flight, but you're sitting in your seat, so
Speaker 1: your eyes are saying you're flying and your butts going
Speaker 1: you're sitting here and your brains like a witch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much witchcraft. Uh. So it creates this, This creates
Speaker 1: motion sickness. That's when the uh, nausea might kick in, dizziness, uh,
Speaker 1: those cold sweats, salivation. I like how the the author
Speaker 1: of the house Stuff Works article pointed out she specifically
Speaker 1: mentioned Avatar. Yeah, who is the dude? Um? The the
Speaker 1: guy who was like the friend on the Flight of
Speaker 1: the Concords Mary. No, the other dude, the guy who
Speaker 1: worked in the pond. Yeah, yeah, oh man, what is
Speaker 1: his name? It's not Range Parker, Arrange Parker, Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: I always want to call him Boslerman. I know it's
Speaker 1: definitely not the same dude Parker. You mean. I went
Speaker 1: to go see him. He did some stand up, right,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about Avatar, and he said, when
Speaker 1: it first came up, people like, oh, Avatar, have you
Speaker 1: seen Avatar? Yea great And then like everything you heard
Speaker 1: was have you seen Avatar? You gotta see Avatar, you said,
Speaker 1: like after a couple of weeks, you'd just be walking
Speaker 1: down the sidewalk and people would pull up alongside you
Speaker 1: in your car and roll down the window and go Avatar.
Speaker 1: And this is I think a great example of that. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I posted an article on Facebook not too
Speaker 1: long ago on the Stuff you Should Know page about
Speaker 1: this person wrote an article about Avatar and the argument
Speaker 1: was that it for such a huge movie, it had
Speaker 1: like zero cultural impact, Like it was big at the time,
Speaker 1: but does anyone care now, Like it's not like the
Speaker 1: Star Wars World or Star Treker, all these things, and
Speaker 1: I totally agreed. I saw Avatar once and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm done with it. Typical James Cameron schlock. I've seen
Speaker 1: it zero times. No, that sucks, But dude, there are
Speaker 1: Avatar people though, that piled on and we're like, what's
Speaker 1: god no idea what he's talking about? It's totally relevant. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're gonna be all over Facebook page after
Speaker 1: this episode comes out. Hey, Chuck forever. Now, I like
Speaker 1: some of James Cameron stuff, but if he wrote the script,
Speaker 1: then it's I'm not gonna like it. No, I know
Speaker 1: what you mean. I think he's a hack writer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did I just say that two hundreds of thousands of people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure James Cameron cares what you think. He's
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the Marianna Trench right now. He's not.
Speaker 1: He's picking out my future burial site. So um, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the century conflict theory, right, that's one
Speaker 1: big explanation, and it definitely kind of makes sense. Right.
Speaker 1: Your your brain just basically gets overloaded and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to sit down. I've got the vapors, right,
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of bad impressions in this episode
Speaker 1: was supposed to be uh, somebody fainting in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Oh, no, it's great. So it was your
Speaker 1: arch Parker fop. That's what it was. It was a
Speaker 1: fop the dandy popping. There's another competing idea, and that is, UM,
Speaker 1: we kind of talked about. UM. It's called sway theory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's a dude, h Thomas uh staff or staff Regin.
Speaker 1: I'm going with the gin s University of University of Minnesota,
Speaker 1: Professor of Kinesiology and listen to this. He's the director
Speaker 1: of it Affordance Perception Action Laboratory NERD. He gets motion
Speaker 1: sickness looking through microscope. UM. So he proposes the sway
Speaker 1: theory UM, which basically has nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: vestibular system. He said. He says that I don't I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily agree with that, but okay, I agree that
Speaker 1: he thinks that. No, I know that he thinks that
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that his take on that. Agree.
Speaker 1: I think it's still tied together. But his theory is
Speaker 1: and this first part isn't theory. It's true is that
Speaker 1: everyone sways like unless you're one of those uh people
Speaker 1: that stand like motionless in the middle of New Orleans
Speaker 1: for money. M hmm, yeah, silver or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're good, they're good at it. But if you're just
Speaker 1: a regular dope like you and I, when we stand there,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be moving in a little bit. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: mean swaying a little bit. It's weird, like if you
Speaker 1: stop and like really pay attention to it. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: you notice it, but you'll never notice it unless you
Speaker 1: are focused on that. Yeah, you're always moving a little bit. Yeah, swaying.
Speaker 1: If you're standing up, you're swaying for the most part. Yes.
Speaker 1: And the point he makes is if everyone truly relaxed
Speaker 1: every muscle in their body, they'd fall over. Right. So
Speaker 1: the whole point, the whole thing is swaying is it's
Speaker 1: the byproduct of us standing upright, which is not something
Speaker 1: we've been doing for all of the time we've been
Speaker 1: on earth, because we evolved from things that walked on
Speaker 1: four legs. Standing up is kind of new. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: and babies don't stand up, they have to, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So um Stoffordgin's whole idea is that motion sickness comes
Speaker 1: about when you have um when you're exposed to movement
Speaker 1: that contradicts the natural um swaying that you've learned to
Speaker 1: do to stand upright right, and it undermines it, and
Speaker 1: your brain goes Which makes sense in a way because
Speaker 1: let's say you're on a boat and the boat's tilting
Speaker 1: to the left, and so what you're feet do, or
Speaker 1: you know, they account for that, and maybe you lean
Speaker 1: in on the inside of your foot and your toes
Speaker 1: flex so because you want to make yourself more upright again.
Speaker 1: And then the boat turns again in a direction you're
Speaker 1: not expecting. You're correcting for that first move, the second
Speaker 1: move happens, and your body doesn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. The the sensory conflict one makes
Speaker 1: a little more sense to me than this one, because
Speaker 1: that sounds to me like if that if that were
Speaker 1: the case, if that's what's going on, and it clearly is.
Speaker 1: Like when it's when you get your sea legs or
Speaker 1: whatever um you you you were moving along, you're trying
Speaker 1: to stay standing under these weird conditions, why would that
Speaker 1: translate into something like dizziness or nausea or vomiting or
Speaker 1: cold sweats that doesn't make sense to me. Sensory conflict
Speaker 1: I can see translating into it. But even beyond that,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, no, that doesn't Still,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense why you would vomit. And this
Speaker 1: one guy named um Michael Easman seven came up with
Speaker 1: a pretty awesome explanation for why we should get nauseated
Speaker 1: when we get motion sick right. Well, yeah, should we
Speaker 1: take a break and talk about that? Oh all right,
Speaker 1: Josh Michael Treatman seven in the journal Science. What did
Speaker 1: he say? Oh? He said that we get nauseated from
Speaker 1: motion sickness because over there are some toxins out there
Speaker 1: that can mess with our vestibular system. Right, yes, So
Speaker 1: the body is tricked into thinking that it's possibly been
Speaker 1: exposed to some sort of toxin because the vestibular vestibular
Speaker 1: system is out of whack from motion sickness, So it
Speaker 1: gets nauseated and ultimately might vomit as a reflex to
Speaker 1: get rid of whatever toxin it thinks has been ingested.
Speaker 1: It's basically a case of mistaken identity. I think it
Speaker 1: explained it perfectly. It makes sense to me. I could
Speaker 1: see a little bit. I think what Um what staff
Speaker 1: Regin is saying is that you're you're used to regaining
Speaker 1: your balance. You spend your entire life learning this system,
Speaker 1: and that if it's thrown off, what he doesn't do
Speaker 1: is connect it. I believe, I believe you're right. He
Speaker 1: doesn't connect it in the end to like something that
Speaker 1: happens in your brain, right, the the why the physiological
Speaker 1: reaction agreed. Yeah, but he does have some pretty good
Speaker 1: evidence backing his idea of sway theory up though. Um,
Speaker 1: so again, women are more susceptible to um to motion
Speaker 1: sickness than men. Right, Yes, that's what they say. Well,
Speaker 1: he says, ah, Well, Sway theory explains that um, kids
Speaker 1: are equally susceptible to both genders are equally susceptible to
Speaker 1: motion sickness before puberty. Then after puberty, the bodies change
Speaker 1: and where um, women and men hold most of their
Speaker 1: weight is different. Right, Women hold it mostly around their hips.
Speaker 1: Men hold it more around their chest, and that means
Speaker 1: that the center of gravity is different, which means the
Speaker 1: amount that we sway is different. Right yeah, I think Uh?
Speaker 1: Who does he say sways? Women's way farther but slower,
Speaker 1: but slower Men's sway faster but within a tighter area.
Speaker 1: And and these are micro sways. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that like most people move no more than like
Speaker 1: an inch to any given side. And even then you're
Speaker 1: like Barney on the Simpsons when he walked out for
Speaker 1: that like bachelor um auction. Uh. Then there's also landsickness,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. Yeah. I didn't look too much into it,
Speaker 1: but I have heard of it, which is basically the
Speaker 1: concept that if you're a sailor, then you've gotten or
Speaker 1: you know, just somebody who's been on boats enough. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be a professional. Um, you get your
Speaker 1: sea legs so well that you get landsickness. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: you get back, Yeah, and you're on solid ground, you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do, right because your your
Speaker 1: brain so used to things moving that it perceives that
Speaker 1: it's moving even though it's not. You want to say
Speaker 1: the French name for it, mild barkmant let me look,
Speaker 1: I wasn't even looking. That was you forgot the middle part.
Speaker 1: There's a qui in the middle, so maybe mal de
Speaker 1: bark uman, I said, Mel debarkmon Mel debarkmall barkman barbecue
Speaker 1: mal I love that when we do this stuff, there's
Speaker 1: it's probably literally fi people laughing and people want to
Speaker 1: kill us. Yeah, you know, yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: want to kill us. Can about as long as they
Speaker 1: never do alright, So, um, should we go over some
Speaker 1: some things that you can do? Because I mean that
Speaker 1: that whole segment on what explains most of the sickness
Speaker 1: kind of petered out. But that's the state of science
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, although they will say they have looked
Speaker 1: at the twenty three in me um for the genetic
Speaker 1: side and have found some support for both claims. I
Speaker 1: think that they're together. Like I think, if yes, your
Speaker 1: your swaying system is set up in a certain way,
Speaker 1: and why can't that be a component that, along with
Speaker 1: the vestibular system and your site and all that um
Speaker 1: is affected and creates motion sickness. I just don't understand
Speaker 1: why it has to be one or the other. That's
Speaker 1: the impression that I had he was trying to really
Speaker 1: come get across, is that it's no, it's its own thing.
Speaker 1: I think that's weird. So what do you what do
Speaker 1: you go to if you get motion sick Well, they
Speaker 1: say to keep your eyes on the horizon, whether you're
Speaker 1: in a car or a boat or whatever, that that
Speaker 1: will help cuts down on motion, right or the sensation
Speaker 1: of motion. I'm not sure. I think so because think
Speaker 1: about it. When you look at stuff that's close to
Speaker 1: the car, it's blurring the horizon, sting. Yeah, constant look
Speaker 1: at you. Um, keep your head still so you can
Speaker 1: lay down if you're able to somewhere, um or at
Speaker 1: least put your head back against the seat. Just sort
Speaker 1: of keep it as still as possible. Don't smoke. Sure,
Speaker 1: they say it's just good advice all around exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna fly, they say to avoid big, greasy
Speaker 1: meals and alcohol the night before and eat light meals
Speaker 1: or snacks low in calories the day of. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you do want to have something in your stomach, though,
Speaker 1: because that's just gonna help empty stomach. No good turn
Speaker 1: that air vent. Whether you're in your car or a
Speaker 1: plane or a boat, you need want some fresh air
Speaker 1: blowing on your face, ideally or at least cycled air
Speaker 1: felt this bed sinstead. It need to brank hunt uh,
Speaker 1: sit in the front of the airplane or over a wing. Supposedly, yeah,
Speaker 1: the rear of the airplane. Oh man, you just get
Speaker 1: whipped around back, and it's way worse if you get
Speaker 1: motion sick You should never sit behind the the wings
Speaker 1: of the airplane. See I love the last car of
Speaker 1: a roller coaster though, Well, yeah, you're feeling it more,
Speaker 1: you're enjoying it more. You don't get motion sick. Um
Speaker 1: what else? Avoid salty foods before you travel. There's also
Speaker 1: remedies too, right, So the jury is out on whether
Speaker 1: ginger actually helps or not, or if it's just the
Speaker 1: placebo effect. Ginger, peppermint, and black horehound apparently are some
Speaker 1: of the herbs that may or may not work. Who knows. UM,
Speaker 1: I can tell you firsthand, and I looked it up.
Speaker 1: See bands actu pressure bracelets that go on your wrist
Speaker 1: three fingers with down from the heel of your palm,
Speaker 1: the pairicardium six so the acupuncture point. I saw research
Speaker 1: that showed that UM, neither placebo nor acupressure bands had
Speaker 1: any effect on motion sickness. I can tell you that
Speaker 1: even if it is just placebo, they still work firsthand.
Speaker 1: They work alright, even if it's placebo. I don't care.
Speaker 1: That's fine as long as it keeps me from being motionsick. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kept me and you me from being motion sick
Speaker 1: on an entire cruise. But would you have been motion
Speaker 1: sick without it? Yeah, because we had We didn't use
Speaker 1: it for one day and we felt immediately. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I brought one on my only cruise that I went
Speaker 1: to and uh, I don't think I work because I
Speaker 1: didn't need to. We had like divots on our risk
Speaker 1: because we just come on like the whole the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should bring it just in case. Yeah. Sure. We
Speaker 1: also had scope al amin and we didn't even use
Speaker 1: it because the c bands work so well. Drama meine,
Speaker 1: is that the same thing or different? Scope ala mean?
Speaker 1: Is that stuff that like eight um drug people with
Speaker 1: and then uh, it's like remember in our truths Herem
Speaker 1: episode we talked about scope limit. It's like a drug
Speaker 1: in South America where they'll they'll dose you with it
Speaker 1: and then you end up like just basically becoming zombified
Speaker 1: and don't remember anything. It's the same stuff, but it
Speaker 1: doles the messages from your inner ear to your brain,
Speaker 1: so your sensation of motion is decreased. Homeopathy, there haven't
Speaker 1: been a ton of studies about the effective effectiveness of
Speaker 1: specific remedies. But they do say things like borax, coculus, petroleum, tabacum. Dude,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna hear from so many people just for
Speaker 1: having even uttered the word homeopathy. Does that I say
Speaker 1: it homeopathy? No? It goes both ways. Um, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, nothing drives people more crazy than that. They're
Speaker 1: gonna go desert mark my word because it's not you know, well,
Speaker 1: well I said that that take it or leave it. Basically,
Speaker 1: some people swear by it, yeah, and some people think
Speaker 1: it's uh too. From what I have ever seen, it's
Speaker 1: like the biggest flashpoint, uh like of anything, of anything
Speaker 1: at Skeptics talk about nothing drives them crazier than than homeopathy.
Speaker 1: Ye like makes them nuts. It's kind of funny to
Speaker 1: watch it does, because then you people say you shouldn't
Speaker 1: even say western versus Eastern medicine. You should say proven
Speaker 1: science versus like witchcraft. Who did the people say that?
Speaker 1: On Facebook? Yeah, they get really like, you shouldn't even
Speaker 1: say I don't even see it. I said you can't
Speaker 1: say it, don't even say it? Josh? Um what else? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm making fun of you. Mind body medicine, biofeedback training
Speaker 1: and relaxation. They did a study of fifty pilots UM
Speaker 1: who had to stop flying due to motion sickness, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I didn't know that, Like that frightens
Speaker 1: me just knowing that that a pilot can get most
Speaker 1: but think about it. For the pilot, it's like career ending,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, seventy of them got over their motion
Speaker 1: sickness and we're able to return to work after biofeedback
Speaker 1: training and relaxation programs. So basically they sit in that
Speaker 1: tilt a whirl, bring it on, and then biofeedback instruments
Speaker 1: record uh, temperature, muscle tension, and they use relaxation techniques
Speaker 1: uh and mental imagery in the chair and over time,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is another
Speaker 1: thing that they use, which is like, you know, get
Speaker 1: in the chair and do it until it doesn't affect you.
Speaker 1: An exposure therapy, right yeah. Um. There's this guy named
Speaker 1: Sam Puma who's a physician and aeronautics engineer. I think
Speaker 1: maybe at the very least, he's worked in the aerospace
Speaker 1: industry for a really long time, and he has come
Speaker 1: up with some habituation exercises where basically you kind of
Speaker 1: mildly expose your body to the kind of move mints
Speaker 1: it's going to expect on like a space shuttle or
Speaker 1: whatever ahead of your trip, and you can he says,
Speaker 1: you can be prepared and not have any emotion sickness
Speaker 1: and as little as a week. Yeah, and I guess
Speaker 1: it checks out, Yeah, because it sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: come on, what's this guy selling me? Right? But then
Speaker 1: the Atlantic author she said, you know, no, apparently it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. Uh. And then another good tip that
Speaker 1: I saw was, if you're in a car and you're
Speaker 1: not driving, pretend like you're driving. You might feel silly,
Speaker 1: but you know, pretend like you're driving. Maybe even do
Speaker 1: your hands and anticipate the curbs and things. Maybe give
Speaker 1: him a little horn, a little imaginary horn once an ord. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason why the best seat in the car is
Speaker 1: the drivers because you can anticipate the movements the car
Speaker 1: is gonna make, which supports sway theory if you think
Speaker 1: about it, true because you can counteract it. Do you
Speaker 1: ever have one of those passengers in your car that
Speaker 1: hits the break because they're nervous. It's like, I just
Speaker 1: an involuntary action. You seem stumped their foot on the floorboard.
Speaker 1: It's pretty funny. I have one friend in particular that
Speaker 1: does that. Uh, let's see. I guess that's it, right.
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Um, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about motion sickness, you can type those words in
Speaker 1: the search part how stuff works dot com. And since
Speaker 1: I said search bar, it's time for the listener mayo,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this uh Bonsai to two. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: love the show. I'm a twotoo maker who new but
Speaker 1: you know somebody makes them. Sure they don't just grow
Speaker 1: on trees, not anymore. I'm a two two maker and
Speaker 1: work alone in my studio a lot making two tooos
Speaker 1: and you guys are my company and thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Also have a Bachelor of Science and ornamental horticulture. So
Speaker 1: listening to the bonsai episode reminded me of an experience
Speaker 1: ad with a bonsai master in a class I had
Speaker 1: in college. The professor covered the art of bonsai. Leading
Speaker 1: up to this man's visit. He covered the art, particulous
Speaker 1: decisions made in the shaping of the tree, et cetera.
Speaker 1: The day came when the master was there to speak
Speaker 1: with us. It came into class, and all of his
Speaker 1: amazing work was displayed around the classroom. It was really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Everyone sort of spoke about it in touchstones, very reverent
Speaker 1: to each other. Finally, the master, who was a rather
Speaker 1: tiny Japanese man, was ready to demonstrate the technique for us.
Speaker 1: He unpotted the plant in front of him, spoke about
Speaker 1: the shape and what he felt would be the best
Speaker 1: way to train it. And after this, he pulled out
Speaker 1: a club the size of a baseball bat and beat
Speaker 1: the crap out of the root ball, explaining the need
Speaker 1: to control the plant, and no one knew exactly how
Speaker 1: to recapt I had not thought about that for a
Speaker 1: really long time, and I listened to the show chuckling
Speaker 1: the whole time because of it. I thought you might
Speaker 1: appreciate the story that is from Nancy Gallagher, the two
Speaker 1: Tuo maker. Well thanks a lot, Nancy. Uh. Maybe he
Speaker 1: was just trying to get the dirt away from the roots,
Speaker 1: I don't know, or maybe it was bad Bonsai. Mr
Speaker 1: Miyagi would never do that. I worked with Pat Marita.
Speaker 1: Did I mention that on the show? Was it? He
Speaker 1: did a music video that I worked on, the Karate
Speaker 1: Kid spoof? Oh oh, yeah, alien Ant Farm and I
Speaker 1: worked with him. He's super nice and it was just
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Whore he died. He's dead. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the shame. Yeah, he liked the white wine. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he told me the story for it. Sounds familiar.
Speaker 1: I had to go fetch him some chardonay like noon.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what if that was Pat
Speaker 1: Marina on the side of the music video, sure, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, I'd have a p a fetch me some
Speaker 1: chardonnay do. Yeah. Remember he played Al the replacement Al
Speaker 1: l Happy case Arnold al was the name of the actor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right from California at Marita. What was that to do
Speaker 1: with it? Nothing? Oh that was an additional fact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I mean some people might see the Karate
Speaker 1: Kid and I only know that and and keys from Japan.
Speaker 1: But he was putting on that accident. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a California dude, totally. Yeah, like laid back kind
Speaker 1: of shardonay guy. If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: Pat Morita or get in touch of this or whatever,
Speaker 1: you can send off for more info to s Y
Speaker 1: s K podcast on Twitter or on Instagram. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
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