I get lightheaded and get a headache when reading books or watching movies in the car, but not in a plane. Explain like I’m five please.
In: Biology
You can say that we get motion sickness when our body and eyes disagree on something. When you are in a car, your body is moving around, accelerating, slowing down, turning etc. when you are looking out of the window, your eyes see the turns, when you are slowing down, when you are going to move faster. If you are looking down at a book your eyes are focused reading, while your body is experiencing shifts. This makes our brain confused, trying to figure out what is happening, since our eyes are still but our body is kinda all over the place.
In an airplane, the course is usually straight with very little turns and accelerating/slowing down. You are also prohibited from seeing a lot, and are often above the clouds which limits your view. Your eyes are thus limited to what your body feels, and often it isn’t very much. You can compare it to how we get a sort of relief from motion sickness if we close our eyes.
How do you know that you are moving? Usually, it is with your eyes. But there is also a system in your ears which helps you feel the balance.
When this balance system in your ears is disturbed, you lose balance. One example is, when your head is hit hard, not only does the supply of blood to your brain momentarily blocked, but the balance system in your ear is stunned, and you lose your balance or just faint. In fact, even when your brain has come back on, you may have wobbly legs, and that’s because of the ear’s balance system still recovering.
In a car, the peripheral vision tells your brain that there is movement due to the trees and buildings racing past. But your ears are not registering much movement because the head is still. The resulting confusion to your brain is what comes out as eyeaches and nausea.
On an airplane, the scenery does not move fast outside the window, so your eyes and ears do not provide contradictory information. So the brain does not get confused.
If the car were to move very very slowly and smoothly, you won’t have the trouble. And also, if you watch a video with lot of movement, while you are sitting, so your ear provides contradictory information to your eyes, you get dizzy. If you were running, and the head was moving hard, your eyes and ears provide similar info and you don’t feel dizzy.
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