Travelling by charter bus rental can be exciting, budget-friendly, comfortable, and convenient for visitors to explore new destinations, but sometimes, motion sickness spoils the experience when people experience motion sickness or vomiting while travelling. It happens when you feel unwell in a moving vehicle and your eyes, inner ear, and body send conflicting messages to the brain, This can cause nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, rapid breathing, sweating, and more. There are many types of motion sickness, including bus sickness, car sickness, seasickness, or airsickness, depending upon the mode of transport and there are many ways to prevent and cure the symptoms while travelling by bus, car, or other vehicle. In this blog, we discuss motion sickness on buses, give some tips and tricks to make your travel comfortable and relaxed.
What is Motion Sickness
Motion sickness is a condition that happens when you are in motion, like riding in a vehicle, or when sitting still, It occurs when your brain receives contradictory messages, such as your eyes seeing a stationary object inside a moving car while your inner ear senses motion.
Symptoms for motion sickness are dizziness, breathing, sweating, vomiting, nausea, feeling irritable, or more and does not cause major health issues, but sometimes excessive vomiting can be caused by dehydration and hypotension. Women are more effective than men and children. You can follow some tips to cure and prevent motion sickness while travelling.
Tips for preventing motion sickness without any medicine
If you feel motion sickness while travelling, you can take many steps to avoid it naturally, here we discussed the following tips that can help you to prevent motion sickness without using medicine, so no need to be afraid or feel shy about travelling, Just pack the bag, follow these tips and make your own journey reliable, smooth, enjoyable and stress-free.
1. Seat in a front-facing seat
When you plan a trip, choose the seat wisely, whether you go for a long trip or a short trip. Sometimes people can not avoid motion sickness, so they choose the front seat of the vehicle, which feels less motion compared to the back seat. The front seat of the bus experiences less motion than the back. The passenger can sit near the window seat for fresh air and have a clear view of the road ahead, which can help to align their visual and physical sense and reduce the risk of motion sickness
Below are the seating arrangements for most types of travel.
Boat: You can try to choose the middle seat of the upper deck on the boat. You can request the cabin for a seat. Avoid reading books, playing video games and watching movies and more.
Bus: You can choose the window seat. Sit horizontally, and close your eyes. Always try to buy a ticket in advance and mention a seat to avoid motion sickness.
Car: Sit in the car’s front seat and look horizontally, open the window for a better experience, and avoid heavy food, reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game.
Cruise ship: Go with a cruise ship, always book a cabin at the front or middle of the ship, choose one on the lower level and closer to the water.
Flight: add on wing section seat. When you buy a plane ticket, you ask the crew member about the seat. Avoid the screen for a better experience
Train: If you suffer from motion sickness, always choose a forward-facing window seat. Avoid oily food, eat healthy food like fresh food, snacks, and cake. Don’t use a mobile phone. laptop, video game and more for a long time,
2. Eat and drink on the Bus while experiencing motion sickness
When you suffer from motion sickness and are preparing for the long bus ride, always keep in mind that your stomach is not empty, because an empty stomach causes motion sickness. You can choose light food, heavy, greasy, and acidic food is slower to digest. You ensure that your body is always hydrated and stay refreshed during the trip.
Water: you can always keep the water bottle and hydrated body during travelling, if you are feeling sick, try some energy drink like coconut water, liquid ors, fresh orange juice and more. Avoid alcohol, caffeine and strong smells.
Ginger: Ginger is the best remedy to prevent nausea. You can feel motion in the bus, try ginger ale, ginger snaps, ginger cookies, ginger tea and more.
Cracker: crackers are light, salted, and mess-free snacks; their starch content can help settle an upset stomach.
Dry fruit: You can pack some dry fruit like fox nut, almond, pistachios, walnut and more. Some dry fruits are naturally low in calories and fat. Take these dry fruits when you feel motion.
Fresh fruit: choose fresh fruit that helps to restore nutrition depleted by vomiting and calm your stomach. You can eat some fruits that are easy to peel and not too juicy, like an apple, a banana, grapes, or oranges and more.
3. Avoid electronic devices while experiencing motion sickness
Travelling by a bus or charter bus is full of excitement and comfort. Most of the charter buses offer all the amenities like WiFi, TV and DVD player, charging outlet and an entertainment system for passengers to make your trip more relaxing and connect with family and friends, but focusing on the screen for a long time can cause motion sickness. This happens due to a sensory mismatch between the inner ear and the eye.
Smartphones and tablets: Travelers use small screens to read and scroll while riding in a car, train, and bus is a common trigger for motion sickness. When you watch the screen long time, your inner ear detects the vehicle movement, but your eyes focus on the still object, causing a sensory conflict.
Large screen and game video: Younger people and children watching a fast-paced video game, or a movie with a large screen, can cause motion sickness, so avoid the large screen for a long time.
Laptop: Using a laptop while travelling, whether you work on office work, make a presentation, check email, watch a movie, or play a video game, can cause motion sickness. If you feel motion sickness, shut down your laptop and take a rest.
Virtual reality headset: A Virtual reality headset is a type of device that blocks your view of the real world, and it replaces duplicate and moving objects, creating a high degree of sensory conflict. Your eye perceives motion, while your body remains stationary, causing nausea.
4. Stay Hydrated on the Bus
Stay hydrated while travelling by bus during a long trip, whether you’re going anywhere. Dizziness, fatigue and dry lips are signs of dehydration. Also, check the urine before boarding the bus light yellow sign for good hydration, dark or pale yellow indicates dehydration. Carry a water bottle and take a sip before you feel thirsty on the journey, and also take water-consuming fruit, like watermelon and cucumber, orange, celery and more. Avoid dehydrating drinks like alcohol and caffeine, and enjoy your trip.
Hydrated energy drink: when people plan a trip, they reach their destination, where people do many activities like hiking, biking, camping, so their bodies should be hydrated. You can take orange juice, coconut water, liquid ORS and an energy drink.
Carry a reusable water bottle: Carrying a reusable water in travelling ensures you can easily take a sip when you feel thirsty. You can use at least 3 litres of water a day for good health.
Hydrated fruit and vegetables: when you pack your bag, ensure you pack it with hydrated fruit and vegetables. There are many fruit and vegetable options available in the market to contain water, like watermelon, strawberries, peaches, cucumber, orange and celery.
5. Focus on your breathing
Travelling can be an exciting and enriching experience to explore new destinations, but some people suffer from motion sickness and breathing problems. Deep breathing is a process to reduce motion and calm your nerves. The first step is the inhalation process, and the other is exhalation. You can also use the box breathing technique.
Deep belly breathing: Deep belly breathing is a process in which people sit with their back straight. Put your first hand on your chest, and the other is your abdomen to feel your diaphragm move. Breathe slowly through your nose for a count of four, feel your abdomen rise and exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of five or six.
Box breathing: The box breathing process is the best option to use for controlling breathing problems on the bus and during travel. In this process, inhale through your nose for a count of four and hold your breath for four, exhale slowly for four, and repeat. This is called the box breathing process.
7-4-8 breathing: In this process, it is effective for those who suffer from motion sickness to take a breath through the nose for a count of four and hold for seven and exhale slowly through the mouth for a count of 8. You can easily travel without any disturbance.
Using medicine for motion sickness
Prevention is the best way to control motion sickness, but this is not always useful when you are travelling, so you can take medicine to treat motion sickness. Take advice from your physician. After consulting the physician, take medicine for motion sickness while travelling.
Some commonly used medicines
Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine): you may take medicine to prevent and treat symptoms like nausea, vomiting and dizziness. Take this medicine 30-60 minutes before travelling.
Diphenhydramine:(Benadryl) An antihistamine that prevents motion sickness and is also used for drowsiness. The best time to take it is 30-60 minutes before travelling.
Meclizine:(Bonin, Dramamine, less drowsy) This is an FDA-approved first-generation medicine used for motion sickness. A single dose is sufficient for a full day; you can take it 30-60 minutes before travelling.
Motion sickness in children
Motion sickness is common in children, young children and kids affected by motion sickness. When they travel in a car, a bus, a plane and a ship, some children and teenagers also get motion sickness when they play video games and go to an amusement park.2-12-year-old children are more prone to motion sickness. In this situation, avoid medicine and use natural remedies to prevent motion. I do not recommend taking medicine, but in case of emergency, you can give medicine after consulting a healthcare professional about the medicine and correct dosing, and only give the recommended dosage.