Surely it has happened to you, you get into a car and suddenly everything starts spinning and spinning and you end up with a plastic bag in your hand throwing up even your first baby food. Do not worry, it is more common than you think, and yes, it ruins all trips. It does not matter if you are a child or an adult, it is something that comes without warning and is a real nightmare, especially on long trips… But we bring you one of the easiest tricks to avoid motion sickness, and you do not need strange pills, or covering your belly button, or a coin in your shoe or a tennis ball on the hook at the back of your car (how many things have we tried to avoid this embarrassing situation?). Music. That is right, listening to music, according to scientists, reduces motion sickness symptoms by up to 50% when you are in a car.
Based on scientific facts
Yes, it was a trial and it was carried out with 30 people in a driving simulator that was designed to cause motion sickness in a controlled way, while the volunteers began to feel sick, the researchers analyzed their brain activity through a 64 channel electroencephalography (EEG), and at the same time they were able to measure what was happening in the brains of these participants.
What did the music do?
Of course, they tested different types of music and each of them offered different results:
- Cheerful (or soft) music: 57% fewer symptoms
- Passionate music: 48.3% improvement
- Sad music: barely relieved 40%, even less than the group that had no music (which improved 43.3% naturally)
Is it the music that makes the sickness go away?
The scientists confirmed that the occipital area (the one in charge of processing vision) was the most important area in the brain in this case, when the music managed to calm the symptoms, the alpha waves (relaxation) increased, in other words, the brain responded differently.
On the other hand, they confirmed that sad music worsened the situation because it made the individual focus attention on the negative sensations.
Artificial intelligence here too
The researchers used a neural network model with which they classified the levels of motion sickness with 85.6% accuracy, confirming that the effect of the music eliminated motion sickness.
Of course, this type of research means that in the future playlists could be adjusted in real time to improve trips (but no, no one is going to make you remove Beyoncé when you are on the highway if you do not want to!!)
Tricks for daily life
Of course this study is not only useful when you are in the car and getting sick, it is also useful for daily life, those more complicated days or when it seems that everything is going wrong could be solved only with a little relaxation music, safe, easy and above all cheap!
A natural remedy
And it is not that you have to stop medication if you are not able to get into a vehicle or a train, only that you could try because it is another tool that is available to anyone. Above all to stop going through that bad moment that is knowing that you cannot handle motion sickness and there is still a while of travel left. You know, prepare a good playlist with cheerful and relaxing music, and next time you get into a car you will not need an extra bag or stop in the middle of the shoulder!