Car Sick

My wife drove us to our eldest daughter’s school Cultural Festival last Sunday. I like reading, so as usual I was reading a book while she drove the car. Although I was absorbed in reading, I felt sick without a warning. Yes, I was car sick. Searching my memory, I had never been car sick before. It could be because I had not had a decent sleep for a while. Anyway, I started feeling really rotten. Because I had not had it before, it is not easy to describe the condition, but I had a wicked headache and felt nauseous. It could be because of my wife’s bad driving or my reading in the car (of course she was blaming the latter) I just wanted to get out of the car as soon as possible. Luckily it only took 5 more minutes before we got to the school, by taking a bit of a break, I felt better and it did not affect me for the rest of the day. However, it was embarrassing I, who deal cars everyday, got car sick. Anyway, I could not leave it behind and checked about the condition.

According to a health magazine, in Japan, there are more cases of people between 40 and 50 years old as well as late teens getting car sick. The reasons are unknown but it said that stress might be playing a great part.

It said that no one knows why we get car sick in the first place but recent studies are showing it happens through three different stages.

Firstly, there happens a gap between the positional information our brain gets from our eyes and the information about speed and gradient we feel in the inner ears, etc. Our brain checks the gap by comparing it with any previous information, and decides it is anxiety and discomfort if we have never had it before. Then as a result, it provokes secretion of stress hormones and unusual levels of adrenaline. Finally this causes an imbalance of our auto immune system, cold sweat, short term fluctuation of blood pressure, excess saliva & slight yawns and eventually it makes us feel like throwing up.

The reason this happens more often for primary to junior high school age is that their brain takes this unexperienced body reaction as an “abnormality” and decides it is discomfort at the second stage. As we get older, we have more experience and get used to different movements, so the gap is most often cancelled and we do not get sick.

Also they found that middle to senior people with depression or early stage Meniere's disease get car sick. People with depression feel this uncomfortable situation caused by the gap in the information in their brain in the same way as when they feel stress. People with Meniere’s disease have different levels of function between their left and right ears and this also increase the level of anxiety and stress.

In my case, thanks to annual health check-ups, I do not have depression or Meniere’s disease but this time, I will listen to my wife’s earful lecture and stop reading in a car.



★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955