The feature story, “The search for an effective cure for motion sickness,” from the BBC’s Future column looks into various theories on this subject, quoting School of Kinesiology professor, Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D.

Stoffregen, who directs Affordance Perception- Action Laboratory, researches ”postural instability” theory, which states that people experience nausea in situations where they have not yet learned to maintain a stable posture. This theory contrasts with previous lines of research indicating that motion sickness occurs due to mixed messages between various human systems, i.e., the inner vestibular system (inner ears), the visual system, and the proprioceptive system(body awareness / sixth sense).

As for a cure? Stoffregen suggests that to control motion sickness you have to “learn new ways to control the body to cope with the fact that the ‘ground’ is moving underneath you.”