why do we feel sick on rollercoasters

Question: why do we feel sick on rollercoasters
- Keywords:
  health,
  motion
Asked by anon-375969 on 23 Nov 2023.
- Octavia Brayley answered on 23 Nov 2023:
  
  Great question! The movement of rollercoasters and other things like cars and planes can cause motion sickness. Motion sickness happens when the movement you see is different from what your inner ear senses. Your brain receives signals from motion-sensing parts of your body: your eyes, inner ears, muscles, and joints. When these parts send conflicting information, your brain doesn’t know whether you’re stationary or moving. Your brain’s confused reaction makes you feel sick. For example, when riding in a car, your:
  
  Eyes see trees passing by and register movement.
  Inner ears sense movement.
  Muscles and joints sense that your body is sitting still.
  Brain senses a disconnect among these messages.
  
  Here’s a video to watch:
- Ian McKinley answered on 23 Nov 2023:
  
  Octavia has explained why you may feel sick but, of course, many people don’t. In some cases it is just natural, but other simply get used to it if they encounter a lot of motion (e.g. sailors of fighter pilots). If you suffer from it badly, some medicines can help – or just stay away from rollercoasters!
- Jonathan Allen answered on 24 Nov 2023:
  
  Great answers. One thing you may find help if you feel sick on rollercoasters is to close your eyes or look at something in the carriage that is moving similar to you – this stops the brain getting confused, although can take some of the fun out of it! I used to fly aeroplanes and did aerobatics where the aeroplanes spin round in all directions – that used to give me motion sickness sometimes but there were lessons where I had to just look at the instruments in the cockpit rather than outside and I didn’t even feel the motion of the aeroplane so didn’t get sick. That’s a lot like a rollercoaster.
- Andrew Lyon answered on 30 Nov 2023:
  
  A great answer from Octavia, that’s why some people also get it from video games because sometimes our brains gets confused when the inner-ear senses tells the brain that we are sat still but our eyes tell the brain that we are moving