Why travel sickness has become an unexpected side-effect of lockdown

After a year spent at home, the commute is leaving people feeling queasy.

As the country gradually reopens and we return, sometimes reluctantly, to offices, trains and the tube, anecdotal reports suggest an increasing number of people are experiencing travel sickness – many for the first time.

“Twice I’ve got a taxi to my boyfriend’s and he’s had to meet me outside with a bucket to be sick in,” says Rose Stokes, who is based in London. “I’ve started avoiding the bus and taxis wherever possible – it’s been a real problem.” Stokes had experienced travel sickness before but it has significantly worsened post-lockdown.

“I basically haven’t taken a bus or train in over a year. I took the train for the first time to London for work and felt really really sick – something that I've never experienced before,” says Anna Codrea-Rado, who is based in Buckinghamshire. “I’ve only been on a train a couple of times since and the same thing has happened, but I’m hoping it will improve.”

Codrea-Rado posted on social media about her experience of post-lockdown travel sickness and it struck a chord. “I recently started taking trains again after not taking them at all during the lockdowns and I feel so sick, even on the tube,” she tweeted, and dozens of people responded saying they had experienced something similar on trains, buses and in taxis.

“It’s almost like my stomach has forgotten about movement,” says Harriet Marsden, who is London-based but regularly travels across the country for work. “I’ve always been prone to [travel sickness] but I more or less had it under control, especially with public transport in London, which didn't bother me at all. Since lockdown my motion sickness has increased dramatically – when I first started taking cars and buses again it was almost impossible.”

Motion sickness is caused by a “mismatch” of sensory signals going to your brain, says Professor Diego Kaski of the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. This sensory mismatch causes nausea and vomiting, although the exact physiological reason for this is unknown. “The brain tries to integrate information from your senses to create a coherent perception,” Prof Kaski says. “If you’re travelling in a car, you’re in constant velocity. The signal from the inner ear is saying that you’re not moving, as you’re moving at a constant speed and it only detects acceleration. But your vision is saying the opposite… You get erroneous signals.”

Motion sickness has existed for as long as humans have travelled – over 2,000 years ago the Greek physician Hippocrates wrote, “sailing on the sea proves that motion disorders the body”. Travel sickness is nothing new – so why has it increased markedly with lockdown coming to an end? “An educated guess would be that we have been a bit desensitised to these signals through lack of exposure to them,” says Prof Kaski. “I suspect that’s the major driver towards increased motion sickness. We’ve been exposing ourselves a lot less to complex visual environments and therefore we have not habituated as much as we used to. Instead of being a true physiological consequence of lockdown, I would say it’s more down to lack of exposure.”

Professor John Golding of the University of Westminster agrees. “Peak susceptibility for motion sickness is nine years old, and then it goes down in teenage years and adulthood – you get used to different transport environments and habituate. In lockdown, some people haven’t been exposed to any substantial motion from a car or bus for six months to a year and they’ve gradually lost their adaptation.” The good news? It’s easy for your body to rehabituate. “On exposure that should get better quite quickly,” says Prof Golding.

At the same time, post-lockdown travel sickness could be a psychological phenomenon brought on by the stress of being on busy public transport after a year at home. Stokes believes her case of severe travel sickness is partly down to stress and feelings of agoraphobia. “There’s a psychological element to it – if you’re stressed by your first journey back to work, you’re primed for these unpleasant physical sensations,” says Prof Kaski. This “psychological priming” makes you more sensitive to travel sickness.

This should similarly improve with time (and more travel). In the meantime, sitting in the front rather than the back of a car or bus will also help reduce motion. Ginger, which can be taken as a supplement or tea, has been proven to help reduce nausea in pregnancy and as recommended as a possible treatment for motion sickness on the NHS website, although its efficacy has not been proven.

“The lack of travel for a few months has made people temporarily lose their exposure, but it will come back,” says Prof Golding. “If anyone is very worried about travel sickness, they should see their GP.”