by Ray Fauteux

Created on: November 29, 2010

There is a very important reason why the middle of the plane or "over the wings" is the best place for passengers prone to air sickness to try and reserve a seat for their flight.

Motion sickness is often caused by how key components of the body perceive motion and what messages are passed on to the central nervous system. There is a direct correlation between our sense of balance and that queasiness we feel in the pit of our stomachs when our flight encounters turbulence.

There are many parts of our nervous system that play a role in our balance and they work together as one to keep that balance in perfect harmony.

-It's actually our inner ear that keeps track of the motion around us. Motions like up and down, one side to another, and backwards and forwards.

-Our eyes constantly observe where our body is in space and monitor if we are right side up or upside down and at the same time tracks the directions of motion.

-Pressure on our skin through receptors like the ones in our feet play a role and sense when our body is touching the ground, and the sensory receptors in our muscles automatically record what parts of our body are moving.


OUR NERVOUS SYSTEM OVERSEES EVERYTHING


It's up to the nervous system to decipher all the information coming in from the other systems and somehow make sense of it all.

The problem is, motion sickness is caused when the receptors in our eyes, muscles, inner ear, and skin send a mixed message to our central nervous system.

So if you are sitting in a plane during a storm and it's getting tossed around by turbulence, your eyes can't make sense of the motion because all you can see is the inside of the plane.

All of a sudden your brain is getting a series of messages that are all garbled and don't seem to make any sense and the result can be air sickness.

With all these intricate parts of our body recording information that keeps us in proper balance, it's important that our central nervous system  is getting the right message.


WHY CHOOSING THE RIGHT SEAT WILL HELP

Extensive research and studies have proved that the best place to be sitting in a passenger plane in the event of turbulence is over the wing.

The wing provides more stability than the nose or tail sections of the plane and it's to the flier's advantage to keep outside movement to a minimum by sitting in the part of the plane most resistant to that motion.

This in turn will give the nervous system a better opportunity to receive the proper message that in turn will keep your body in proper balance.

This is far more desirable than a garbled message caused when the parts of the body responsible for recording information are confused, and this is more likely to happen if you are sitting in the rear of a plane where the effects of turbulence are the worst.  


It's the same thing that happens when people get car sick from reading a book while traveling. The inner ears might detect the motion, but because the eyes are concentrating on the pages of the book, car sickness can result.

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