This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams. It ran as âLer, viajar e ⌠enjoarâ on October 14, 2007.
Reading while moving (plane, train, bus and so on) is a challenge for many people, me included. So how do I decide to talk about books and travel when reading just the title of the book, while the landscape outside is monotonous, is enough to make things start spinning?
Don’t ask me, I’m still looking for a solution.
There are plenty of seasick people on this boat, so there are plenty of popular solutions. The SchĂźrmann family have a few, and they describe spotting it early. If somebody on board goes pale and starts yawning, they’re a candidate, and the first thing is to get them lying down somewhere with air moving. Relaxing and sleeping helps a lot, and so does something cold on the head and the back of the neck.
Advanced techniques
Specialists have analyzed this problem, but unfortunately they brought nothing new. They forgot to analyze the DNA of the people who have the gift of mobile reading. Or is it that the seasick brain is very small and rattles around in an abnormal amount of empty space?
Either way, I went looking to fill that emptiness with tips from experienced sufferers across the sea of the internet:
- Heat makes it worse. Better to be cold than to be in trouble. (Confirmed, seems to work.)
- Sound in your ear, preferably very loud. (Maybe the loud sound affects the balance organs in the ear, but since I missed that biology class, this may be another one of those blogger facts.)
- Talking sometimes helps, though your stomach may also want to join the conversation.
- Avoid the drama, Dramin straight in. (Is it worth trading a queasy trip for a drugged sleep?)
- After many hours of imbalance the body gets used to it. (Agreed. Twenty hours into a bus journey I ventured into reading, and it was an unforgettable day.)
And you navigators who have disembarked here, do you know any popular strategies or folk remedies for this affliction?
You’d be doing traveling humanity a favor.