What Is Motion Sickness?

Motion sickness occurs when the signals from your eyes, inner ears, and body send conflicting information to the brain. Your eyes may sense movement, but your muscles and joints do not. This mismatch can trigger a wave of dizziness, nausea, or lightheadedness.

While motion sickness is most common in cars, planes, and boats, it can also happen after exercise on a treadmill, stepping off a cruise ship, or even sitting in virtual reality environments. For those in Rancho Santa Fe’s active, travel-heavy community, these symptoms can make everything from leisure activities to work travel unnecessarily stressful.

Common Symptoms of Motion Sickness

Motion sickness affects people of all ages, but it’s more frequent in children and women.

Symptoms can vary from person to person, but the most common include:

• Dizziness and lightheadedness
• Nausea or vomiting
• Difficulty maintaining balance
• Cold sweats and clammy skin
  
• Fatigue or shallow breathing
  
• Headaches and loss of appetite
  
• Increased saliva production
  

For some, these symptoms pass quickly. But when motion sickness becomes chronic, the need for advanced treatment becomes clear.

Standard Treatments for Motion Sickness

Traditional solutions often include:

• Over-the-counter medications such as Dramamine
• Prescription medications like Maldemar
• Natural remedies like ginger or peppermint

While these methods can help, they are often temporary fixes and may come with unwanted side effects such as drowsiness or digestive upset. At True Performance RSF, we provide solutions that go beyond symptom relief — we aim for long-term neurological retraining.

Advanced Motion Sickness Treatment in Rancho Santa Fe

Our clinicians use cutting-edge, non-invasive therapies designed to rewire the brain’s response to sensory conflict and restore balance in the nervous system.

Options include:

• Neurofeedback Therapy – retrains brainwave patterns to regulate sensory responses and reduce dizziness and nausea.
• Acupuncture – a proven therapy for calming nausea, reducing stress, and restoring internal balance.
• GyroStim Vestibular Training – an advanced system that challenges and retrains the vestibular system, improving coordination and motion tolerance over time.

By combining these therapies, we help patients not just manage symptoms but retrain the brain to respond differently — reducing future flare-ups of motion sickness.