Front or back of plane?

Window or center?

presuming the engines on the wings,directly over the wings. most planes pivot about the engine/wing axis. the tail on some of the planes wag a lot. the nose moves more than the wing section.

Cockpit.

Sit where the wings are. That's the most stable and strongest part of the plane.

I've not noticed any difference between aft or forward seating on a plane. What gets most PAX is the turbulence, and that's going to be plane-wide of course. Perhaps sitting directly over the wings does help as others have suggested, but I'd suspect not by much.
Most OTC motion sickness only serves to make you drowsy, as well as nauseous.

Have you tried Ginger? This is what the Romans used to feed their Navy (or Roman soldiers that were subjected to crossing large bodies of water - Navy is probably very kind term) to combat sea sickness. It works. At least it works for me. I eat some ginger (supplements work too) and I'm fine. Have not had a bout of air sickness in a long time. I used to take it when I went glider flying with a friend whom was into crazy aerobatic non-powered flying. After about 10 hammerheads and 30 wing-overs, I would lose my lunch, unless I ate Ginger.

I am prone to sea sickness in big waves, and Ginger really does help me.

Just a though.

Middle seat middle of the plane (over the wings). The wings are the fulcrum.

exactly!, but take meds also....

Aisle seats right over the wing. Less motion relative the rest of the aircraft, near the center of gravity.

Also, lift your feet off the floor during tubulence, keep your eyes closed, and your head straight. And take anti motionsickness meds.

All that should get your stomach to your destination with it's full contents still inside.

I always turn my head to the side in turbulence. My theory is that the body is used to up-down (bumps) and fore-aft (gas/brake) forces from driving in cars, but side-to-side or yawing motions are what is out of the ordinary and make me ill.

By turning my head to the side, the side-to-side of my head would have to be acceleration/deceleration of the plane, which typically isn't what happens in turbulence. The up-down is still there, but the plane yawing turns into front-back acceleration to my ear canals, where this motion is sensed, which isn't a problem.

Whether that theory is correct or not, it certainly works for me. I turn my head 90 degrees to the side and the turbulence sensation is immediately reduced, and motion sickness sets in much more slowly.

I've heard both front and middle for the least turbulence, and a search of the google turns up an equal number of both answers. If the wings are at the center of pressure, up-down turbulence should displace all seats the same, assuming a rigid body. With some flexibility, I can see both ends displacing more than the center. Turbulence causing the vertical stabilizer to move would cause more yaw front and rear than the center. And turbulence causing the horizontal stabilizer to move could either cause movements at both ends or cause the most movement at the rear and the least at the front.

Either way, the rear is bad.

Hi guys, my mother and I both get motion sickness very easily. Mine is so bad that I actually got a bit of motion sickness as a kid in the theatre watching The Empire Strikes Back. (The scene where Luke Skywalker is flying over the snow on ice planet Hoth.) My father was a physician, so I tried stuff. I'll tell you what I know, but of course, YMMV!

1) Look out the window. Look at the horizon. (This also works on a boat if you get seasick.) As my father said to me driving home from The Empire Strikes Back, the problem is that your eyes and the seat of your pants are telling you two different things.

2) Eat a little, but don't eat a lot. This helps more than you may think.

3) During takeoff, yeah, sitting over the wings is noticeably better than the front. When the plane rotates, sitting in the front really makes my stomach sink. As mentioned above, once in the air, everything shakes the same.

4)Ginger ale does work, but it isn't a miracle. The funny think is that the air sickness websites often say ginger ale doesn't work because it isn't made with real ginger, but where I live, Canada Dry runs ads stating "made with real ginger." WN FA immediately gave me a can of ginger ale when I said I wasn't feeling well. United did not.

5) OTC medicines (aka Dramamine) do work, but they take a while to kick in. (Don't wait until you feel bad to take one.) Again, WN gave me a package of Dramamine, UA did not.

In a pinch, e.g.- in an airport that Dramamine isn't sold (I've never found it in LAS) buy the "makes you drowsy" allergy medicine (aka Benedryl). It doesn't work as well as Dramamine, but it does work somewhat. This is in fact how motion sickness medicine was discovered: people taking allergy medicine didn't get seasick.

AFAIK, the newer non-drowsy allergy medicine (aka Claritin) has no affect on motion sickness.

Your doctor should be more than happy to prescribe you Compazine. I've used it for decades, and it really works. I don't leave home without it. (In fact, the time I flew WN and got the dramamine and ginger ale, I had stupidly packed my Compazine in my pullman, then checked the pullman.)

If you do throw up after you've taken medicine, remember that the medicine just got thrown up too, so you ought to take some more.

Be very careful about taking more medication if this happens. You could easily take more than you expect.

I find it noisiest over the wings

Sitting just forward of the wings, about level with the front of the engines can minimise both the engine noise and the aircraft movement to a good balance.

Motion sickness happens because your brain receives 3 different sets of information that in NORMAL circumstances (like walking down the street or sitting in a chair at home) match with each other, but in things that move get out of synch with each other. The brain assumes the conflict in information is the result of a toxin, and initiates the vomitting response in an attempt to purge itself of the toxin.

The 3 sets of information come from:
1: The ears. (vestibular balance, spacial orientation, sense of motion)
2: Skeletal muscle (the body position, telling the brain what the body is doing)
3: The eyes (giving the brain visual cues to cross check the information of the ears, anticipation of expected motion on the horizon, distance reference points)


The way to reduce motion sickness is therefore to reduce the amount of disparity in the information the brain gets.

1: Close your eyes. In planes your ears tell your brain you are moving quite a lot, but you are not moving relative to everyone and everything ELSE in the plane. You may feel a huge drop during turbulence, but your eyes don't see it. They see the seatback and the ceiling in the same place as before. ."uh oh" says the brain "something doesn't match up". By closing your eyes, you eliminate 1/3rd of the bad information, and therefore 1/3rs of the problem. This significantly slows the progression of motion sickness.

2: Lift your feet of the floor during turbulence. Your body senses that it is sitting in a seat and not moving much at all. Your eyes also sense that you are relatively still, but your ears are telling your brain that you are all over the place. Lifting your feet off the floor reduces the contact points your skeletal muscle senses have with the aircraft. This actually brings the information your body is giving your brain into closer sync with the information your ears are. The body then has some info telling the brain that it is not infact still or on the ground.

3: Drugs. The chain reaction that the conflicting information sets off can be dulled with drugs that block receptors in the vastigial nerve and the vomitting center of the brain. Therefore, even if the brain is getting bad information, the cascade of neurological events that lead to being sick, or even of feeling sick, are blocked or slowed down. Dipenhydramine (dramamine, gravol) works well, but you need to take it BEFORE you feel sick. 1/2 hour before the flight. Expect to be groggy. Dimenhydrinate (Benadryl) also works well. Meclazine (non-drowsy Dramamine) can work with 100% effectiveness when it works, but only works 50% of the time, even in the same person. Scopalomine is an perscription drug you can get as a patch, pill, or transdermal gel. It is very effective compared to OTC drugs. No drowsyness but it can make you feel weird. Ginger also works, but you need the real stuff. The stuff that burns! Ginger tends to be better for nausea caused by actual toxins or illness, but it reduces motion related nausea a little. Most ginger ale does not actually contain any real ginger.

4: Psychology. Studies have shown that motion sickness is frequently psychogenic, that is, thinking about it can make it worse and speed up the horrific results of motion sickness. Worrying about it can cause it. Probably because anxiety causes a whole smorgasbord of GABA activity, another thing the brain takes as evidence of a toxin. Anti-anxiety drugs have a measurable impact on motion sickness, particularly Lorazepam which is sometimes used as an anti-seizure and anti-emetic drug.

Relax, take a few drugs, keep your eyes closed, sit in the middle over the wings, and you will be fine even in extreme turbulence

I have to take Meclizine to avoid motion sickness when flying. I take it around an hour before we take off so that it is working on time. I cannot take Dramamine or Benadryl (same ingredient) because they stimulate me.

Meclizine doesn't make me sleepy, but can dry you out, so be certain to drink a lot of fluids.

I would try any medications in advance of your trip to be certain of potential side effects.