Why Do I Get Motion Sickness From Playing Video Games

Motion Sickness Do you get a little sick and feel dizzy headed after or during video game play? Don’t feel bad about it because many people experience this uneasy feeling.

The term commonly used for that variety of motion sickness has been called simulator sickness, and even though a few studies have tried to determine its cause, nobody is quite sure why it happens.

It doesn’t just affect gamers. A 1995 report by the U.S. Army Research Institute discovered that nearly half the military pilots who used flight simulators developed this aftereffect. Ten percent of those studied had symptoms lasting over four hours.

Simulator sickness tends to occur when there is a argument in the brain between what you’re seeing and what your inner ear says is actually happening. One theory about motion sickness is that because the area postrema portion of the brain associates the visual and balance discrepancy with hallucination. When you see things that aren’t there it is often a sign of poison in the body which is why some people vomit after riding in the back seat of a car for too long.

What will remedy this sick feeling ? You can try sitting farther away from the screen so that it doesn’t fill the majority of your field of vision. Also, repetition often helps you get over it. After enough exposure to dizzying graphical motions, your brain learns that you don’t die from poison every time you play a first-person shooter, and eventuality you may be able to play your new Halo game comfortably.

13 thoughts on “Why Do I Get Motion Sickness From Playing Video Games

  1. I get motion sickness when I play Guitar Hero 3. I believe it is because the rolling notes are coming forward while the backdrop is static. When I look away after playing, my vision blurs and I feel a little nausious.

    But I still play!

  2. The same thing happens to me. I become extremely ill and have to lie down and sleep it off. I will start to feel a little sick. If I keep playing games that moves around and bobs up and down. I will start to shake, feel like I need to vomit but can’t, the back of my head gets very tight or may have headaches.

    It did not start happening until 2004 while playing the new PacMan World on PS1. Now it happens when I try to play COD M.W. I did not know it was very common until recently after doing some research. I pray we can find some solid answers for this terrible illness/sickness or whatever it maybe.

  3. I used to get pretty sick while playing Halo, and moreso with games like Serious Sam on the XBox. But Halo on the XBox 360 doesn’t give me a problem at all. I’m starting to wonder if in my case it also has to do with frame rate, kind of like what florescent lights do to some people.

  4. I used to not get this sort of motion sickness. I have just finished playing Black Ops now and I started to feel like total crap (Feel like vomiting)

    I’m usually used to Fast paced games like Black Ops. Maybe it’s because of what I ate for dinner? 🙁

  5. Repetition has only SLIGHTLY helped me. I still can’t play for too long or else I get horribly ill, for 4 hours, and I vomit like crazy and feel really bad. I just played Dark souls for too long, about 2 hours straight, and it’s getting kind of late, and I got hit with a really powerful dizzy spell; it is still lingering. And I got hot and started sweating and felt like throwing up. I’m going to take a cool shower. I HATE this.

  6. i felt dizzy and my eyes felt really funny. after i played one of my psp games. i had that feeling like i wanted to puke

    thats why i avoid video games

  7. I use to play on a small TV with my ps2 as 1st person. Until this 2011 black friday bought me a ps3 and battlefield 3 and I had a size medium old TV, I started to get dizziness,little sweating, headache, lightly pain on the eyes and the feeling of vomiting. I think the reason why we get this feeling is because we dont move our eyes as much. We use the controller as a camera to seek stuff or enemies like in the roof tops on war games. Is not the same being in the war moving your head up and down or left to right and eyes looking around. Than just having your head still on the TV screen and moving the left stick and right stick. I think I ma put my small TV again let see if that help’s :/. Let yall know soon or unless someone did please post.

  8. This only happens to me when I’m playing open adventure games like, GTA, Just Cause, or Batman ARKHAM CITY. It happens when like your given a objective and I can’t figure out what to do so I just walk around in the game tryna figure it out and eventually I get that feelings, sucks so bad. but when im playin fps games or fighting games it doesnt happen because theres action happening everytime and nothing to figure out.

  9. I just got Dying light for PC…. i turned it on… watched the intro video and introduction…within 5 minutes of just merely walking around, i started feeling really dizzy and lightheaded. Right now, 5 minutes later it seems to be stopping slowly but the nauseous feeling is still there. I don’t understand what could cause this, it’s only certain games? Halo, Outlast, Dying light seem to be the only ones so far. Black ops and MW is fine. So is guitar hero? so why is it only those games? Does the refresh rate have anything to do with it? Perhaps the quality of the games? I’m not so sure… But this does sound plausible.

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