Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Cure for Seasickness

Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay

Ever been to sea?

If you have, you just might have experienced a bout of seasickness. For landlubbers, the first time on a boat that is rolling and pitching on the waves can produce feelings of nausea.

Why is this?

The problem is a disconnect between the messages your eyes and your inner ear are giving your brain. If you’re in an enclosed space on a boat, your eyes tell you that you’re standing on level ground. The fluids swishing around in your inner ear, however, tell a different story: that you’re being tossed to and fro. It’s the contradictions between these messages that produces the sensation of seasickness.

So what’s the solution?

A time-tested remedy for seasickness is to get up on deck and look at the horizon: it’s the only thing that isn’t moving when the boat you’re aboard encounters heavy seas.

Looking at a fixed target gives your eyes a stationary point of reference, allowing your brain to reconcile this information with the motions your inner ear is reporting. Once you can see what “level” is, your brain can more easily deal with the feeling of movement from your inner ear.

And this isn’t just an old-wives’ tale: scientific studies have backed up the idea that staring at the horizon actually does make you feel steadier while at sea.

But what if you’re on dry land and feel “seasick” with the turbulence in your life?

What if it feels like the challenges in your life have put you in heavy, roiling seas, and you can barely tell up from down?

The same advice applies: focus on a fixed point, something that can be relied upon not to change.

For believers, that thing is Jesus.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Trust Your Instruments

Photo by Thomas Fengler on Pixabay

It’s usually safe to rely on our senses, but sometimes they can play tricks on us.

Especially if you’re flying a plane.

Pilots sometimes get into trouble with something called “spatial disorientation.” If they’re flying at night or in poor weather, they’re unable to see the horizon through the cockpit’s windshield. Without these visual cues, they may fall back on their other senses, but this can be a big mistake.

A pilot’s non-visual sensations, such as signals from their inner ear, may not respond truthfully during flight. Without visual inputs to override these mistaken feelings, a pilot may believe he or she is flying level when they may actually be in a bank, or gradually ascending or descending.

If a pilot isn’t proficient in the use of flight instruments, errors can pile up until the pilot loses control of the aircraft, entering a steep, diving turn known as the graveyard spiral. The pilot remains unaware of what’s happening until it’s too late to recover control, and the aircraft breaks apart or crashes.

In fact, it’s believed that spatial disorientation is what led to the fatal crash in 1999 of the plane piloted by John F. Kennedy, Jr. Flying at night over water, the visual landmarks he might have relied on were absent. Kennedy was certified for visual flight rules, but had not yet received his full training for instrument-only flying. His instruments would have told him that he was heading on a collision course with the water, but tragically, he trusted his non-visual sensations until it was too late.

We as believers can get into the same sort of trouble when we trust our feelings instead of what the word of God says.

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