Acupressure for Nausea and Motion Sickness

When I was little, I would get horribly horribly motion sick in cars.  On long road trips with my family I'd pop a Dramamine and pass out in the backseat, but on school trips it was a problem.  As I'm sure you remember, at ten years old there is only one place that is socially acceptable seating on a school bus, and it is the very back row.  This is also haaaands down the most bumpy part of the bus to sit in.

As an adult I may value being comfortable over being "cool" but as a sixth grader I certainly did not, so I spent the vast majority of field trip time pretty uncomfortable.

One particularly rough bus ride, no doubt on a very bumpy Vermont dirt road, one of the chaperones saw green faced little me in the back seat and took pity. She gave me these blue elastic wrist bands with a little plastic ball that she swore were the only thing that helped for her motion sickness.  These wrist bands were decidedly not "cool," but I was way too sick to care, so I tried them. Surprisingly, they worked!  Within a few minutes I was feeling better and back to playing MASH and making fortune tellers with my friends.

I had no idea at the time, but the little plastic ball in the wrist bands was putting pressure at an acupuncture point we call Pericardium-6.  This point is the #1 point used for nausea and motion sickness, and is very easy to find on yourself and press if you're feeling a little queasy.

To quickly find it, start by looking at the inside of your forearm, and measure up from your wrist using the width of your index and middle finger of the opposite hand. Poke around a little and you should feel two hard tendons running along the length of your arm (if you need help finding them, flex your hand up and they should pop right out) the acupuncture point is nestled right in between them.

Just give it a little pressure, and feel your nausea start to slowly go away!