3D motion Sickness
How Vision Therapy Can Help
Reduce Your Symptoms
3D motion sickness is motion sickness that people experience while watching 3D movies. In this article, we’ll talk about what 3D motion sickness is, the symptoms it causes, and how Vision Therapy can help reduce the symptoms.
Motion sickness happens because your brain acts like a middleman between your vestibular system and what your eyes see. The vestibular system is located in your inner ear, and it constantly sends signals to maintain your balance. This is what keeps you from losing orientation while doing normal activities. When there is a disconnect between what your eyes see and the vestibular system, you may experience nausea and dizziness. Your brain gets confused as the image that is physically far away appears to be much closer, and the brain induces vomiting in an attempt to eliminate what it believes is the influence of a toxin in your body.
Simulation sickness is a type of motion sickness that is most like 3D motion sickness.
Some people experience simulation sickness from playing video games, especially those with 3D graphics.
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Other symptoms of motion sickness include cold sweats, dizziness, and headaches. You can reduce these symptoms with Vision Therapy exercises. These exercises involve tracking, visual alignment, focusing, and processing changes in position and movement.
What to do to prevent 3D Motion Sickness
- According to a recent article, if you feel like you are getting 3D motion sickness, close one eye. This nullifies the disconnect going on in your brain. You can also try closing both eyes for a short period of time. If you are watching a 3D movie at home, simply take a short break from the movie. You can come back to it later.
- Another strategy is sitting as far back in the theater (away from the screen) and as close to the center of the screen as possible.
- Do not take the 3D glasses off. That will only make things worse. Doing so will have you looking at an image overlapped incongruently on another image.
- Keep your gaze on the part of the screen that is in focus. Try not to allow your eyes to wonder to out-of-focus, background areas of the screen.
- If you experience eye discomfort due to an eye muscle imbalance, the issue is one of depth perception. See a Behavioral Optometrist for help with Vision Therapy.
Do you experience headaches, dizziness, nausea, blurred vision or double vision when watching a 3D movie?
When visual motion causes motion sickness, vision therapy can alleviate the symptoms. Vision therapy provides repetitive tasks that train your eyes to work properly. This therapy will gradually desensitize people who are motion-sensitive.
According to the American Optometric Association, you may be part of the 16% of people affected by 3D vision syndrome. This is caused by common binocular vision problems like amblyopia (lazy eye), strabismus (eye turns), convergence insufficiency, and convergence excess.
Relief is possible with the right diagnosis and treatment. You may be a candidate for Vision Therapy. 3D vision therapy can also improve near vision tasks like using the computer and reading, driving a car, riding a bicycle or sports performance.
Like some people get car sickness or sea sickness, others get 3D sickness. If you are one of those who experience 3D motion sickness, following the tips in this article should help.