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Boats, Planes and Adrenal Fatigue

If you are suffering from chronic stress and adrenal fatigue, it may be wise to avoid boats or cruises.

Long flights can also cause problems, especially with multiple connections.

Don't assume that because you have not yet had a problem on boats that you are not prone.

Total exposure is a factor. It seems to be related to Pavlovian Fear Conditioning, and those with adrenal fatigue seem to be more prone to fear conditioning.

This article covers what Mal de debarquement is, and why you may be prone to it.

I thought I had seen it all .... but I just learned about another problem with chronic stress.

What is Mal de debarquement?

When you are exposed to prolonged motion, such as on a boat, your nervous system adapts to the movement and expects the bobbing and rocking of the boat.

For some people, their brain takes a while to forget about this boat environment. So they feel like they are still on the boat.

There is short term Mal de debarquement (MDD) ..... and long term Mal de debarquement Syndrome (MDDS).

You feel the swaying and bobbing ...while sitting on dry land. It can almost feel like you are drunk the way your head spins.

Key symptoms of MdDS include:

• Swaying, bobbing, rocking feeling.
• Trouble maintaining balance, dizzy
• Headaches
• Extreme fatigue.

In addition to the rocking feeling, I had the headaches and fatigue. The headaches and fatigue were different than normal adrenal fatigue symptoms.

Adrenal Fatigue exhaustion tends to feel like your body is tired, but your mind is still racing. i.e. you just lay in bed , but can't sleep. MdDS fatigue is more mental fatigue. Everytime I sat down, I was falling asleep. I've had both types ... and this was different.

In the long term version (MdDS), people can take years to recover.

People need to stop working, and they cannot even concentrate to read a book.

I had these symptoms during the summer of 2015. It didn't take long to connect it to chronic stress.

Quotes from Travel Site

Here are a few quotes a travel web-site, so you can get a sense of just how debilitating MdDS is.

  I have had mdds for 5 years now. It is life altering and takes a lot of courage to be able to cope with it on a daily basis. I only feel better when I am travelling in the car. I noticed feeling like this when I last went on holiday to Ibiza 5 years ago. I floated on a lilo in the sea and the next day noticed that I was still moving and have felt like this ever since. Some days are not as bad as others but driving at 40mph everywhere has helped with the swaying sensation on getting out of the car.²

  I am so happy that you posted the information about MdDS and am very happy to see all the responses coming in. For those we get over this syndrome quickly, you are lucky. But there are thousands of us for whom it does not go away. I have lived nearly 3 years with constant rocking, bobbing and swaying; fatigue, and the list goes on. It is not soothing, nor fun. Trying to sleep at night is hell. Please do not look at this disorder lightly. It is a life-altering disorder. ²

  I went on a cruise for the first time for 7 days. Never had sea sickness in my entire life but as soon as I got off the boat on day 5 I noticed I couldn't walk straight. I just wanted to get back on the boat. Once we got home I had it for an entire month. I remember how miserable it was. It was hard to get any work done and I was so tired when I got home from work everyday that I went straight to bed after dinner.²

  I first experienced this awful syndrome after a trip to the South Pacific in 2004. It lasted for 6 weeks! I went to Amsterdamto last Friday (40 minute flight) and am still (almost a week later) "flying" I also experience this feeling after being in an elevator. It can last anywhere between a couple of hours and a couple of months. It's absolutely unbearable!!! I pray that someone could make it stop!!!²

The following Article in The Star newspaper has additional stories of people suffering with MdDS.

My Experience

• The worst symptoms I have experienced

In 2015, I bought an old sailboat. My second weekend with the boat, I spent 5 hours on the boat.

That evening, while sitting at my desk, I felt swaying and rocking as if I was on a boat.

I also had a hard time walking in a straight line. It was also very difficult to concentrate on reading. I could not focus on a book, or my laptop screen.

The next morning, I just about hit the ceiling when my alarm clock went off. That has not happened for several years.

My startle reflex was exagerated again. This was the first clue that possibly the boat movement is some sort of stressor.

It seemed to instantaneously undo years of meditation. I had not been jumpy for several years.

With a bit of research, I was able to connect it to chronic stress.

Demographics

• 80% to 90% women, just like Adrenal Fatigue

The second thing that I noticed was the demographics of Mal de debarquement. They seem to be exactly the same as adrenal fatigue.

Surveys conducted by the MdDS Foundation have found that approximately 90% of sufferers are women.⁴

Several surveys on this site have shown that 80-90% of visitors to this adrenal fatigue site are women. The pie chart shows the results of a survey of 98 site visitors .....84.7% women.

And Google reports to me that it thinks about 80% of my site visitors are woman, based on other things you search for (I know, it's creepy).

My suspicion that chronic stress is the root cause of MdDS was increasing.

Stress Connection

A 2009 article reviewed treatment options¹. The most effective treatments for MdDS were things that calm the nervous system:

• Benzodiazepines, such with Clonazepam. These drugs work to enhance the effect of the calming neurotransmitter GABA
• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs), or anti-depressants
• Stress reduction

The following quote is from a forum where people were discussing MdDS:

  So far I've had very positive results with (zen) meditation, and I assume that it has something to do with the brain wave activity. ⁵

On that MdDS forum, people were also using some of the same supplements that people use to help with Adrenal Fatigue (Theanine, etc.)

Fear Conditioning

• An over-reaction to an environmental stressor may be the cause

We are supposed to remember threats in the environment. Your Amygdala (area of your brain) has a very important role to play in encoding memories of threats.

Basically, when you experience a threat.... your Amygdala records the event. And you will feel fear when your subconscious detects a chance of that event happening again.

  Fear conditioning is a behavioral paradigm in which organisms learn to predict aversive events^11,12

  Researchers have found that fear is established unconsciously and that the amygdala is involved with fear conditioning.¹⁰

This is a great feature for survival.

Once you learn that hot things burn and cause pain .... you'll avoid them. Likewise, good to avoid people with spears and an angry look on their face :)

But people stuck in a state of stress are more prone to fear conditionig than normal.

People with MdDS tend to have their symptoms return during periods of stress⁷. This is another strong indication that fear conditioning is the root cause.

  The role of the amygdala may be relevant to why some patients who have an initial episode of MdDS that resolves tend to have spontaneous recurrences of the rocking sensation during periods of stress⁷

Adrenal Fatigue and Fear Conditioning

Those with adrenal fatigue might be too good at Fear Conditioning, which will make us prone to MdDS.

It is very common for people with adrenal fatigue to over-react to scary or exciting movies. i.e. their hearts will be beat very fast during a scary movie. And they might notice an increased startle response for days after.

1. Because we are stuck in a state of stress, we encode threats to memory more deeply.
2. We take longer to forget about past threats (called extinction of conditioned fear)

Stress increases encoding of threats

Stress increases encoding of events by the amygdala^15,16.

  One effect of adrenaline is to embed non‐conscious emotional memories of fearful or threatening events in the amygdala.

If emotional memory is embedded too strongly in the amygdala, however, it can produce a heightened fear response to external events that is out of proportion to the actual nature of the problems at hand. ¹⁷

This makes sense. If you are in a war, you had better be good at recording threats to survival.

This is probably why people with MdDS have found that if they take Benzos (such as Valium) before exposing themselves to boats or planes, they can be exposed without symptoms reoccurring.¹⁴. Since they are in a calmer state during the event, it is not encoded to memory as deeply.

Slower Extinction of Memories of Threats

Stress also leads to a slower fading or extinction of the memories of threats.

  These data demonstrate that chronic stress enhances fear learning and impairs extinction ²⁰

Extinction is a term used to describe that the conditioned fear has faded from memory.

So....if you are stuck in a state of stress, memories of a fearful event do not fade quickly.

Total Exposure a Factor

Another indication that Fear Conditioning is at the heart of MdDS is that duration and number of exposures are a factor.

As you can imagine, the intensity of the exposure, duration of exposure, and number of occurences have an impact the on the level of fear conditioning ¹³.

Assume Person A was mauled by a pack of viscious dogs for an 20 minutes. Person B was bitten once by a dog.

Person A would be much more terrified of dogs, and their fear would be beyond their conscious control. Their pulse would automatically start to race if they heard dogs barking.

MdDS seems to be the same. So even though have not had a problem on boats yet, you may still be prone..

The intensity or duration of exposure might not have been high enough yet.

Here are a few quotes from a forum:

  Never had sea sickness in my entire life but as soon as I got off the boat on day 5, I noticed I couldn't walk straight.²

The above quote is from someone who went on a cruise.

  I have had MdDS for almost 3 years now following a 2 day sailing race
(and I’ve been on boats all my life)²

Summary

If you have adrenal fatigue, you may be prone to MdDS. There is a strong stress connection.

You should probably avoid going on a cruise, or spending too much time on a boat. Repeated long flights can also be a problem.

Fear Conditioning seems to be the cause. So the number of events and intensity of exposure is a factor.