12 Tips to Preventing Motion Sickness in Virtual Reality

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You got yourself a Virtual Reality (VR) headset and you enjoy playing in VR. The problem is you cannot play for more than fifteen minutes without experiencing motion sickness.

Not everyone will get motion sickness when playing in VR, but for those that do, it is a real problem. Whether you are a VR enthusiast or VR developer, if you are prone to motion sickness in VR it will take away from your enjoyment of VR.

My goal in this post is to provide you with 12 tips to help prevent motion sickness in VR. Since everyone is different, some of the tips may work for you and others may not.

1. Take Breaks

When you first start playing in VR, it is something new and takes time for your brain to adjust. This is why it is important for you to take frequent breaks. It will help you not get a headache or get sick.

Some VR experiences encourage you to take breaks at save points. These save points are usually placed where it is because developers have conducted studies about how long you should play in VR for. It is best to take the advice and go grab a drink or take a walk.

When you start to feel sick, close your eyes and remove the VR headset. Afterward, stare at a wall or at a fixed point that has no movement to remind your brain that you are not actually moving.

2. Give Your Eyes a Break

Your eyes are important. You should treat them with respect by giving them a break whenever possible. During loading screens or at a save/pause point, close your eyes for a few moments to let them rest.

3. Calibrate Your VR Headset

VR headsets feature knob(s) or slider(s) for you to make adjustments for your eyes. Some VR headsets have more calibrations than others do. For example, the Oculus Rift CV1 and HTC Vive have a toggle for you to change the Interpupillary distance (IDP). IDP is the distance between the center of the pupils of the two eyes. Samsung Gear VR features a knob to adjust how close the phone is to your eyes.

When you calibrate your headset for your eyes, it helps to reduce strain on your eyes. In addition, it will remove blurry vision. Overall, proper calibration will help with headaches and motion sickness.

4. Limit How Much You Move Your Head

Movement is linked to motion sickness. Therefore, you should try not to make unnecessary head movements. This especially applies to when your body is in motion.

It is important to distinguish between movement and rotation (turning). Most people will not have problems with motion sickness when they turn their head in VR. Movement of the head is when you move your head up, down, left, right, or any of those combinations.

5. Use Rotation Snap When Available

There have been many attempts to combat motion sickness from the hardware and software side. As a result, some VR developers started to implement a “comfort mode” into their VR experience. Comfort mode allows you to make 90 degrees turn to the left or right instantly. Currently, only the Oculus platform shows support for comfort mode.

6. Reduce Movement Sensitivity When Available

When your character is moving too fast, it can cause motion sickness. By lowering the character’s speed or sensitivity, you can reduce the feeling of motion sickness.

Depending on the VR experience, changing the speed can affect the intended experience. However, if it means being able to play it or not at all, changing the speed is a sounded compromise.

7. Take Deep Breaths

Regardless of how exciting the VR experience is a great way to control motion sickness is to control your breathing. The faster you breathe, the more light-headed you become, which in turn increases the level of motion sickness.

8. Lock Your Eyes on One Point When Turning

In reality, our eyes are not parallel to our body’s rotation. For example, we can be looking north and turning west. This should not be different in VR! Our brain automatically looks in the direction we are turning when wearing a VR headset. Therefore, a possible solution is to focus on one point when turning.

Some VR experiences have HUDs (heads-up display) that follows your head movements. Those type of HUDs are a good focal point for when you are turning.

9. Eat or Drink Ginger

Ginger has been used as a treatment for motion sickness for centuries. It does not work for everyone, but many people who consume ginger have positive results against motion sickness.

There are many ways to consume ginger. You can put some fresh ginger in a cup, pour boiling water over it, and sip it like any hot drink. There are ginger in capsule form if that is more to your liking. There are even ginger snacks such as cookies. To find out more about how ginger can help you combat motion sickness, you can visit here.

10. Play Games Sitting Down

If you are having trouble coping with movement in VR, you might want to try playing in VR while sitting down. This means you cannot enjoy VR experiences that involve full motion tracking, but you can still enjoy a large percentage of VR content. Playing in VR while sitting will help you feel more grounded, which reduces the chance of you experiencing motion sickness.

Depending on the platform you are playing VR with, you can play your VR experience in stand-up mode or sit down mode. For example, with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift CV1, you have the option to calibrate the headset for sit-down experience or full motion tracking stand-up experience. You will need another camera for full motion tracking with the Oculus Rift. For headsets without motion tracking such as the Samsung Gear VR, the library of VR contents are geared for a sit-down or standstill experience.

11. Make Sure Your Computer is VR Ready

VR is a resource heavy medium. It is demanding for the graphics card to render so many pixels and to keep up with your movements. In fact, the minimum specification for a VR experience to be playable is 90 frames-per-seconds (FPS) for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift CV1. For the PlayStation VR, it is 120 FPS. When your PC is struggling to keep up with your movements at the minimum frame rate requirement, you are very likely to get sick.

12. Play Games That Do Not Make You Sick

Unfortunately, there will be some VR experiences that will cause you motion sickness no matter how much you try to combat against motion sickness. The good news is that this may not be permanent. If you are new to VR, some VR experiences might just be too much for you to handle at that time. Over time, with exposure to lighter VR experiences, your brain will adapt to VR.

I hope this post help to allow you to enjoy VR. If you found these tips useful to you, share it with others so they can benefit too.

Is there something else you have tried to combat motion sickness in VR? Did you see positive results from these 12 tips? If so, feel free to leave a comment, send me a tweet, or send me an email at steven@brightdevelopers.com. I will be glad to hear from you.

To stay in touch, you can follow me on twitter.

About Steven To

Steven To is a software developer that specializes in mobile development with a background in computer engineering. Beyond his passion for software development, he also has an interest in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Personal Development, and Personal Finance. If he is not writing software, then he is out learning something new.