Big, deep breaths, a pint of water, plain bread. If you’ve experienced harsh waves of nausea, you’ll have heard, and tried, it all. When it’s really bad, nothing seems to touch the sides and riding it out seems to be the only solution.
However, Dr Karan Rajan, an NHS surgeon and health educator, thinks he may have just the solution and chances are, it’s sitting right in your fridge. Otherwise, they’re only 30p from Tesco.
Yes, it could be that all you need is a simple lemon.
How lemons can help with nausea
In his latest TikTok video, Rajan stitched a video of a girl sniffing lemon juice and said: “If you want an easy way to help with nausea, this might actually work thanks to a few shortcuts in your hardware.”
He explained that our sense of smell is governed by the olfactory system, which is closely related to the limbic system in the brain. The limbic system has a role in regulating nausea.
This means that when you inhale the scent of lemon juice or citrus, it can stimulate the limbic system, helping to relieve the symptoms of nausea.
He added that even just the aroma of lemon can stimulate salivary glands, increasing saliva production and increasing gastric emptying. This means your stomach empties faster, alleviating nausea symptoms.
If nothing else, the strong scent of lemon provides a sensory distraction in a way that Rajan describes as ‘overwriting code’. Your attention is shifted from the nauseating stimuli and is redirected to the aroma in something that Raj describes as “the best Biological Keyboard shortcut”.
Finally, if this does work for you, it always will, as your brain will associate the scent of lemon with reducing nausea.
If you don’t have a lemon handy, the chemicals in alcohol wipes have been proven to reduce nausea too!
Worth a try, right?