Anxiety often leads to dizziness due to the body’s stress response, releasing hormones such as adrenaline that can affect balance.
This creates a feeling of lightheadedness or dizziness. Additionally, vestibular disorders can increase anxiety, creating a cycle where both conditions exacerbate each other.
Anxiety-related dizziness can take many different forms. Identifying these symptoms can help you understand whether anxiety is the cause.
Some common signs and symptoms of anxiety-related dizziness:
- Nausea
- Difficulty concentrating
- Dizziness
- Vertigo (a spinning sensation)
- Feelings of fear or pessimism
- Nightmares
- Occasional fainting
These symptoms are often caused by factors such as shortness of breath, subjective feelings (when anxiety makes you feel emotionally unstable, you may experience dizziness and confusion), increased heart rate, muscle tension, or specific phobias.
Recognizing these symptoms and causes is essential for people to identify when anxiety may be the underlying factor causing their dizziness. This awareness can guide them to effective treatment strategies.
What therapies are effective in treating anxiety-related dizziness without medication?
1. Gaze stabilization exercise: Targets anxiety-related dizziness.
- First, sit in a comfortable chair and focus on an object straight ahead at eye level. The object can be a fixed object on the wall, such as a clock or a letter.
- Begin by gently moving your head side to side or up and down while keeping your eyes fixed on the object.
- Then, start with slow head movements and increase the speed as you get more comfortable. Do this for about 30 seconds, then rest for a few seconds. Repeat three times.
Over time, increase the complexity of the exercise by doing it while standing or even walking.
For anxiety-related dizziness, this exercise helps retrain the brain’s visual and vestibular systems to be more stable and coordinated, reducing dizziness when moving the head.
2. Familiarization Exercise: Gradually Reduce Anxiety Triggers
- Identify movements or situations that typically cause dizziness when you are anxious, such as turning your head quickly or changing body position suddenly (for example, standing up too quickly).
- Start with the least intense version of these movements. For example, if turning your head causes dizziness, start by turning your head slowly in one direction, then returning to center.
- Gradually increase the speed or angle of your head rotation over time. You can also try tilting your head or looking in different directions that cause discomfort.
- Do this exercise 10-15 times, several times a day.
This technique helps reduce the body’s overreaction to anxiety by gradually reducing the sensitivity of the vestibular system to dizziness triggers, improving tolerance to these movements.
