Dizziness can therefore be triggered by complex or moving visual environments (sometimes called visual vertigo), such as busy roads, moving crowds, or walking down the aisle of a supermarket where the shelves provide repetitive complex visual patterns. As a result of this, your balance system can be more sensitive to confusing or disorienting information about your balance coming from your eyes. In Ménière’s and other inner ear balance disorders, your brain must rely more on your sense of vision to balance more than people who do not have a balance disorder. How does vision affect the balance system? It suppresses certain processes within the brain including those responsible for balance.ĭizziness and imbalance can also be the result of damage to areas of the brain that coordinate balance and are often the cause of dizziness in people who have multiple sclerosis, stroke or Parkinsons disease. If you take more than four different types of medication this may also cause dizziness and increase your risk of falling. Some medications list dizziness as a side effect. It takes mental effort and capacity for your brain to cope with conflicting information about balance and so you may become tired and unable to concentrate when you are dizzy and while your brain is adjusting after a vertigo attack. If you are concentrating on a mental task, your brain has less capacity spare for other tasks – such as maintaining your balance. When you are tired or doing things you have to think about this can affect your balance. If you think that dizziness will lead to further problems this can make you feel more stressed or anxious when you become dizzy. Your emotions can also be directly influenced by your thoughts. A side effect of this is that you may feel sick or dizzy as breathing too fast causes you to take in too much oxygen. Your heart rate increases, your breathing gets faster and blood is pumped round your body quicker. Your body interprets any strong emotions or frightening thoughts as a signal that you are in danger and automatically prepares your body to either fight or run away. This is because some of your body’s automatic reflexes are linked to your emotions and thoughts through a process called the fight or flight response. When you feel particularly stressed, anxious, angry or fearful, you may be more likely to experience dizziness. Motion sickness is another example of conflicting information from the balance senses.
This conflict of information results in dizziness, even in people who do not have problems with their balance senses. What processes in the brain can affect balance?Ĭonflicting information from the balance sensesĪn example of this is when you are sitting on a train and the train next to you starts to move, creating the feeling that you are moving. Therefore, not all the symptoms of dizziness experienced will be due to the balance organ, some will be caused because your balance system cannot cope with the situation you are in. This makes you much more sensitive to situations which can cause dizziness, such as disorientating environments and times when you are under stress. As the balance organ is faulty, the brain becomes more dependent on information coming from the eyes and sensors in your body. Ménière’s), the balance organ in the inner ear is affected. This could be due to a problem in the brain or with any of the balance senses.
If you feel dizzy, it means that your brain has not been able to coordinate the information from all the balance senses properly.
The internal sense of position/movement in your body. The balance system works by coordinating information in your brain from the three senses used for balance:
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