Understanding Dizziness – How Does It Affect Your Balance
Dizziness can affect you in a variety of ways. It can disrupt your day-to-day activities making you unexpectedly nauseous, light-headed, disoriented, and more. If you feel like something may not be right, and dizziness is occurring, ask yourself the following:
- Do you sometimes feel like the room is spinning?
- Do you feel like YOU are spinning in the room?
- Maybe you feel like your bed is rocking like a boat at night?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions it is possible that there is a disruption in your balance that is causing you these unpleasant symptoms. Below we will dive into understanding dizziness and how it affects your balance.
What Affects Our Sense of Balance
Dizziness, vertigo, and other disruptions in balance can come on for any number of reasons and the treatments for them can be just as varied. However, the basics of balance and dizziness are understanding the different systems that play a role in our sense of balance:
- The Vestibular system – Vestibular? Let’s call that a just fancy word to mean your inner ear. Disruptions in the vestibular system are the most common reason that people complain of dizziness. The inner ear plays a critical role in your sense of movement of the head and ability to orientate to gravity. It does this through the use of hair cells that line small canals; Whenever you move your head, fluid within those canals pushes onto the hair cells which sends information to the brain about speed and movement direction.
- Vision – Our eyes help us track and orientate to the world around us. However sometimes when we aren’t tracking objects well our eyes will try and guess where things will be. If they don’t guess well then your eyes will have to rapidly adjust to correct. These rapid adjustments can cause dizziness when they are happening frequently.
- Muscles and Joints – Your joints and muscles send messages to the brain when they stretch and move. This information helps you know where your body is in space. If you have limited motion of a muscle or joint your body could be getting altered information about your positioning which could lead to falls or a sense of dizziness. Additionally, strength in core and leg muscles is crucial for correcting body positioning during moments of imbalance.
Understanding Dizziness – How Does It Affect Your Balance
There can be dozens of specific reasons why you might feel dizzy. Often specific conditions can affect one or more of these systems that feed your sense of balance. There’s good news though! We can treat many of these causes of dizziness in Physical therapy! If you are experiencing symptoms that make you feel dizzy or have difficulty with balance, contact us to see if you are a good candidate for Physical Therapy. We offer free consultation visits to sit down, chat, and answer any questions you might have.
Look for part two of this blog where we will talk about some of the most common conditions that can cause dizziness!
