Can stress cause dizziness?

Some people suffer from dizziness at times when their brain is highly activated. Is it due to stress?

Stress is one of the most prevalent psychological problems worldwide. The vast majority of people will at some point in their lives experience episodes of high stress and anxiety which, to a greater or lesser extent, will have an impact on their mental and physical health.

Indeed, stress and anxiety can lead to alterations in mental and physical health, stress and anxiety can cause alterations at the physical level although, on many occasions, even those affected do not know how to see the relationship between stress and anxiety.. Your stress can manifest itself in all kinds of intestinal discomfort, pain, coronary problems?

All these problems are related to a high activity of our organism with which we have a question that goes in the other direction, that is to say, the "deactivation". Can stress cause dizziness? And loss of consciousness? Let's look at it below.

Is it possible for high stress to cause dizziness?

Stress is an emotion that puts us in tension, both physically and emotionally. This state arises when we perceive a threat which may endanger our physical and mental integrity. Our organism prepares itself to face this potential danger, getting ready to emit one of the following two responses: fight or flight. The problem is that if stress is maintained for a long time and progressively turns into anxiety, it can change from being an adaptive reaction to a dysfunctional problem.

Stress, if not properly reduced and treated, can lead to many physical problems.. Indeed, stress not only strains us emotionally, making us feel worry, fear or even sadness and despair. Stress can develop into intestinal discomfort, accelerated heartbeat and breathing, spasms, sweating and tremors.

All these symptoms have an easily visible relationship with stress. Due to the great tension we put our body under when we are in a stressful state, our organism responds by going "on the attack". However, as surprising as it may appear, it is this same stress that can cause us to emit a response that is quite the opposite of fight and flight, making us lose our ability to react and even our consciousness: dizziness.

We understand dizziness or psychogenic vertigo as a psychosomatic phenomenon that appears very frequently, caused by subjecting the organism to a very high tension. When we are stressed, our body invests a lot of energy in various structures, especially the heart, lungs and muscles.This causes that with the passage of time and in case the stress has not been reduced, the person ends up exhausting his energies and, as a result, he gets dizzy and faints.

Despite the fact that the relationship between body and mind is well known, doctors often do not consider anxiety as a possible cause to explain dizziness, focusing solely and exclusively on purely physiological aspects such as a disease in the vestibular system, drug use or injury to the brain. All these causes should be the first to be looked at and treated if there are any. However, if the cause is unknown, the possibility that there is a psychological problem behind them should be considered.

At other times, the possibility that these dizziness symptoms are due to stress is raised. However, far from going to a psychologist so that the patient learns ways to manage his problems, he is prescribed anxiolytics to reduce the symptoms but not to end the real problem. to reduce the symptoms but not to put an end to the real problem. This means that the patient runs the risk of abusing the drugs and that, in the event of having to stop the pharmacological treatment, these dizziness symptoms will reappear in a very intense form.

How do they occur?

Unlike dizziness associated with drug use or neurological injury, stress dizziness can be caused by two factors: hyperventilation and vasovagal presyncope.

Hyperventilation

One of the most obvious symptoms when we are stressed is hyperventilation. This occurs when we breathe in an accelerated manner, which increases the oxygen in the blood.. As a result, it can lead to a feeling of suffocation, combined with numbness of the extremities and, finally, dizziness and vertigo.

When we are in the midst of a stress attack we may find ourselves very frightened, which causes us to breathe even faster. However, as strange as it may seem, it is not necessary to be aware of being stressed in order for hyperventilation to occur. It may happen that the person has been breathing fast for quite some time because, being stressed most of the time, this has become a habit. As he is not aware of it, he does not try to calm down and the chances of dizziness are increased.

Vasovagal presyncope

Presyncope is the sensation of a dulling of consciousness, but not a complete loss of consciousness. This symptom should not be confused with lipothymia, in which there is a slight loss of consciousness..

A situation that causes hyperstimulation of the vagus nerve may result in a reduction of the heart rate and dilation of the Blood vessels due to stimulation of the parasympathetic system. When the heart rate is reduced, which is below 60 beats (normal is 60-100), less blood reaches the brain which, in turn, means less oxygen to the brain, resulting in partial or total loss of consciousness.

Treatment

In themselves, stress dizziness or psychogenic dizziness is not dangerous, although it can be experienced in a particularly distressing and even traumatic way. They can precede a panic attack and make the person think that he or she is dying. This is why it is so important for the person to see a psychologist to treat the underlying anxiety, learn techniques to manage it, and learn strategies to deal with it.This is why it is so important for the person to see a psychologist to treat the underlying anxiety, learn techniques to manage it and strategies to gain some control when these dizzy spells occur.

As we mentioned before, first of all it is necessary to confirm that these dizziness are not due to medical problems, especially brain injuries, problems in the vestibular system or drug use. Once it has been confirmed that there are no problems of this type, the appropriate thing to do is to go to psychological therapy, explaining to the psychologist what a normal day in the patient's life is like, what aspects worry him/her and what he/she thinks about when he/she is suffering from dizziness and panic attacks..

A psychiatrist can also be consulted if necessary and if the dizziness is still too frequent and intense. The pharmacological route to treat the anxiety behind these dizzinesses are SSRIs, sulpiride (antipsychotic), low potency neuroleptics or some short half-life benzodiazepines. Even with these pharmacological options, it should be understood that anxiety is not a problem that appears simply because of the dysregulation of neurotransmitters such as cortisol and histamine, but because the patient has a highly stressful life.

For this reason, both with and without the help of pharmacological treatment, the patient will attend psychotherapy where he/she will be psychoeducated, preferably with cognitive-behavioral therapy and specialized treatments for anxiety disorders. The patient may be suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder or even social phobia.diagnoses whose symptoms include dizziness.

Bibliographic references:

• Balaban, C.D. and Thayer, J.F. (2001). Neurological basis for balance and anxiety links. J Anxiety Disorder, 15(1-2) p. 53-79.
• Chica, H.L. (2010). Relationship between anxiety disorders and inner ear disorders. Rev.Fac.Med. 58 (1): 60-70.
• Furman, J.M., Balaban C.D. , and Jacob, R.G. (2001). (2001).Interface between vestibular dysfunction and anxiety: More than just psychogenicity. Otol Neurotol., 22(3): p. 426-7.
• Morris, L.O. (2010). Anxiety dizziness. American Physical Therapy Association, Section of Neurology.
• Saman, Y. et. al. (2012) Interactions between Stress and Vestibular Compensation - A Review. Front Neurol; 3: 116.