Stress can affect us physically. If you’re stressed out, you can get sick and constantly feel tired. Stress affects our physical health in many ways and can manifest in many ways in our body, such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, depression, anxiety—and more. One question that also often crops up is this: can stress cause vertigo? First, let’s look at what vertigo is.
What Is Vertigo and What Does It Feel Like?
Vertigo is an elusive sensation of motion or imbalance—feeling like you or your surroundings are spinning, rocking, or tilting, with no real sense of balance. Only the person experiencing it can truly feel it.
People with vertigo often report symptoms like spinning sensations, rocking or tilting, similar to motion sickness. There may also be double vision. These sensations become most apparent when standing, walking, changing positions, or moving the head. You could also feel extreme lightheadedness, headache, nausea, or even vomiting.
Vertigo attacks typically last a few seconds up to a few minutes. In severe cases, vertigo may persist for hours, days, weeks, or even months.
Causes of Vertigo
Vertigo is a symptom—not a diagnosis—and many possible causes exist. These include problems in the inner ear, Meniere’s disease, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), vestibular neuritis, viral or bacterial labyrinthitis, heart arrhythmias, or changes in blood pressure (high or low).
Types of Vertigo
There are two main types:
- Peripheral vertigo: caused by inner-ear issues—vestibular labyrinth, semicircular canals. BPPV, vestibular neuritis, or Meniere’s disease fall here.
- Central vertigo: caused by brain problems—injuries, infections, migraines, strokes, brain tumors.
However, various studies show that there is not always a physical cause for vertigo. More often than not, emotions can trigger or worsen it.
Can Stress Cause Vertigo?
Close to 40% of U.S. adults experience vertigo at least once in their lifetime—and many report it occurs especially when stressed or anxious.
Stress and anxiety can raise stress-hormone levels (e.g., cortisol), which can impair how your vestibular system (inner ear balance canals) communicates with the brain—making balance and motion control harder.
Other chemicals released during stress—like histamine and neurosteroids—may also impair neurotransmission between your inner ear and brain, causing vertigo. Emotional stress from life events like marriage challenges or death of a loved one is a strong trigger. High stress and depression can lead not only to inner ear problems but directly to vertigo.
A study by the National Library of Medicine of 7,750 anxiety patients (and 7,750 without) over 9 years found that people with anxiety disorders were 2.17 times more likely to develop BPPV (a common form of vertigo) than those without anxiety.
Some may experience vertigo suddenly—for example, in situations causing social anxiety or stress, like being in a crowded room or driving in heavy traffic. That’s the “fight or flight” response. Adrenaline surges, heartbeat and breathing speed up, which can trigger dizziness or vertigo. And ironically, worrying about getting vertigo can itself cause more stress or anxiety.
New Research About Vertigo and Mental Health
A 2025 study found that in patients diagnosed with BPPV, 59% experienced anxiety during attacks, and 30% had depression.
Another population-based study in Western Australia (2025) reported 23.9% of men and women aged 45-70 had dizziness or imbalance symptoms, with strong links to mental health distress.
Also, recent work in China (2023) showed that vertigo patients with anxiety are 4.65 times more likely to exhibit severe vertigo symptoms than non-anxious patients; for depression, the odds were 3.49 times greater.
Is Vertigo Likely to Affect You?
Vertigo can happen at any age, but is more common in those over 65. Women are more likely than men. Pregnancy also increases risk.
How to Prevent Vertigo Caused by Stress
If you are experiencing vertigo and you find that it is affecting the quality of your life, you should seek out professional help to really determine the cause of your vertigo.
(1) What are the Triggers for Your Stress and Vertigo?
Recognise how stress, anxiety, and vertigo interact. If you begin to feel fast breathing, nausea, rapid heart rate, and these come with vertigo—or vertigo occurs without other medical causes—take action. Reducing stress may reduce vertigo.
Identifying what are the biggest causes of stress in your life, and looking for ways to eliminate them from your life is imperative to reducing or even eliminating the chances of vertigo in your life.
(2) Connect with Supportive People
Connect with supportive people such as a friend, a family member or a trained therapist. Otherwise, connect with your community or faith-based organisations.
You can also talk to yourself, as self-talk has been shown to reduce stress. However, do ensure it’s positive self-talk and not negative self-talk. For instance, if you find yourself giving out a negative message, switch it immediately to a positive one.
(3) Exercise Regularly
Exercise releases endorphins, which reduce stress and may help prevent stress-triggered vertigo. You should maintain a regular regime by setting fitness goals. Aim for 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week (e.g., brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity like jogging or swimming.
(4) Adopt a Healthy Diet
Always maintain a healthy and well-balanced diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins to make sure that your body gets what it needs to function at its optimal level. It will also improve your mental health and reduce stress.
You can also supplement your diet with antioxidants, omega-3 or ginkgo, as these ingredients are known to increase blood flow to the brain. Vitamin D can also be helpful. Avoid highly processed foods such as coffee, tea, alcohol, sausages, cakes, burgers or French fries as much as possible, as these could increase inflammation.
And as your inner ear maintains a strong balance of electrolytes like sodium, potassium and chloride, it is vital to keep your sodium intake low and ensure proper hydration. Also try not to skip meals or eat at sporadic timings, as these could increase your stress too.
(5) Practice Mindfulness
You can also love yourself a little bit more with regular meditation, yoga or pilates, all of which are useful to help you prevent stress and anxiety. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing exercises, guided imagery and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.
Sometimes, just stopping and taking deep breaths can help remove your stress right away. Just find somewhere comfortable to sit, and then take deep breaths in and out slowly, for between 5 to 10 minutes. You will feel so much better after this.
(6) Stay Hydrated
Dehydration can cause undue stress on your body, and it may worsen your vertigo symptoms. On average, a person needs to drink about half to two-thirds of their weight (in pounds) in ounces. If you weigh 200 pounds, then you need around 150 ounces of water daily.
Other actions you can take include meditation or yoga, reading a book or just going out to see a movie with your friends. If you have a hobby, inject this activity into your life as much as possible.
(7) Sleep Well
Having a good night’s sleep is as critical as regular exercise and a healthy diet because if you sleep poorly daily, it will have negative effects on your hormones, in turn causing weight gain and elevating your stress levels, which could lead to vertigo.
Avoid consuming caffeine up to 6 hours before your bed time as it will worsen your sleep quality. Caffeine stays elevated in your blood for between 6 to 8 hours and hence, drinking coffee after 3 – 4pm is not recommended.
(8) Make Time for Hobbies
Do you enjoy knitting or doing some art crafts? Then do set aside time for such hobbies that you enjoy doing. Start with something simple or just allocate once or twice per week, at a minimum of between 15 to 20 minutes each time, for your hobbies, and gradually increase it, and it will help relive your stress as you are basically doing something you enjoy. Other leisure time pursuits could include playing golf, reading, watching a movie, playing games online, card and board games, or flower arrangement.
(9) Rebalance Work and Home Life
Re-balance work and home life by taking frequent breaks from working or reducing non-essential activities such as interacting on social media. You should also learn when to say “no”, establish boundaries and communicate your needs to your family and/or colleagues and supervisors.
A balanced work-life can reduce stress and also provide you with more time for leisure activities, and your life will become happier, healthier and more focused.
(10) And….Do This!
The best way to prevent stress-induced vertigo is to minimise stress in your life, and this include methods that you should inject in between all the above activities, like listening to light, calming music and scheduling time for things that make your happy. Make more friends, and socialise!
So, Can Stress Cause Vertigo?
Yes, stress and anxiety can trigger vertigo by altering hormone levels and nervous-system processes. But there are also many other causes like Meniere’s disease, heart issues, or inner ear disorders. Always see a doctor, neurologist or ENT if vertigo is recurring, intense, or paired with warning signs (like fainting, breathing difficulty, or chest pain). Many vertigo types improve with treatment such as physical therapy, medication, or surgical options.