Vertigo is an unsettling experience and causes a person to feel physically unsteady even though they’re not moving. When you’re experiencing such a sensation, it may seem like either you or your surrounding environment is moving while you are standing still. While this experience can cause uneasiness and stress, anxiety itself can also increase the risk of developing vertigo.1 In this blog, we’ll explore the relationship between stress and vertigo, answers to common questions related to vertigo, and possible solutions to consider.
Many people have experienced light-headedness, dizziness or a headache at some point. Sometimes, people refer to this feeling as “vertigo.” However, vertigo is a bit different from just dizziness.
So what is vertigo, exactly? Vertigo is a symptom of various health conditions, causing a person to feel like they are spinning, or their environment is spinning.
If you’ve experienced vertigo, perhaps you’ve also dealt with uneasiness or trouble sleeping caused by the unpleasant sensations. In this case, you may have questions like “can vertigo be related to stress?” or “can stress and lack of sleep cause vertigo?” According to the National Library of Medicine, anxiety can sometimes cause vertigo, as can certain medications and psychological disorders.2
If you have dealt with vertigo, you may be wondering: Can anxiety make vertigo worse? Perhaps you’ve experienced a combination of vertigo and anxiety firsthand. If so, it may not come as a surprise that stress can indeed cause or exacerbate health conditions like vertigo.3
When someone is stressed or anxious on a regular basis, the body reacts with an increase in stress hormones such as cortisol. This increase can affect and interfere with signals between the brain and the vestibular system in the inner ear, which pertains to balance.
When the vestibular system is disrupted, issues like vertigo can occur. In fact, a 2023 study reported that anxiety and depression can significantly aggravate the degree of vertigo symptoms experienced. For people with anxiety, the risk of increased vertigo was reported to be up to 4.65 times that of people without it.1
While stress can make vertigo worse, dreading a recurrence of vertigo symptoms can also cause or worsen stress. This is why it’s important to talk with a medical professional about vertigo symptoms and focus on lifestyle habits that can help keep stress under control.
A vertigo episode feels like your surroundings are spinning around you. Sometimes, this can also include symptoms like headaches, nausea, a lack of coordination or vomiting. While these symptoms are associated with vertigo, what does anxiety vertigo feel like? Anxiety and vertigo symptoms can occur under specific circumstances that are particularly stressful for an individual.
Reasons for anxiety vary from person to person, but stressful environments or personal situations can be at play and cause the onset of vertigo symptoms. For example, someone with social anxiety might experience stress and lightheadedness, as well as vertigo symptoms at a large event or when speaking in a room full of people.
Anxiety and stress can be extremely challenging on their own, and symptoms of vertigo and dizziness can add to the difficulty. Learning how to calm vertigo anxiety and how to stop dizziness from stress can help offer relief. Find our tips for reducing overall stress and for easing vertigo and anxiety symptoms as they occur below.
Life can be busy, whether you have a full daily routine, responsibilities around your home or community, or other commitments and hobbies in your life. This can require extra intention when creating lifestyle changes or adding in new habits with the intention of reducing stress.
Here are a few tips and habits that can help reduce stress over time:
In addition to lifestyle changes, medication for vertigo and anxiety can also help in certain cases. While these medications won’t cure the underlying cause of vertigo, they can provide relief from symptoms or ease the severity of them. There are two types of medications that may be recommended for vertigo: antihistamines and benzodiazepine medications.
Antihistamines work by limiting the brain’s reaction to signals from the inner ear, but can also cause drowsiness. These medications are typically available over the counter. Benzodiazepine medications similarly reduce the brain’s response to inner ear signals while slowing brain activity, but are prescribed by a doctor rather than available over the counter. Benzodiazepine medications, typically meant for short-term use, are used in severe cases of vertigo that persist for several days.
Medication for vertigo and anxiety comes in different forms with different brand names. Consult a doctor on which would work best for you. A few types of these medications include:
Acupuncture, a form of traditional Chinese medicine, has long been used to alleviate pain and improve overall wellness. During acupuncture, a practitioner carefully places needles into certain points on the body. Acupuncture for dizziness, vertigo, anxiety and stress can be an effective way to reduce spinning and dizziness after several sessions, based on a 2023 study from the National Library of Medicine.4
A 2024 study also reported that “an individualized treatment strategy according to the patient’s specific condition provides effective and safe relief, which improves the patient’s vertigo symptoms and cerebral blood perfusion.” 5
Different methods of acupuncture for dizziness, vertigo, anxiety and other conditions may be used on a case-by-case basis, including:
Vestibular rehabilitation therapy can be another way to manage vertigo symptoms. This type of therapy involves physical exercises and movements such as stretching and eye movement exercises that can be done with a professional as well as at home between sessions. These exercises can help with the following:
A vestibular rehabilitation plan can look different from person to person, depending on the specific cause and severity of vertigo symptoms. Treatment often includes between one and eight sessions, and can go longer if needed.
An episode of vertigo can be very short, or it can be recurring over time. Depending on the underlying cause of stress-induced vertigo, it could be as fleeting as just a few seconds or minutes. In other cases, symptoms could last for hours or days.
Until consulting with a doctor, the cause of vertigo will likely be unknown. While it can be linked to the vestibular system, it can also be linked to conditions such as Meniere’s disease (an inner ear disorder), ear infections or head and neck injuries. This is why it’s important to seek medical help for stress-induced vertigo—even if it seems like it may be caused by stress, there could be another factor at play. A doctor can provide assistance and address any underlying conditions causing vertigo.
Whether you experience it briefly or over a longer period, vertigo is uncomfortable. Ideally, it would go away quickly on its own, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. If you’ve dealt with anxiety and vertigo at the same time or have felt anxious about the possibility of vertigo recurring, you may have questions like, “can anxiety cause vertigo for days?”
In some cases, vertigo linked to anxiety and stress may last for several minutes or a few hours. In other situations, such as if someone is facing a prolonged period of stress, vertigo symptoms may persist during that time and then stop once the cause of stress dissipates. While it’s possible that vertigo could come and go over the course of several days or more, the length of symptoms ultimately depends on the individual and the type of stressor.
1 Feng S, Zang J. The effect of accompanying anxiety and depression on patients with different vestibular syndromes. Front Aging Neurosci. 2023 Aug 1;15:1208392. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2023.1208392. PMID: 37593373; PMCID: PMC10427919. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37593373/.
2 Dy, Jon Stewart. “Vertigo.” StatPearls [Internet]., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 17 May 2025, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482356/.
3 Berg, Sara. “What Doctors Wish Patients Knew about Vertigo.” American Medical Association, 15 Mar. 2024, www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-vertigo.
4 Djaali W, Simadibrata CL, Nareswari I, Djaali NA. Acupuncture Therapy for Peripheral Vestibular Vertigo (with Suspected Ménière's Disease). Med Acupunct. 2023 Apr 1;35(2):89-93. doi: 10.1089/acu.2022.0012. Epub 2023 Apr 13. PMID: 37095787; PMCID: PMC10122261.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37095787/.
5 Yi, An-Na, et al. “Clinical Research Progress on Acupuncture for the Treatment of Otogenic Vertigo.” World Journal of Clinical Cases, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 6 July 2024, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11235460/.
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