Stress is one of the most prevalent psychological problems worldwide. The vast majority of people will experience episodes of high stress and anxiety at some point in their lives which, to a greater or lesser extent, will have an impact on their mental and physical health.
Indeed, Stress and anxiety can cause alterations on a physical level although, in many cases, not even those affected know how to see the relationship. 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 body, which gives us a question that goes just in the other direction, that is, “deactivation.” Can stress cause dizziness? And loss of consciousness? Let’s see it below.
Is it possible that high levels of stress cause dizziness?
Stress is an emotion that puts us in tension, both physically and emotionally. This state arises when we perceive a threat which can endanger our physical and mental integrity. Our body prepares to face this potential danger, preparing to issue one of the following two responses: fight or flight. The problem is that if stress persists for a long time and progressively turns into anxiety, it can go from being an adaptive reaction to a dysfunctional problem.
Stress, if not properly reduced or treated, can give us many physical problems. Indeed, stress not only strains us emotionally, making us feel worry, fear or even sadness and despair. Stress can transform into intestinal discomfort, rapid heartbeat and breathing, spasms, sweating and tremors.
All of these symptoms have an easily visible relationship with stress. Due to the great stress that we put on our body when we are in a stressful state, our body 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 quite contrary to that of fight and flight, making us lose our ability to react and even our consciousness: dizziness.
We understand psychogenic dizziness or vertigo to be a psychosomatic phenomenon that appears very frequently, caused by subjecting the body to very high tension. When we are stressed our body invests a lot of energy in various structures, especially the heart, lungs and muscles. which means that over time and if stress has not been reduced, the person ends up exhausting their energy and, as a result, becomes dizzy and faints.
Although the relationship between body and mind is widely known, on many occasions doctors 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, the drug use or a brain injury. All these causes should be the ones that are looked at first and treated if they exist. However, if their cause is unknown, the possibility that there is a psychological problem behind them should be considered.
On other occasions, the possibility does arise that these dizziness is due to stress. However, Far from going to a psychologist so that the patient learns ways to manage his problem, he is prescribed anxiolytics to reduce the symptoms but not eliminate the real problem. This runs the risk of the patient abusing the drugs and, if the drug treatment has to be ended, these dizziness will reappear very intensely.
How are they produced?
Unlike dizziness associated with drug use or neurological injury, dizziness due to stress can be caused by two factors: hyperventilation and vasovagal presyncope.
Hyperventilation
One of the most obvious symptoms when we are stressed is hyperventilation. This It occurs when we breathe rapidly, which causes oxygen in the blood to increase. As a result, it can give a feeling of suffocation, combined with numbness of the extremities and, finally, produces dizziness and vertigo.
When we are in the middle of an attack of stress we can find ourselves very scared, which makes us breathe even faster. However, as strange as it may seem, you do not need to be aware that you are stressed for hyperventilation to occur. It may happen that the person has been breathing quickly for a long time since, being stressed almost always, this has become a habit. Because you don’t realize this, you don’t try to calm down and the chances of getting dizzy increase.
Vasovagal presyncope
Presyncope is the sensation of attenuation of consciousness, although without losing it completely. This symptom It should not be confused with lipothymia, in which there is a slight loss of consciousness.
A situation that causes hyperstimulation of the vagus nerve can cause a reduction in heart rate and dilation of 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, implies less oxygen to the brain and partial or partial loss of consciousness occurs. total.
Treatment
In and of themselves, dizziness due to stress or psychogenic vertigo 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 they are dying. This is why it is so important for the person to see a psychologist to treat underlying anxiety. learn techniques to manage it and strategies to achieve a little control when these dizziness occurs.
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 confirmed that no problem of this type occurs, 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 you and what you think about when you are suffering from dizziness and panic attacks.
You can also go to a psychiatrist if necessary and if the dizziness is still too frequent and intense. The pharmacological route to treat the anxiety behind these dizziness are SSRIs, sulpiride (antipsychotic), low-potency neuroleptics or some benzodiazepines with a short half-life. Even having these pharmacological options, it must be understood that anxiety is not a problem that appears simply due to the deregulation of neurotransmitters such as cortisol and histamine, but because the patient has an extremely stressful life.
For this reason, both with and without the help of pharmacological treatment, the patient will go to psychotherapy where they will be psychoeducated, preferably with cognitive-behavioral therapy and specialized treatments in addressing anxiety disorders. The patient may be suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or even social phobia. diagnoses whose symptoms include dizziness.
