Suffering from dizziness?
When you are dizzy, you may feel like everything is spinning around you or you have a lightheaded feeling. It is an unpleasant experience, and as many as 1 in 4 people experience it at some point. Fortunately, dizziness is usually not serious. With targeted movement exercises, you can often effectively reduce the symptoms.
Possible causes of dizziness
Dizziness can have several causes, for example:
- problems with the balance organ in the ear
- sudden movements of the head
- tension or stress
- too little exercise
- illness or fatigue
A common form is positional vertigo (BPPD). This involves brief dizziness when turning over in bed, bending down or looking up. The dizziness usually lasts less than a minute.
Treatment of dizziness
There are different types of dizziness, and treatment is usually non-medicated. It often consists of education and exercises or movements you can do yourself. Only if the dizziness is accompanied by severe nausea and vomiting can medication sometimes be prescribed.
What can the physiotherapist do?
A physiotherapist can help you reduce dizziness symptoms by:
- explore together which movements trigger the symptoms
- explain what is happening in your body
- learn exercises to suit your symptoms
- guiding you step by step in moving
For positional vertigo (BPPD), the physiotherapist can perform special movements that often cause the dizziness to subside quickly.
Exercise for dizziness
Dizziness often involves exercises where you make the very movements that make you dizzy. This may sound contradictory, but it helps your brain to readjust. As a result, it reacts less violently to unexpected movements.
The exercises:
- start quietly and build up slowly
- do several times a day
- you can often perform at home
It is important to practise in a safe place, where you can sit down if necessary.
Online training for dizziness
Exercise is an effective remedy for dizziness. But actually going out to exercise under the supervision of a GP or physiotherapist is often difficult. That is why an online training course has been developed that you can simply follow at home: the Vertigo Training.
During this workout, you make the very movements with your head that make you dizzy. By consciously triggering this, your brain learns to readjust. This allows it to better cope with dizziness when it occurs unexpectedly.
The exercises build up step by step. As soon as an exercise no longer makes you dizzy, move on to the next one. This way, you gradually train your body further. Make sure you do the workout in a place where you can easily sit down. The treatment lasts six weeks in total.
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