Anxiety Dizziness: Why Anxiety Makes You Dizzy and What Helps

What does anxiety dizziness feel like?

• lightheaded or woozy, as if you might faint
• off-balance or unsteady, like walking on a boat
• a “floaty” or spaced-out feeling
• feeling detached or unreal
• tingling in your hands, feet or around your mouth

It often comes with other anxiety symptoms, such as a racing heart, chest tightness, sweating and fast breathing. See anxiety symptoms and anxiety chest pain.

Why does anxiety make you dizzy?

• Over-breathing (hyperventilation). Breathing fast and high in the chest lowers carbon dioxide in your blood, which can cause lightheadedness and tingling.
• The fight-or-flight response changes your heart rate and blood flow.
• Tense neck and shoulder muscles can add to a woozy, off-balance feeling. See tension headaches.
• Not eating or drinking enough when you’re stressed.
• The fear cycle: noticing dizziness makes you more anxious, which makes the dizziness worse. See health anxiety.

For some people, dizziness carries on for months after an illness or a stressful period. Doctors call one form of this persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD), and it can be treated with specialist balance therapy and talking therapy.

How to stop anxiety dizziness

1. Sit or lie down until it passes, then get up slowly, as the NHS advises.
2. Slow your breathing. Breathe in through your nose for 4, out for 6, into your belly. See box breathing.
3. Ground yourself by focusing on a fixed point and what you can see, hear and feel. See grounding techniques.
4. Drink some water and eat something if you’ve gone a long time without.
5. Remind yourself that it’s anxiety and it will pass.
6. Cut back on caffeine and alcohol, which the NHS suggests avoiding when you feel dizzy. See does caffeine cause anxiety?

Longer term, regular exercise, good sleep and tackling the anxiety itself help most. See how to deal with anxiety and how to stop a panic attack.

Our Magnesium Glycinate Sleep Complex is a caffeine-free evening drink with L-theanine, and magnesium contributes to normal psychological function and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue.

Other causes of dizziness

The NHS lists many common causes of dizziness, so don’t assume it’s anxiety:

• standing up too quickly (a drop in blood pressure)
• dehydration or heat
• inner-ear problems, such as labyrinthitis, especially with ringing in the ears or hearing changes
• migraine
• low blood sugar
• iron deficiency anaemia. See iron deficiency symptoms
• a side effect of a new medicine

When to see a GP

iSee a GP if dizziness won’t go away or keeps coming back, or comes with hearing loss, ringing in the ears, changes in your vision, numbness or weakness, fainting, headaches or being sick. Adults in England can refer themselves to NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety.

Related guides

• The vagus nerve and fainting.
• Feeling sick as well as dizzy? See can anxiety cause nausea?
• If dizziness comes with ringing in the ears, see tinnitus and when to get urgent help.
• Dizziness and other less talked-about perimenopause symptoms.
• Vestibular migraine and other migraine types.
• If you feel dizzy mainly when you stand up, read our guide to low blood pressure.
• If the room actually spins, that’s more likely vertigo than anxiety: see vertigo: causes, triggers and when to worry.
• If you feel light-headed and drained most days, our guide to why you’re tired all the time covers dehydration, low blood pressure and anaemia too.
• Dizziness is one of several physical symptoms of stress, alongside headaches, tension and stomach problems.