Home Remedies for Dizziness: What Causes It and How to Stop Feeling Dizzy
Written by Montoya Sigafoose, founder of Home Remedy Shop · Medically reviewed by Veronique Claes d’Erckenteel, D.C., chiropractor since 1991 · Last reviewed: 26 October 2026
To stop feeling dizzy, sit or lie down straight away, then drink a large glass of water or an electrolyte drink (water with lemon and a pinch of salt) and breathe slowly. The most overlooked cause of dizziness is low blood pressure: if you get dizzy when you stand up suddenly or make sudden movements, your blood pressure may be dropping, and more fluids and electrolytes usually help. Dizziness can also come from an inflamed balance nerve (it settles with rest within one to two weeks), loose crystals in the inner ear (fixed with the Epley manoeuvre), anxiety, anaemia or low blood sugar. If it’s severe, keeps coming back or comes with other symptoms, get yourself checked. Call emergency services for sudden dizziness with weakness, numbness, slurred speech, double vision, chest pain or a sudden severe headache.
Dizziness is one of the most common reasons people see a doctor, and one of the most unsettling feelings there is. It can mean feeling lightheaded or faint, unsteady on your feet, or as if the room is spinning (vertigo). The good news: most dizziness has a simple cause you can do something about at home. This guide walks you through the main reasons you can feel dizzy, starting with the one most people overlook, and what to do about each one, plus 10 home remedies for dizziness. If the room spins when you move your head, see also our home remedies for vertigo, or browse all our natural home remedies.
The short version
- Dizzy now: sit or lie down, drink water, breathe slowly.
- Dizzy when you stand up: likely low blood pressure; more fluids and electrolytes, stand up slowly.
- Around your period: big changes in your blood vessels and iron.
- Dizzy for days after a cold: an inflamed balance nerve; rest, eat well, 1 to 2 weeks.
- Spinning when you turn in bed: loose ear crystals; try the Epley manoeuvre.
- Lasting dizziness: vestibular rehabilitation exercises retrain your balance.
Call emergency services for sudden dizziness with weakness or numbness on one side, a drooping face, slurred speech, double vision or loss of vision, trouble walking, a sudden severe headache, chest pain, a racing or irregular heartbeat, fainting, or after a head injury. See a doctor if dizziness is severe, keeps coming back, lasts more than two weeks, comes with sudden hearing loss or ringing in one ear, or started after a new medication. In pregnancy, tell your midwife about any dizziness with headache, vision changes or swelling.
Table of Contents
- What Causes Dizziness?
- Low Blood Pressure: Dizziness When Standing Up
- Dizziness Causes in Women: Periods, Pregnancy and Menopause
- An Inflamed Balance Nerve (and Does Sinus Cause Dizziness?)
- Loose Ear Crystals (BPPV): The Epley Manoeuvre
- Vestibular Rehabilitation: Retrain Your Balance
- Other Reasons for Dizziness
- 10 Home Remedies for Dizziness
- How to Prevent Dizzy Spells
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Causes Dizziness?
There are a couple of reasons why you can feel dizzy, and the type of dizziness gives you a clue:
- Lightheaded, faint, “greying out” when you stand up: usually blood pressure or fluids.
- Spinning for seconds when you move your head or turn in bed: loose crystals in the inner ear (BPPV).
- Constant spinning or unsteadiness for days, often after a cold: an inflamed balance nerve.
- Floaty, unsteady, worse with stress or busy places: anxiety or a balance system that has become oversensitive.
- Tired, pale and dizzy: anaemia or low blood sugar.
Spinning with ringing in one ear and hearing changes points to the inner ear, and headache with dizziness can be a migraine. Both deserve a check-up if they’re new or keep returning.
Low Blood Pressure: Dizziness When Standing Up
The most overlooked reason for dizziness is your blood pressure. When you stand up, gravity pulls blood down into your legs, and your body has to tighten your blood vessels and speed up your heart within seconds to keep enough blood flowing to your brain. If that happens too slowly, or you don’t have enough fluid in your circulation, your blood pressure drops and you feel lightheaded, your vision may blur or go dark, and in the worst case you faint. This is called orthostatic hypotension (Wieling et al., 2022).
In case you get dizzy when you suddenly stand up or make sudden movements, you may have low blood pressure, and you’ll want to take in more fluids and electrolytes to feel better. However, it can also be a sign of an underlying issue (dehydration from illness, anaemia, heart or hormone problems, or medication), so if you feel it’s really bad, or you faint, go and get yourself checked.
Dizziness when you wake up, lie down or bend over
Dizziness when you wake up or get out of bed is often the same blood pressure drop, made worse because you haven’t drunk anything overnight. Drink a glass of water before you get up, sit on the edge of the bed for a minute, then stand. Dizziness when you lie down or turn over in bed, on the other hand, is typical of loose ear crystals (see BPPV below). Dizziness after a meal can happen because blood flows to your gut to digest; eat smaller meals and drink water with them.
What helps
- Drink 1.5 to 2 litres of fluid a day, and a large glass of water before getting up.
- Add electrolytes: a pinch of sea salt and lemon in your water, or coconut water.
- Stand up in stages: lie, sit, then stand.
- Before standing, cross your legs and squeeze your thigh and buttock muscles for a few seconds to push blood up.
- Avoid long hot showers and standing still for long periods.
Dizziness Causes in Women: Periods, Pregnancy and Menopause
Around your period: blood pressure is exactly why many women feel dizzy around their period. There’s a big change in our vascular system as hormone levels drop and rise, which affects the blood vessels and how much fluid the body holds. Add the blood loss of a heavy period, which over time can drain your iron, and cramps that make you breathe shallowly, and dizziness around your period is very common. Drink extra fluids and electrolytes in those days, eat iron-rich foods, and have your iron checked if your periods are heavy.
In pregnancy: pregnancy hormones relax the blood vessels and blood pressure naturally drops in the first and second trimester, so dizziness is common. Drink well, eat little and often, stand up slowly, and later in pregnancy lie on your left side rather than flat on your back.
In menopause: hot flushes, poor sleep and changing hormones can all bring on dizzy spells. Natural remedies for dizziness during menopause are the same foundations: fluids, regular meals, movement, sleep and stress relief.
An Inflamed Balance Nerve (and Does Sinus Cause Dizziness?)
Next is inflammation of the nerve that manages your balance (vestibular neuritis, or labyrinthitis if hearing is affected too). It often follows a cold, flu or other virus and causes sudden, strong dizziness, sometimes with nausea, that is worst in the first days. For this to go away, you should rest and take good care of yourself, eat healthily and drink well; the worst of it should leave within a week, maximum two, although some unsteadiness can linger a little longer.
Once the worst has passed, gently moving rather than staying in bed helps your brain adjust: in a study of people with an inflamed balance nerve, balance exercises clearly improved recovery (Strupp et al., 2001). See the vestibular rehabilitation exercises below.
Does sinus cause dizziness? A sinus infection in itself does not cause dizziness, but the inflammation may have gone to your nerve, and that would be the reason for feeling dizzy. Blocked sinuses can also block the tubes to your middle ear and change the pressure there, which can make you feel off balance. Clearing your nose helps: see how to unstuff your nose and our sinus infection remedies.
Loose Ear Crystals (BPPV): The Epley Manoeuvre
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most common cause of spinning dizziness. Tiny calcium crystals in your inner ear come loose and drift into one of the balance canals, so every time you move your head in a certain way (lying down, turning over in bed, looking up), you get a short, intense spin that lasts seconds.
If loose calcium crystals cause your dizziness, you don’t need to reset the nerve; you need to reposition the crystals. That’s done with canalith repositioning manoeuvres, which are the recommended first treatment for BPPV (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017). A Cochrane review confirmed that the Epley manoeuvre is safe and effective (Hunt et al., 2012).
- Home Epley manoeuvre: a sequence of head and body positions that moves the crystals back where they belong. Follow the step-by-step guide from Johns Hopkins Medicine, making sure you use the right side.
- Brandt-Daroff exercises: a gentler routine you repeat several times a day for a couple of weeks. See the instructions from The Brain and Spine Foundation.
Have BPPV confirmed by a doctor or physiotherapist the first time, so you know which side is affected and that it really is BPPV. Read more in our home remedies for vertigo.
Vestibular Rehabilitation: Retrain Your Balance
When dizziness lingers after a nerve inflammation, or keeps returning, vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT) is the most effective natural treatment. A physical therapist can guide you through targeted exercises that retrain your balance system, and a Cochrane review found that vestibular rehabilitation is safe and effective for this kind of dizziness (McDonnell and Hillier, 2015). The three main types of exercise:
- Gaze stabilisation: keeping your eyes locked on a target (a letter on a card at arm’s length) while slowly moving your head side to side, then up and down.
- Balance retraining: standing or walking with specific head and eye movements to challenge and rebuild your stability, first near a wall or chair for safety.
- Habituating movements: repeatedly practising the movements that trigger mild dizziness, so the brain learns to stop overreacting to them.
Start gently, a few minutes twice a day, and build up. Mild dizziness during the exercises is normal and part of the training.
Other Reasons for Dizziness
- Dehydration: heat, exercise, vomiting, diarrhoea or simply not drinking enough.
- Anxiety and stress: anxiety can definitely cause dizziness, and dizziness that lasts for months can become a cycle of its own, called persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (Staab, 2023). Breathwork, gentle exposure and vestibular exercises help.
- Low blood sugar: skipping meals, or diabetes medication.
- Anaemia: low iron or vitamin B12.
- Headache and dizziness together: often a migraine (vestibular migraine), dehydration or high or low blood pressure.
- Dizziness with ringing in the ear: an inner ear problem such as Ménière’s disease, especially with hearing changes; see an ear specialist.
- Medications: blood pressure tablets, sedatives and many others; ask your doctor or pharmacist.
- Heart and circulation: irregular heartbeat, heart valve problems or, rarely, a stroke (see the red box).
10 Home Remedies for Dizziness
These natural remedies for dizziness help with the most common, harmless causes. Use them alongside the specific advice above for your type of dizziness.
1. Sit or lie down straight away
The first home remedy for dizziness is simply to stop and get low, so you don’t fall.
- Sit down, or lie down with your legs raised on a cushion or chair.
- Keep your head still and fix your eyes on one point.
- Get up slowly once it passes: sit for a minute before standing.
2. Water
Dehydration is one of the most common causes of dizziness, especially in heat, after exercise, with a stomach bug or if you simply forget to drink.
- Drink a large glass (about 500 ml) of water quickly when you feel lightheaded.
- Then keep sipping: aim for 1.5 to 2 litres a day, more in heat.
- Infuse your water with lemon, cucumber or mint if plain water is boring.
Why it helps: Drinking about 500 ml of water raises blood pressure within minutes in people with low blood pressure on standing (Shannon et al., 2002).
3. Electrolyte drink
If water alone doesn’t do it, add electrolytes: salt helps your body hold on to the fluid and keeps blood pressure up.
- Homemade: 1 litre of water (or half coconut water), the juice of 1 lemon, ¼ teaspoon of sea salt and 1 teaspoon of honey.
- Sip through the day, especially in the morning and around exercise.
- Check with your doctor first if you have high blood pressure, heart or kidney problems.
Why it helps: Extra fluids and salt are the first non-drug treatment for dizziness caused by low blood pressure on standing (Fu and Levine, 2018).
Drink more, feel steadier
The water jug that helps me drink enough
Low fluids are one of the most common, and most overlooked, reasons for feeling dizzy. A good-tasting, mineral-rich water on the table makes it so much easier to keep sipping all day.
- Filters and adds minerals to tap water
- Makes water taste better, so you drink more
- Add a pinch of sea salt and lemon for an electrolyte drink
- No plastic bottles to carry home
Not an affiliate link.
4. Ginger
Ginger is a classic for dizziness with nausea, especially motion-related.
- Sip fresh ginger tea (a few slices in hot water, 5 to 10 minutes).
- Or chew a small piece of fresh or crystallised ginger.
Why it helps: In a trial at sea, ginger root reduced seasickness and vertigo symptoms (Grøntved et al., 1988).
5. Slow breathing
Dizziness and anxiety feed each other: when you feel dizzy you tense up and breathe fast, which makes the dizziness worse.
- Breathe in through your nose for 4 counts, out through your mouth for 6.
- Continue for 2 to 5 minutes while sitting.
- If you’re breathing fast and your hands tingle, you may be hyperventilating: slow down.
6. Eat something
Low blood sugar from skipping meals can make you shaky and dizzy.
- Have a small snack with natural sugar and protein: fruit with nuts, a date with almonds, or water with lemon and a teaspoon of honey.
- Eat regular meals and don’t skip breakfast.
7. Iron-rich foods
Iron deficiency anaemia is a common reason for dizziness and tiredness, especially in women with heavy periods (Leung et al., 2024).
- Eat leafy greens, lentils, beans, pumpkin seeds, almonds and, if you eat it, red meat or liver.
- Pair them with vitamin C (lemon, peppers, citrus) to absorb more iron.
- Ask for a blood test before taking iron supplements.
8. Neck and shoulder release
Tension in the neck and shoulders can make you feel off balance and lightheaded.
- Gently massage the base of your skull and your shoulders.
- Slowly roll your shoulders and tilt your head side to side, never forcefully.
- If neck pain and dizziness come together often, have it checked by a chiropractor, physiotherapist or doctor.
9. Chamomile tea
A calming, warm drink when stress or poor sleep leave you dizzy.
- Steep 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried chamomile for 5 minutes and sip slowly.
10. Rest and sleep
Many forms of dizziness, from a virus to stress, settle faster when you rest.
- Sleep 7 to 9 hours, with your head slightly raised if lying flat makes you dizzy.
- Avoid screens and bright lights during a dizzy spell.
- Skip alcohol and limit caffeine until you feel steady.
Removed from the original version of this article: homeopathic remedies, mustard and salt, celery juice for low blood pressure (celery actually tends to lower it), and ginkgo and feverfew, which can interact with blood thinners.
How to Prevent Dizzy Spells
- Drink enough every day, with electrolytes in heat and around exercise.
- Eat regular, balanced meals; see our alkaline diet list for iron- and mineral-rich foods.
- Stand up slowly, especially in the morning and after sitting for a long time.
- Move every day: walking and balance exercises keep your balance system sharp.
- Sleep well and manage stress with breathwork.
- Limit alcohol and caffeine.
- Review your medications with your doctor if dizziness started after a new one.
Related Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I stop dizziness?
Sit or lie down, drink a large glass of water or an electrolyte drink, breathe slowly and fix your eyes on one point. Then look at the cause: blood pressure, an inner ear problem, anxiety, anaemia or low blood sugar.
What causes dizziness?
Most often low blood pressure or dehydration, loose crystals in the inner ear (BPPV), an inflamed balance nerve after a virus, anxiety, anaemia, low blood sugar, migraine or medication.
Why do I get dizzy when I stand up?
Your blood pressure drops for a moment before your body adjusts. Drink more fluids and electrolytes, stand up slowly, and get checked if it’s severe or you faint.
Why do I feel dizzy around my period?
Hormone changes affect your blood vessels and fluid balance, and heavy periods can lower your iron. Drink extra fluids, eat iron-rich foods and have your iron checked if your periods are heavy.
Does sinus cause dizziness?
A sinus infection itself doesn’t, but the inflammation can reach your balance nerve, and blocked sinuses can change the pressure in your middle ear.
What drink helps with dizziness?
Water first, then an electrolyte drink: water or coconut water with lemon, a pinch of sea salt and a little honey. Ginger tea helps when dizziness comes with nausea.
How long does dizziness from an inflamed balance nerve last?
The worst usually passes within a week, maximum two. Rest, eat well, drink well, and start gentle balance exercises as soon as you can.
Can anxiety cause dizziness?
Yes. Anxiety can cause lightheadedness and unsteadiness, and long-lasting dizziness can turn into a cycle of its own. Slow breathing and vestibular exercises help.
When should I worry about dizziness?
Call emergency services for sudden dizziness with weakness, numbness, slurred speech, vision problems, chest pain or a severe headache. See a doctor if it’s severe, keeps coming back or lasts more than two weeks.
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