Dizziness and Dehydration

Many of us have experienced few cases of dizziness in the past. Dizziness can happen pretty much in any situation such as, upon wakening, getting up from the chair, during exercising and so on. Some people can have dizziness or vertigo more severe than other people.

Although there are several reasons for experiencing dizziness, dehydration that leads to low blood volume seems to be more common for dizziness. Now, you may say "I do drink a lot of water" and that is a good first step. Drinking a lot of water may seems to help resolve dehydration but it is more complicated than that.

Dizziness and Blood Flow

First, let's look at dizziness from blood perspective and why it happens. Blood is a fluid and it consists of 90% water. This means that blood does move more freely than any other organs we have in our body. Therefore, blood flow can change base on our position. Let's say we are in bed laying flat. The blood flow is more calm and steady when we are laying down compared with standing up. Blood does have to travel against gravity and need extra push from the heart and blood vessels. Blood flow can increase more when you are inverted or upside down. So whenever you get dizzy it is more ideal to be laying down rather than standing, sitting or walking around.

So why do we get dizzy by getting up from the chair. Reason is blood flow direction and demand had changed as body position changes and some people can be more sensitive than the others to feel something called blood pull. Best way to resolve when you experience this is to stand still and let the body adjust itself. However, if the situation happens frequently, it it possible that the blood volume or amount of blood may have been lowered by dehydration due to lack of water, mineral or from taking medication.

Blood and Dehydration

Remember, blood is consist of 90% of water. Which means, when we get dehydrated from whatever reasons, the blood volume will be lowered. So let's assume that you are drinking about 2 liters or about 67 oz. of water everyday and still feeling dizzy. 2 liter of water per way from nutrition stand point is bare minimum for anybody. We spoke about blood consists of 90% water but brain (73%), lungs (83%), heart (73%), muscles (79%), kidney (79%), skin (64%) are all requires large amount of water. So if you are getting 2 liters of water per day but consuming caffeine, alcohol, medication, drugs, can all use the bare minimum water that you have drank.

So what does this has to do with dizziness?

Here is an analogy. Let's say you are making a soup. If you add water it will be watery type of soups like minestrone or chicken noodle soup. However, when you have less water that soup may turn into chowder type of soup where liquid part is more dense. When you scoop with the spoon chowder type of soup drips more slowly than the watery type of soup. This is similar condition with blood volume decreases due to dehydration. The blood movement slows down due to blood content become more dense. Similar condition can be seen with people who consume too much sugar or diabetics. Because of sugar content increase, blood become more sticky like honey, which cause movement of the blood to become more slower.

Imagine when you are sitting and then stand up but blood movement is slower. Yes, the circulation is poor so naturally you will get dizzy.

Curing Dehydration

So we understand that dehydration may cause dizziness due to blood volume decrease or condition of the blood changes. Next question is how to fix dehydration.

Drinking more water may help but that alone will not help. Water does require binding site or help from another particle to help retain water in the body. Those are the minerals. Examples of minerals are calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, chromium, iron, zinc, iodine to name the few. These sources are abundant in all natural food sources. But one of the most important source that we often overlooked is salt. Of course not just any salt but natural form of salt like sea salt, Celtic salt, and Himalayan salt.

Our body is consists of about 1% salt. Doesn't seem a lot right? But if you weigh 130 lb, that's 1.3 lb (589 g) of salt. What does dietary guideline 2015-2020 suggests? 2.3 g per day. Even if we deplete only 1% that's still 5.8 g of salt for 130 lb person. Doesn't add up does it? Yes, human body does need more salt than suggested. Our kidney can handle 10 times more salt than suggested easily.

So to cure dehydration you should be drinking more water, but you should be also consuming more salt especially when you are on low carbohydrate diet. You don't have to lick the salt but you just need to add more to your food. As mentioned earlier, you want to make sure it is natural source rather. Personally, I'd like to cycle through various salt to balance out the minerals but also enjoy the taste of different salts.

Dizziness is way for the body to say something is off and it is usually fluid balance. Try the simple remedy of increase your water and adding salt to your food. If you are taking medication, talk to your doctor about what you can do to minimize your dizziness without additional medication.

Kota Shimada