Spinning around in circles is a lot of fun, right? Did you ever wonder what it is about this movement that causes us to get dizzy? Our friends at Highlights Kids help us to understand just what happens while we’re spinning ourselves silly!

Ears have two important jobs

We all know that our ears have a very important job – they allow us to hear others and everything going on around us! But our ears also have the big task of providing a sense of balance. 

The inner parts of our ears (inside our heads) are open spaces that are filled with fluid. Very tiny hairs line the walls of these open spaces. Each tiny hair is connected to a nerve cell that sends a signal, or message, to the brain. 

When the head moves, the fluid moves around, bending these tiny hairs and sending a signal to the brain about the movement. This is what gives you your sense of balance.

Getting dizzy

Whenever we spin around rapidly, the fluid in our inner ears also spins around. This gives us the sensation of spinning. 

When we stop spinning, the fluid keeps moving for a bit, continuing to bend the tiny hairs and send signals of movement to the brain, even though we’ve actually stopped moving.

These signals confuse the brain into thinking we are still spinning when we are really standing still. This is what causes us to feel as though we are spinning backward—or “feeling dizzy”!