What causes dizziness and tinnitus in menopause?
- Andrea Marsh
- a few seconds ago
- 9 min read
Any bout of dizziness is horrible so to see women suffering this daily is nasty and looking at how medical practise can help you resolve these symptoms permanently; the options can be limited. What is going on to make women in perimenopause dizzy with associated symptoms of tinnitus and then vertigo? I have yet to meet a woman who feels dizzy and is not also fatigued — and almost always under prolonged stress. These symptoms are all linked to a root cause; and this is where Chinese Medicine offers a very different and often profoundly effective perspective. This month’s blog is going to help you truly understand: what causes dizziness and tinnitus in menopause?
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What causes dizziness and tinnitus in menopause?
First and foremost, it’s essential to rule out any medically serious causes. For the sake of this blog, I’m assuming you’ve already seen your GP, undergone investigations, and perhaps tried medication or other therapies without resolution. As a menopause specialist, the women I see are typically over 40, and there are often physical and energetic imbalances we can work to rebalance. Contributing factors may include: In going through menopause there are changes to your hormones and these can cause:
Hormonal fluctuations: Oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone affect blood vessels, the inner ear, and the balance areas of the brain. When hormone levels fluctuate, it can cause dizziness, light-headedness, and pressure.
Anxiety: Anxiety and dizziness can reinforce each other, meaning one can cause the other.
Hot flushes: blood rushes through dilated vessels, potentially making you feel dizzy.
Heart flutters: Hormonal fluctuations can impact the heart.
Blood sugar imbalance: can trigger light-headedness.
Muscle tension: cold tight muscles can cause a dizziness or sickness feeling.
If you’re waiting on test results, this doesn’t mean you have to sit back and do nothing. You can still begin taking action, making supportive changes, and exploring other possible underlying causes; many of which I’ll expand on throughout this blog. And while receiving a diagnosis can be helpful, what matters most is finding a solution. Take Ménière’s disease as an example. It has no clearly defined cause in conventional medicine, yet it can be addressed when the full picture is considered. Often there is a collection of symptoms occurring alongside tinnitus or dizziness, and a holistic practitioner looks at all of these together; not just the ears in isolation.
So don’t be disheartened if standard medical tests come back “normal.” In many cases, this simply means the root cause is more likely to lie within the holistic realm of health; exactly where Chinese medicine excels. And that’s what this blog is here to explore.
The Chinese medicine of tinnitus and dizziness in menopause
In Chinese medicine (TCM), we learn that the health of your vital organs is reflected outwardly through specific areas of the body.. For example, yellowing in the whites of the eyes often points towards the Liver, something that’s widely recognised even in Western medicine. What’s far less well known is that the ears are directly linked to your Kidney energy — the closest Western equivalent being the adrenal glands.
This is why tinnitus, vertigo, and dizziness are so closely connected. At their root, they are often expressions of depleted energy. When fatigue is ongoing and unaddressed, the body eventually finds a way to signal that something deeper is out of balance. During perimenopause and menopause, anxiety is almost always part of this picture. Anxiety is adrenaline-based and tends to arrive in waves as hormones are released from the adrenals. If you’re living in a constant state of fight or flight, this hormonal surge is repeatedly triggered — and the symptoms intensify.
Headaches commonly develop in this state too. They often stem from the effort of holding yourself together, pushing on, and staying upright when your body is actually asking you to stop, lie down, and rest. Over time, this can lead to secondary symptoms such as tension in the neck and shoulders, which further aggravates headaches and can progress into migraines. That “sicky” feeling many women recognise can also appear. I experienced this regularly when I was younger, and it resolved with cranial osteopathy and shiatsu. However, when I entered perimenopause, even monthly treatments weren’t enough — the symptoms stacked up and eventually overtook me. I write these blogs from deep personal and professional experience.
If you’re functioning daily with these symptoms, you may not realise just how much willpower you’re using. This is true mind over body. But now is the time to start listening to your body — because that’s where true resolution begins.
Even if you’re sleeping through the night, waking up exhausted is a key sign that your fatigue isn’t being reduced. In TCM, this points to weakened Kidney energy. This isn’t your day-to-day energy — it’s your constitutional energy, your life force — and it’s being depleted.
One of the challenges facing the current menopause generation is the sheer level of stress we live under. Our lives are more demanding and more relentless than those of previous generations, and this chronic stress is a major reason we’re seeing such a rise in perimenopause symptoms.
Think of it like your petrol tank of life.
You’ve reached the stage where the gauge is sitting in the red. Fatigue, anxiety, loss of joy, and reduced libido are your warning lights. The beeping sound that comes next? That’s your tinnitus.
Western medicine tends to treat the ears in isolation. Eastern medicine takes a different approach in recognising that your ears are intimately connected to your stress levels, fatigue, and overall vitality.
In Chinese medicine, we call this a loss of Kidney Essence, resulting in a deeply rooted fatigue. In Western terms, this is often described as adrenal depletion or exhaustion. To truly resolve these symptoms, we need to support your deep constitutional energy: through targeted nutrition, supplements, and sustainable lifestyle changes.
Chinese medicine of fatigue in menopause
What is the time of day that you can feel utterly exhausted and could crash?
The late afternoon slump. If you have this along with the ear symptoms then this is you.
If you can have a 20-minute nap around 3pm and you feel refreshed and get on with your day then this isn’t too bad but it’s still an indication of what’s going on and should be noted.
If, however (as some of my clients have been) you’re crashing for 2/3 hours and feeling utterly exhausted or you’ve had to give up your job through fatigue then this is incredibly serious. If you can’t replenish your energy after sleep then you have to resolve your symptoms from another angle.
How do these symptoms start?
These symptoms don’t appear overnight. When tinnitus, vertigo, or dizziness first show up, it can feel sudden — but if you look back over the past three years or more, you’ll often see how gradually they’ve been building.
Ask yourself: how long have you been feeling increasingly tired? This kind of fatigue develops slowly over time. It often begins as mild exhaustion, followed a year or so later by rising anxiety. Eventually, you may notice that situations you once handled with ease now feel overwhelming. Joy starts to fade, libido drops, and life begins to feel like something you’re just pushing through.
These were all signals "early indicators" as you continued to push on. You were coping, but your body wasn’t. Eventually, your body sets off louder alarm bells: tinnitus. It may then create dizziness or vertigo as a protective response, almost as if it no longer trusts you to stay upright. Our bodies are remarkably intelligent and deeply self-preserving. If slowing you down or even stopping you from walking or getting out of bed is what it takes to protect you, that’s what it will do. The body knows when it’s running on empty and it will keep trying to communicate this, even when modern, westernised life has taught us not to listen.
You may even feel that slowing down is a weakness. Many women push on, hoping for recognition for how well they’re “managing” despite feeling unwell. Often, it’s only when symptoms become truly debilitating that they force our attention.
This isn’t about scaring you. It’s about bringing awareness to an underlying health imbalance — and reassuring you that it can be turned around. In Chinese medicine, this imbalance is called Depletion: something essential is missing. And in many of my blogs, you’ll see me return to this again and again — because depletion sits at the root of the majority of perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms.
“The way you’ve explained it makes it less scary. It’s okay I’m all off kilter; more than just my ears being off kilter and actually the way my brain works that makes it feel more like a project to resolve everything rather than just trying tablets or drops that just address ears. If you had a broken arm, you wouldn’t just put a plaster on it; you’d work out where it was broken and do something more structural. “
Emily – Founder of The Perimenopause Hub
It’s so frustrating if you’ve tried a lot of things specifically for ears and not gotten a resolution? A holistic approach will come at the problem from many angles and there are many parts to the overall solution.
Your symptoms are linked at the body organ level so the really good news is that as you work to relieve a specific symptom you will inevitably resolve many of your symptoms.
If tinnitus is a sign of Depletion, how can I resolve it?
In Chinese medicine, depletion means that something essential is missing — so the solution is to restore what the body no longer has in reserve. At the heart of this is nutrition. Your mind and body need rebuilding fuel.
If your diet isn’t currently supportive, that’s the first place to start. But many women searching for answers are already eating well — and this is where deeper support becomes necessary. When energy reserves are running low, food alone often isn’t enough to replenish them. Modern food, while filling, is far less nutrient-dense than it once was, meaning you can eat “well” and still be undernourished at a cellular level.
This is why plant-rich, high-quality supplements can be so effective. You simply can’t eat enough greens to refill an empty tank; but the body knows what it needs. That’s why many women experience strong cravings for green vegetables: it’s an instinctive call for minerals, chlorophyll, and phytonutrients.
A well-formulated plant-based supplement can deliver more concentrated nutrients than you could realistically consume in a day through food alone. Used alongside a varied, healthy diet, these supplements help restore energy, support adrenal and Kidney function, and provide the deep nourishment needed to reverse depletion.
One of the reasons this support is so necessary today is soil depletion. Decades of intensive farming have stripped the soil of minerals, and depleted soil produces depleted food. This is now widely recognised in the health world, and ethical supplement companies are stepping in to help bridge the gap while our food systems catch up. Unfortunately, this places the current menopause generation at the centre of a perfect storm — chronic stress, hormonal change, and widespread nutrient loss.
The good news? Once the body is properly nourished, depletion can be rebuilt — and symptoms like tinnitus don’t have to be permanent.
Lifestyle changes to reduce tinnitus and fatigue in menopause
Nourishing your body with the right nutrients provides the fuel but recovery also depends on how you live. Prioritising sleep and reducing high-impact exercise are essential. Your body needs rest right now, and anything that triggers excess adrenaline (including intense exercise) can deepen exhaustion. If sleep is difficult to shift, this is an area where personalised support can make a real difference.
Mindfulness is equally important. This means being intentional with how you spend your energy and respectful of your time. Saying no is self-care. The old mindset of pushing through illness and fatigue doesn’t serve us; and it often leads to burnout. Learning to honour your body’s need for energy during menopause is a profound shift in thinking, but it’s a vital one for true healing.
“As a person who pushed through, pushed through, pushed through … and then pushed through some more knowing that I was beyond exhausted continuously it took having to completely stop. I desperately wish to never let any other woman get to that place where she has to completely stop as it is an awful place to get to. If you’re feeling like you’re going in that direction please make space for yourself now so that you don’t have to feel like I felt.”
Emily – Founder Perimenopause Hub
This is your body inviting you to pause and do things differently. When your energy tank is low, rest becomes part of the healing — and those warning signals, including tinnitus, are simply your body communicating its need for change. It’s completely understandable to feel frustrated when you don’t yet know what that change looks like. You don’t have to figure it out alone — that’s exactly where support can help.
Next steps to resolve dizziness and tinnitus in menopause
Real change starts with two key areas: reassessing how you move through your week, and significantly increasing the level of nourishment you’re giving your body. These shifts create the foundation for restoring energy and calming symptoms.
To support you, I’ve created a supplements guide alongside self-help resources to help you get started straight away. If you’d prefer personalised, one-to-one support — or want to relieve your symptoms more quickly — you’re welcome to book a chat with me so we can create a plan tailored specifically to you.
You don’t have to keep pushing through. With the right support, your body can rebuild — and balance can be restored.
Meet Andrea - Holistic Menopause Specialist
Andrea is a shiatsu and Chinese medicine practitioner who uses the principles and wisdom of Chinese medicine in a completely practical way to help you resolve your symptoms naturally and effectively. If you live locally you can book in for a wonderfully relaxing Shiatsu for Menopause, otherwise Andrea does online indepth consultations where you'll leave with an actionable plan to follow. Andrea is also passionate about doing workplace talks and has written a book to help you step through simple and effect changes to reduce your symptoms: Understanding Your Menopause
KNOWLEDGE . PAUSE . FLOURISH
