What this is, and how to use it
If busy, moving scenes leave you swimming — the supermarket aisle, flowing traffic, a crowd, a screen full of movement — it is usually because your brain has come to lean too heavily on your eyes for balance. When a great deal of visual movement arrives at once, it is given more than it can handle, and you feel dreadful.
The way out is not to hide from moving scenes, which only teaches your brain that they are dangerous. It is to meet them in small, safe, rising doses until they lose their power over you. This page simply gives you a controllable moving pattern so you can do that at home, starting far gentler than the real world would allow.
The traffic light
Rate your dizziness out of ten while you watch, where nought is completely steady.
Green is a small rise, up to about three out of ten, settling within a few minutes of stopping. That is what we want, and you may gently step things up next time.
Amber is a bigger rise, around four or five, or one that takes twenty to thirty minutes to settle. Still safe, but stay at this level rather than climbing.
Red is dizziness above five out of ten, or lasting hours, or leaving you wrung out. Ease back to the last setting that felt green and build up more slowly.
The rule that makes it work
When the dizziness rises, do not look away or close your eyes straight away. That is the instinct, and it is the thing that keeps the fear alive. Keep watching a little longer, let the feeling climb and then begin to settle, and only then stop. You are teaching your brain that the movement was uncomfortable but harmless, and that it passes.
Start with a minute or two, once or twice a day. Build up the length before you build up the speed or the busyness, and change only one thing at a time.
Choose a starting pattern
Begin with the gentlest and work down the list over the weeks. Do not start at the bottom.
Watch the pattern
Sit down, hold the screen still, and look at the centre of the panel. Keep something solid within reach.
Adjust the challenge
Change one thing at a time. Longer first, then faster, then busier.
Stripes are the gentlest. Dots flowing towards you mimic walking forward. The busy scene is closest to a real shop.
How fast the pattern drifts across the screen.
How fine and crowded the pattern is. Busier is harder.
How strong the light and dark are. Start low. High contrast is much harder, and is capped for safety.
The speed and busyness sliders together determine how quickly the pattern flickers past a fixed point. This tool automatically holds that rate below 3 flashes per second, the accepted safety threshold, by slowing the pattern if needed. It will never let you exceed it.
When to go back to your doctor
Give this work a fair trial. Most people find that busy, moving scenes trouble them less over the course of some weeks to a few months. If two to three months of steady practice bring no improvement at all, or if your dizziness changes character and starts arriving in new and unfamiliar ways, go back to your doctor so the diagnosis can be checked.
In particular, if your dizziness comes in short, violent bursts of spinning lasting under a minute, brought on by rolling over in bed or tipping your head back, that points to BPPV, which needs a completely different treatment and will not respond to this. See your doctor and ask about it — or read Professor Veer's BPPV & vertigo guide.
Stop and seek urgent medical help if you develop sudden weakness or numbness in your face, an arm or a leg, slurred speech, sudden trouble seeing or double vision, a sudden severe headache unlike any you have had before, or sudden deafness in one ear.
This tool is provided for educational and self-help purposes only. It is not a medical device, it is not a treatment, and it does not constitute medical advice. It records nothing, stores nothing, and transmits nothing. Use it at your own risk, and only if a doctor has diagnosed your condition and advised vestibular rehabilitation.