Overcome Vertigo with Climbing

Vertigo is horrible.

It’s like having your legs kicked out from under you while simultaneously being punched in the stomach and spun around like a deranged ballerina.

People often mistake vertigo for the simple fear of heights. “Just snap out of it,” they say, “I’m a little scared of heights too.”

But vertigo is much more than that. It’s an involuntary bodily reaction to heights that seems to defy all sense.

You can even have vertigo without having a fear of heights.

Fortunately, though, vertigo is curable, and it only takes one simple trick.

It’s the same trick that works for curing travel sickness, motion sickness, so listen up if you’re one of the poor souls that suffer from those as well.

Just a side note though, the kind of vertigo we’re talking about here is “height vertigo,” not the one that’s caused by an ear infection. If you have that other kind, just go to your doctor and they’ll sort it out.

For those with height vertigo though, you’re in the right place. I’m going to tell you everything you need to know.

The Trick to Overcoming Vertigo

First of all, you’re going to want to go to an indoor bouldering center.

If you’ve never been before, admission is cheap, and you can ask the friendly staff at the front desk to hire some chalk and climbing shoes.

Now, here comes the trick.

All you have to do is climb almost high enough to trigger your vertigo. Don’t worry if that’s not far; it’s all part of the process.

When you start to feel “weird,” in that moment before your vertigo is triggered, come down and have a rest on the mats.

The key is to never ever try to push past vertigo but to gradually teach your brain that heights are nothing to flip out over.

If you get frustrated and try to push past the sickness, all you’ll do is end up teaching your brain to strengthen its association between heights and misery.

So take it slow, and you’ll be over it quicker. It’s ironic that way.

Now, a climbing place is obviously ideal for this because you can freely choose how high you want to go, but there is a reason why bouldering in particular is perfect for getting the drop on your vertigo.

That reason is that bouldering gyms have bouldering mats.

After all, isn’t a huge part of vertigo the fear of falling?

Bouldering mats take that away. There is no height in an indoor bouldering center that is dangerous to jump from if you bend your legs properly.

This is an amazing feature that you can take advantage of.

When you get to that height that is almost enough to trigger your vertigo, jump off if you can, or if you can’t, then climb down a little and hop off.

Remember baby steps. You’re looking to gently reach that threshold before you trigger your vertigo, not turn yourself into a sprawling mess on the floor.

The Next Step:

Once you have managed to conquer the bouldering wall you can move onto climbing walls, Climbing walls range in height but you can move onto these with the same goal in mind, climb to the highest possible point you can, and then get gently lowered down by the rope, you can rinse and repeat this method until you are comfortable at the desired height.

So, we’ve covered the method for overcoming vertigo, travel sickness, and motion sickness. You gently expose yourself to the trigger, rest for long enough to fully reset the sickness, and then do it all over again, never attempting to push through it, so you can gradually raise your limit as you slowly get desensitized to the trigger.

Now let’s look at how to make this process as fast as possible.

How to Overcome Vertigo Ridiculously Quickly

The entire point of this trick to overcoming vertigo is to spend as long as possible in a situation that triggers it, without actually triggering it.

It sounds almost like nonsense. “How is that even possible?”

Well, the answer is that it’s barely possible, and that “barely” is the narrow window that you’ll be working with.

That window, where you almost trigger your vertigo, is the window that you’re set to conquer.

When you’ve fully desensitized yourself to it, you’ll find that the window will have moved much higher. That’s when you start working on overcoming that new threshold with the very same method.

So, when it comes down to it, your ability to remain within that window of “If I climb one step higher I’ll trigger the sickness” is the key to everything. If you can remain in that window long enough without fully triggering your vertigo, you’ll be well on your way to curing it forever.

This is precisely why you want to eat a ton of ginger before you do this.

“Ginger?” you ask. “Why ginger?”

Because ginger’s anti-nausea effects nullify feelings of dizziness and sickness so much that it feels like you’re cheating.

I have personally used it to overcome motion sickness, travel sickness, and a little fear of heights along with the method I was talking about earlier. It took me about a week; I’m not even kidding.

I used to get horrendous travel sickness as a kid, to the point where I couldn’t read a single sentence of a book or play on my game boy advance for more than a few seconds without getting sick for hours. It stayed with me until cured it about three months ago within a week of munching ginger and sticking with the method.

I think you get the idea.