**Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a health professional – the below are just ideas as to why you may have lightheadedness at various times, based on my own experience, other people’s experiences, and research. Nothing can replace your own knowledge of your body or your health professional. Just take these suggestions as what they are: suggestions!
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I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get spells of lightheadedness, sometimes straight up dizziness. Nothing debilitating, but here and there the dizziness makes it difficult for me to turn my head around to, for example, check the other lane on a highway when I’m merging. That’s dangerous. But I’ve had blood tests and nothing is wrong with me to cause this. So what could it be? Consider these things:
– Have you had enough protein today? My most common problem is not having enough protein because I (1) skipped breakfast (2) had a salad with no protein for lunch (3) have done numbers 1 and 2 for a long period of time. Protein doesn’t have to mean meat. If you’re a vegetarian, you can use beans, fish (if your diet allows it), eggs (if your diet allows it), legumes (some can be hard for your stomach to digest), nuts, etc.
– You haven’t eaten at all today/low blood sugar. Don’t just go shoving food in your stomach if it’s dinner time and you haven’t eaten – you can make yourself sick that way. Instead, have something with protein, but nothing heavy. Fish, rice, and veggies would be a good meal in this case.
– Lack of sleep. If you’re low on z’s, your head could get funky in multiple ways including lightheadedness. Caffeine is only a temporary way to wake you up. Catching up on your sleep is the only way to fix this problem.
– Stress. You’ve probably heard before that stress can cause a multitude of physical reactions, and lightheadedness is one of them. If this happens, it’s important that you take a moment to calm down and relax – you don’t want to make yourself pass out. Sit back in a chair and take a deep breath. Close your eyes and figure out what’s stressing you out. Now write it down. This is SO important. Don’t be shy – no one will see this but you. Writing down your stresses can help relieve them because you’re no longer holding them inside. If your stress is caused by having too much to do, make a list of things you need to do to help take off the stress of remembering all your tasks. And make it a detailed list. The less you have to remember, the better you’ll feel.
– Physical overexertion. Did you just finish up at the gym after some heavy lifting or running? You may have overdone it, in which case it’s best to sit down and drink some water. If you’re in a place where you can safely fall asleep, let yourself AFTER you’ve taken in some water. Your body needs to recover, so let it.
– You’ve started a new pill or supplement. STOP. If it’s making you dizzy or lightheaded, DON’T CONTINUE TAKING IT. Check online if this is a common side affect, and if it’s not, call your doctor immediately to make sure nothing is serious is happening to you.
If it’s a common side affect, you still may want to inform your doctor, but also make sure to flush your system – DETOX! Get some green tea down, then follow up with lemon water. If you’ve already got a digestive enzyme that you know works for your body, take it. The faster you get whatever is affecting you out of your system, the better.
– If you have lightheadedness or dizziness directly after eating something, it may have been bad or you may have eaten something you have an allergy/intolerance to. This commonly happens with sushi. Go to Google and look up “sushi lightheadedness” and you’ll find a ton of complaints about this because many people have an allergy/intolerance to seaweed and don’t know it! Then when they eat or overeat sushi (this includes non-raw rolls), they get lightheaded. If it’s an intolerance, it may pass. If you’ve eaten an allergen and something bad could happen beyond lightheadedness, take proper precautions (any pills or patches you might already have) or seek medical attention right away. If you think it’s possible that you’ve eaten slightly off or straight up bad meat or fish and your symptoms get worse, get to a doctor ASAP. You don’t want to mess with food poisoning. While waiting it out can sometimes work, sometimes it doesn’t. Err on the side of caution and listen to your body.
– If you’ve just reintroduced a food back into your body, you may need to take it slower. You could be reacting to it because your body is no longer used to it or because your body is overwhelmed with something it no longer recognizes. When you reintroduce a food you’ve stayed off of for a long period of time, eat a very small amount at a time at first. This is crucial to your body not fighting the food, thereby possibly avoiding a bad reaction.
– Last but not least, it could be that time of the month. Lightheadedness and dizziness can happen as part of PMS. Remember, your body is going into a sort of overdrive to get your reproductive system into gear for your period, and the stress of that on your body can sap some of your energy, making you feel lightheaded. Be careful driving in these cases as exerting yourself can make it worse.
What else have you experienced that made you feel lightheaded or dizzy? Sharing your experiences is extremely welcome so we can all help each other.
Keep on living the wheat free life!
Living the Wheat Free Life 
These are all good points. So many times we feel something weird like lightheadedness and don’t think about more obvious reasons like these that we can fix ourselves. Great post!
Thanks, Daisy! Sometimes it just helps to have some reassurance that what you’re going through isn’t something nobody else has experienced, which is always less scary. Plus if you can avoid taking pills to fix something, do it!