The holiday season often brings warmth, excitement, and long-awaited reunions. It also brings environments that can be louder, brighter, and more stimulating than usual. Traveling through airports, staying in unfamiliar places, navigating crowded events, and managing shifting routines can create a significant increase in sensory load—not only for individuals with a history of brain injury, but for anyone who is sensitive to visual, auditory, or motion-related input.

Winter arrives with a shift in rhythm—shorter days, festive gatherings, and outdoor activities that look very different depending on where you live. In many places, winter means skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, hiking, or simply navigating icy sidewalks. Even in warmer states, the season often brings busier travel schedules, holiday sports tournaments, and more time spent in crowded or overstimulating environments.

Dizziness and nausea can disrupt life in a way few other symptoms can. They can appear suddenly, persist for months, or become chronic following an injury, neurological condition, migraine disorder, or sensory imbalance. Many patients seek answers, undergo imaging or cognitive tests, and hear that “everything looks normal”—yet they continue to feel unstable, nauseated, or disconnected from their surroundings.

It’s a familiar and often frustrating situation: you’re dealing with brain fog, dizziness, headaches, or difficulty concentrating, yet your cognitive test results all come back “normal.” You’re happy to hear that nothing serious was found, but also left wondering why you still don’t feel like yourself. This disconnect between what the tests show and what you’re actually living is far more common than people realize.