In this instructional video, the presenter explains that the vestibular system—located in the inner ear—acts as the body’s primary balance sensor. He describes its anatomy: two ears each containing three semicircular canals (horizontal, anterior, posterior) that detect head rotation via fluid movement and hair‑cell nerves, plus the utricle and saccule that sense linear motion (forward/backward, side‑to‑side, up/down). The speaker links vestibular dysfunction to a range of health problems, including poor posture, forward‑head posture, rolled shoulders, kyphosis, scoliosis, vertigo, chronic ankle sprains, limited neck mobility, visual strain, and even stress‑related sympathetic over‑activation. He argues that many spinal and movement issues are accompanied by vestibular deficits. To assess balance, he offers a simple self‑test: stand with feet together (or on one foot), close the eyes, and note swaying; then perform rapid head turns while keeping eyes on a visual target, repeat, and retest. He introduces a quick head‑turn/vestibulo‑ocular reflex exercise—turn the head quickly to one side, close eyes, return to neutral, open eyes, and repeat 3‑5 times—suggesting it improves balance in 9 out of 10 cases when practiced regularly. He also mentions walking while fixing gaze on a target as another method. The presenter invites viewers with persistent issues to contact him for a professional assessment.
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The importance of balance. We're really going to dig into this one. This is another one of those hidden secrets in health and fitness, and it's one of the things that a lot of people have a difficult time with. And we're going to talk about how to improve your balance, and it starts with this. If you've ever heard of the vestibular system, it's in your inner ear and it's your balancing system. Your vestibular system tells you which way is up and which way you're going. So there's 5 parts to the vestibular system, and you have 2. You have one in the left ear, one in the right ear. In this picture they look huge because I want you to be able to see all the different parts, but in reality it's so tiny, it's— and it's way deep in the ear. Now what you've got here is— let's just look at one of them, one of these white things. You've got these little loops on the top, and the ones behind are a little hard to see, but there's 3 loops. You've got the horizontal, the anterior, and the posterior— they call them canals. Okay, so they're like little donuts, and essentially at the bottom of them, or in the base of the vestibular system, there's a nerve, and that nerve penetrates into these canals. So each canal has one nerve, or one hair-like thing. The end of a nerve. Now, if you have a glass of water and say there's an ice cube in it right where you're about to take a sip, and you go to turn that cup, you'll notice that that cup turns but the ice cube stays right where it is. So essentially the water has turned opposite how you've turned it within your cup. That same kind of concept happens with the fluid that's inside these canals. What happens is you turn your head this way or this way, Or this way. The different canal will spin that fluid, which pushes on that little hair-like nerve ending, and that little hair-like nerve ending sends a signal to your brain and says, hey, we're turning our head in the specific direction that you've turned it in. Now, as you turn one way, the one side will spin one way and the other side will spin the opposite way. So it's kind of a push-pull system. Now, sometimes those things can be off. You may turn your head left And the left side spins the way it's supposed to, and the right side is just not picking up the signal. Sometimes that nerve gets a little underactivated, we could say. So practicing that movement can improve how your balance is just by moving your head. There's different exercises for this. Now the other 2 parts are down here in what's listed as the cochlea, and those are your utricle and saccule. And those tell your brain whether you're moving forwards and backwards, side to side, or up and down. So they're more of a body movement in telling you how you're going. They're all really important and they work together in order to tell your brain where you are. Now, if any of these pieces are not working properly, it can actually influence your posture. People with the forward head and the rolled shoulders and the hunched position Often have a vestibular problem. Anybody who has a spinal issue, whether it's kyphosis, that hunchback, or scoliosis, which is very common in people, they're finding that about 99% of the time now, there's also a vestibular deficit. So these— the vestibular system helps control the muscles that control posture around the spine and the neck and the upper body. So So if your balance is off, you probably have a vestibular problem. If you have a spinal issue, you probably have a vestibular problem. By working on the vestibular system and your balance, it will not only improve your balance, but it will also improve your posture and your movement. Now, other issues for poor— we've talked about poor balance, but vertigo. If you've ever suffered from vertigo, generally that's something going on somewhere in the vestibular system. There are several different kinds of vertigo because there are several different parts of the vestibular system. So it's not as simple as just saying, do this exercise to fix it. It takes some assessment, and I'm happy to do that for you if you're having this problem. Send me an email. If you have chronic ankle sprains, generally you have a vestibular problem because you're not sensing where the ground is or the floor is underneath you, and you've sprained that ankle over and over and over because you're stepping improperly. If you have poor neck mobility, your neck just doesn't move very well, oftentimes It's because your vestibular system is guarding you because it doesn't know what's happening when it moves beyond a certain area. If you have visual issues, oftentimes people will sit at a computer and be hunched over way in close, and if that's the case, you will end up distorting your vestibular system. You can actually use your visual system to correct your vestibular system. If you've had a history of head injuries, that can create vestibular problems. You can knock something and it just doesn't quite work the way it used to. As a side note, there's a lot of belief now with certain studies coming out that people with scoliosis from childhood suffered a head injury that they never really considered serious, and that distorted the vestibular system. And as they developed, their spine developed scoliosis because their vestibular system couldn't really differentiate What was really straight up and down. If you have vestibular deficiency, it's now a constant threat to you. It's putting you into stress mode, which increases all of your sympathetics, your blood pressure, your breathing rate. It starts this chain reaction of bad stuff, and it will also lead to poor movement patterns because your brain just isn't knowing which way gravity is really trying to pull you. It can lead to all kinds of different stuff and start a bad spiral. So if you have these issues, You can start to work on the vestibular system. Here's a quick test for you to try if you think this is you. I'm gonna have you stand up and I'm gonna have you put your feet together. In this picture, I'm, I'm on one foot. This is an advanced test. Start with your feet just standing close together. Close your eyes and see if you feel like you're swaying. If you're not swaying, then you'll go to the one-foot example. That's a little bit more advanced. Now, from any of these positions, whether it's 2 feet or 1 foot, you can turn your head side— you can do your head turns to the side with your eyes open. So for example, say you do this test and you feel like no matter which foot you stand on, or even with both feet, you feel like you're falling to the right. You'll stand up tall with your eyes open, and you're going to have a target to your right, and you're going to quickly— I'm going to demonstrate here— quickly turn your head to the right. So for me, my right's this way. So you go here, quick turn, visually fix on what you're looking at, close your eyes, and very slowly come back to neutral. Open your eyes and regain target— visual target— visual acuity on your original target. And then repeat that. So it's a quick head turn to that side. Do this about 3 to 5 times, then retest yourself. Okay. See if that has improved your balance. 9 times out of 10, it will improve your balance, and that means this is an exercise that you need to do fairly regularly until your balance has improved. Okay? You can also walk while you're keeping your eyes fixed on a target as you go by. So as you're walking, your head will turn as you're watching something as you walk by it. This is your visual— your vestibulo-ocular reflex. Okay, so this is just integrating your eyes and your balance system, which turn your head and help your brain to see what's all around you so that you can turn your head to see these things. Also something that a lot of people are deficient in, and it's a very quick and easy fix if this is your issue. Okay, so this is that head turn exercise. Okay, and That's what we just went over, so work on that, see if that helps you. If that doesn't help you, let's dig a little deeper. Please send me an email, we'll talk more about it. You may have something else going on that we need to address first before that will actually work for you.
