Visual Stress is caused by a sensitivity to light and patterned visual images in the environment, and can lead to physical discomfort including nausea, dizziness, disequilibrium, headache, and perceptual distortions. This includes movement of text, appearance of lights or colours and warping or change to stationary objects causing the sensation of movement or instability. These symptoms can lead to difficulties navigating the environment when there is a loss of equilibrium that is often accompanied by spatial disorientation. Patterned carpets may appear to move, tile floors may appear crooked, doorways or windows may appear to lean, or escalators appear to shimmer or vibrate. 

 

Research into Visual Stress and its relationship to visually induced motion sickness noted that the strong sensory stimulation that leads to Visual Stress might be effective at evoking motion sickness as well. While Visual Stress and visually induced motion sickness are different conditions, they share the same mechanisms. [1] 

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It is important to include Visual Stress when investigating possible causes of symptoms and investigate individually prescribed precision tinted lenses as a means to relieve symptoms.