How do ears help with balancing?

Connection between body balance and ears:

Normally, our ears consists of three parts, Outer ear, Middle ear and Inner ear. Our inner ear was syncing with our eyes and muscles, helping us to maintain balance while we are doing various activities. The inner ear consists of three semicircular canals namely,

• Superior semicircular canal
• Posterior semicircular canal
• Lateral semicircular canal

Inner ear

Semicircular Canal

These three semicircular canals are raised in three different positions.  Each of these canals have a fluid called endolymph and a hair cells called cilia at the base. When we move our head, the fluid moves resulting the movement of cilia as well. When the cilia moves, it sends the signal to the brain on which direction our head is moving. Each canals have the different functions as per the movement of our head.

• When we move our head up and down, the superior semicircular canal helps our brain to understand YES motion.
• When we shake our head towards our shoulder, the posterior semicircular canal helps our brain to understand the tilting motion.
• When we move our head side to side, the lateral semicircular canal helps our brain to understand NO motion.

When we get into Merry go round and then suddenly jumps from it, we cannot be able to maintain balance and fell down. This is because when we sat in the Merry go round and started rotating, the fluid in the semicircular canal also started to move. After a while, it was moving at the same rate in which we are moving. However, when the ride stopped and we got down from the ride, the fluid was still in the motion due to inertia. Hence, even though when we are not moving, the moving fluid gave our brain false information, telling our brain that we are still in the motion and thus we are not able to maintain the balance.