MILAN — When Amber Glenn takes the ice this week for her short program, she’s expected to skate a graceful routine that will end with a series of spins. If she performs as expected, the spins — more than two dozen in all — will be a dramatic crescendo, the culmination of a meticulously prepared routine.

And many of the millions watching at home will wonder, How does she do that? Very quickly followed by, Hey, why isn’t she just throwing up on the ice right now from dizziness?

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The answer to both questions — the ability to spin, and the ability to stave off dizziness — is the same: practice. Lots and lots of practice.

Let’s start with a basic but neurologically complex question: What exactly is dizziness? You know it when you feel it, but what exactly is it?

“There are many causes of dizziness, but neurologically speaking, which I think is most relevant here, dizziness is caused by dysfunction of the vestibular system,” Dr. Lindsay J. Agostinelli, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Yahoo Sports in an email. “The vestibular system is an apparatus in our inner ears that detects head motion and rotation, sending signals to our brain to then turn our eyes in order to maintain balance and prevent dizziness as we move through space.”

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Skaters, like dancers, begin to prepare for spinning by focusing on a single spot in the distance as they spin, then turning their head quickly and relocating that point, Dr. Agostinelli notes. That allows them to quickly stabilize themselves and stave off dizziness.

But that method won’t exactly work on ice, when skaters are whipping around five or six times a second. The only way to solve that problem, Dr. Agostinelli suggests, is by repetition, breaking down your traditional dizzy reaction to spinning.

“Research studies have shown that figure skaters actually have a less reactive vestibular system, and when exposed to a ‘nauseogenic simulation’ that rotated/ spun them, they felt less motion sick compared to non-skaters,” Dr. Agostinelli says. “This is likely a result of their training which habituates their vestibular systems.”

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Fighting off dizziness is a mental battle that becomes a physical one. “I think initial training requires mental toughness to fight through the requisite dizziness,” Dr. Agostinelli says, “but the ability to perform at high speeds without dizziness is clearly a result of the physical training and desensitization process.”

So there you go. If you want to stay as level-headed as a skater, start spinning now. Carefully.