What is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety, also known as illness anxiety disorder or hypochondriasis, is a mental health condition characterised by excessive worry, fear, or preoccupation with having a serious medical illness, despite having little or no medical evidence to support the belief.
Individuals with health anxiety often interpret normal bodily sensations or minor symptoms as signs of a severe illness, and they may constantly seek reassurance from healthcare professionals, family, or friends.
Key features of health anxiety may include:
Excessive worry about health: People with health anxiety are preoccupied with the idea that they have a serious medical condition, even when medical tests and examinations indicate otherwise.
Frequent doctor visits: Individuals with health anxiety tend to visit doctors frequently, seeking reassurance or multiple medical opinions about their health concerns.
Misinterpretation of bodily sensations: They may misinterpret common bodily sensations, such as a headache or minor pain, as evidence of a severe illness.
Avoidance behaviors: Some individuals with health anxiety may avoid situations or activities they associate with potential health risks, such as avoiding social gatherings to prevent exposure to germs.
Anxiety and distress: Health anxiety often causes significant distress, anxiety, and impairment in daily life, affecting one’s ability to work, socialise, and maintain relationships.
Causes of Health Anxiety
Health anxiety is learned or self created, and manifests most often as a result of :
- A parent or family member with health anxiety teaching you to always look for the worst-case scenario and obsess about health.
- An overprotective parent who may have rewarded you with affection and attention when you were ill.
- A parent or family member who may have worried a lot about your health when you were young.
- An illness or death in the family.
- A personal experience of a serious health concern or illness.
Symptoms of Health Anxiety?
There are various symptoms, behaviours and thoughts a person with health anxiety may display, including the following:
- Constantly worrying about health
- Constantly concentrating on feelings in the body
- Frequently searching for ailments and symptoms
- Feelings of anxiety with every pain, niggle or unusual feeling
- Not accepting when a doctor tells you that you are well
- Dwelling on whether your doctor may have missed something
- Worrying that your test results may have been mixed up
- Frequently feeling unwell
- A belief that something is terribly wrong with you all the time
- Frequently requiring visits to the doctor
- Struggling to watch hospital or health-related TV programmes
- Searching for symptoms in yourself when reading or hearing about an illness
- Feelings of panic if you hear someone has cancer or a terminal illness
- Always jumping to the worst-case scenario
- Carrying many medications with you ‘just in case’
- Needing to know the closest hospital and doctor surgery at all times
- Talking about ailments often, with the intention of gaining reassurance from others
Overcoming Health Anxiety
Before embarking on your journey to overcome health anxiety, it’s crucial to recognise that this anxiety is something you’ve learned over time. When those anxious feelings start to well up, remember that they’ve been shaped by past experiences or events. Your emotions are a response to the influences that have fueled your anxiety.
Additionally, be mindful of the company you keep. Spending excessive time with friends who constantly dwell on health-related topics can reinforce your anxiety.
Take a moment to reflect on the origins of your negative health beliefs. Ask yourself questions like:
- How did I come to fear health issues?
- Am I simply repeating behaviors I’ve observed
- Did someone close to me struggle with health anxiety or always expect the worst?
- Have I personally faced serious illness or watched someone near me go through it?
You might find it helpful to create a timeline to trace the roots of your health anxiety. Once you’ve identified the specific event or person that contributed to it, challenge these influences with alternative, positive evidence. Question why you’re following in their footsteps. Are they always right? Do they possess medical expertise? If not, why should their approach guide your actions? Consider their motives for being overly health-conscious and whether those motives apply to you. Do you truly want to continue this cycle of anxiety when it’s clearly detrimental?
Change Your Perspective
If you’re grappling with health anxiety, it’s easy to perceive every health issue as a sign of death or severe illness. However, reality often diverges from this extreme perspective. It’s vital to seek out positive counter evidence. Instead of scouring the internet for alarming information about your symptoms, try searching for stories of people who’ve successfully overcome similar health concerns.
To put things in perspective, imagine your body as a car that enables you to journey through life. If your car starts making an unusual noise, you wouldn’t automatically assume it’s destined for the scrapyard. Apply this same logic to your body. When your body sends signals or sensations, it’s akin to the car’s warning lights flashing. Occasionally, your body may signal that you should take better care of it, get some rest, or consult a healthcare professional.
Your health is your body’s way of communicating with you, a built-in protective system. Consider it a blessing that you receive warnings when something might be amiss. In fact, it could be much worse if your body didn’t provide any feedback at all. Embrace this remarkable system, and take it as an opportunity to care for yourself.
