How to Stop Health Anxiety Symptoms
Has someone ever called you a hypochondriac? Do you worry about your health a lot and fear the worst outcomes? Have you ever typed in your search engine, “how to stop health anxiety symptoms?” If so, know that you are not alone! Studies show that 4% to 5% people have health anxiety.
Many people experience stress regarding their health and face a great deal of anxiety. The pandemic has only made health anxiety even more heightened in those suffering. This article can help you identify any symptoms and help you learn about ways to cope. If you are interested, keep reading!
Here is a scenario someone with health anxiety can likely relate to:
Jared has health anxiety. Jared always feels hyper-aware of what is going on in his body. If Jared notices anything “out of the ordinary” going on in his body, he gets nervous. The other day, Jared’s arm felt numb. He had just been sleeping and was leaning on his arm. Quickly, he pulls out his phone and types his symptoms to his favorite doctor: the internet. Suddenly, a variety of diseases pop up due to Jared’s inquiries. This makes him even more anxious, and he starts comparing himself to each list of symptoms.
Even when Jared tries to tell himself that nothing is seriously wrong and it is just a normal headache, it barely helps.
Symptoms of Health Anxiety
Do you want to know how to stop health anxiety symptoms? If you have health anxiety or hypochondria, you may face a variety of symptoms on a daily basis:
- Being hyper-aware of what is going on in your body and overanalyzing functions
- Stressing out over seemingly minor symptoms and assuming the worst- like Jared did with his arm pain
- Constantly looking up or searching for explanations about what is going on in your body on the web
- Ignoring probable causes for things happening in your body (example: my head hurts because I was looking at my computer screen for a while)
- Fixating on having severe disease and constantly worrying about it (even after medical tests and doctors assure your safety)
- Believing that something horrible is going to happen to your health and living in dread
- Asking your friends who are medical professionals or in the medical field countless questions or having them examine you reassure you
- Having this anxiety taking a toll on your daily routines and how you live your life
Why Do I Have Health Anxiety?
There are many reasons why you may be feeling some health anxiety symptoms. You may have seen your family member worry about their health, which influenced you to do the same. Also, a family member might have had a severe illness like cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, and you fear the same will happen to you.
The pandemic causes people much stress nowadays for a variety of reasons. Pandemics and other traumatic events can cause people to stress over their life and mortality. The pandemic has caused people to fear doing daily tasks like going to the store or seeing friends. People living during this time might have even developed agoraphobia – this is the fear of being in a place that is challenging to escape or overwhelming. To learn more about agoraphobia and panic attacks, read here.
Related Disorders:
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): OCD and health anxiety share similarities. Many people with health anxiety or OCD experience excessive reassurance seeking (ERS). People with these disorders also constantly ruminate over their worries and check their bodies in fear of something wrong.
Ways to Cope With Health Anxiety
1. Stop Googling your Symptoms
A significant way to make yourself feel better when you have health anxiety is to stop using the internet as your medical advisor! When feeling stressed over your health, it is so easy to use your search engine and try to come up with answers to all your questions. Breaking this habit is an important way to cope.
When you look up answers to your medical questions online, it often causes even more stress in your life. Jared looked up why his arm felt tingly, and he got results stating that he could be having a heart attack! This answer scared him even more than his arm pain. Stopping the scroll helps people learn how to stop health anxiety symptoms.
2. Trust Your Doctor and Results
Many times, people with health anxiety doubt the advice from their doctors. Even when the results for whatever test they had came back with good results, they still don’t believe that they are okay. Of course, it is important to advocate for yourself and be proactive regarding your health. However, there comes the point when healthy skepticism turns into health anxiety.
Remind yourself that doctors are extensively trained and attend years of schooling before they can help patients. As mentioned before, advocating for yourself in a medical space is essential, and it is okay to ask questions and get a second opinion. If you start noticing that you still want a 3rd, 4th, and 5th opinion, you may want to consider accepting the results and that you are okay.
3. Journal About Your Experiences
The NHS suggests keeping track of your health anxiety symptoms and reducing these activities in your life. For example, you have a friend that is a nurse. You record that you asked her to take your heart rate five times in one week. Seeing this written down in front of you can help you become aware of how much health anxiety influences your life. Next week, challenge yourself to get this number down or not ask your friend for this task at all.
Journaling about your experience could also help you feel better when reading the pages back. If you notice that you were feeling worried about something you recorded prior weeks and nothing terrible happened to your body, this can help you feel less stressed. You can see that you had experienced these symptoms before and could get through them again!
4. Use Mindfulness to Relax Your Worries Away
If you start feeling anxious, allow yourself to engage in activities that help lower this stress. Mindfulness practices are very useful in calming people down. When feeling stressed, try:
- Meditating or practicing yoga
- Deep breathing exercises
- Going on a mindful walk and engaging your senses – allow yourself to listen to the birds, look at the clouds, feel the sunlight on your skin, etc.
- Mindfully Eating – similarly to mindful walking, this practice allows you to eat while engaging your senses and finding peace in the present moment/action of eating
You can also do self-care practices and partake in anything that makes you feel calmer. Self-care looks different for everyone! Someone’s version of self-care may include reading their favorite book while lying on the couch, while another person would enjoy working out to relieve stress.
Try to get your mind off of your anxieties while doing something you enjoy. When you focus on these tasks or hobbies, you will focus less on your worries.
5. Reframe your Anxious Thoughts
Typically, health anxiety could bring a lot of negative thoughts about your health. Such thoughts come to you automatically. As a result, you tend to believe that your thoughts are real. That is, if you fear you could have cancer, you would really have cancer symptoms. Imagine how overwhelming you could feel when such automatic anxious thoughts constantly intertwine in your mind. How to overcome these thoughts then?
A). Write down your anxious thoughts. By writing them down, you can actually slow down your thinking and leave room for rational thinking.
B). Examine your thoughts. Try to find tangible reasons for something occurring rather than assuming the worst. Most of the time, there is a reasonable answer to your questions.
For example, when you have a headache, consider a possible reason for this. Instead of jumping right away to something serious, try thinking of why this could be. Were you looking at your computer screen for a while? Did you listen to loud music in your headphones? Have you drunk enough water today?
Therapy for Health Anxiety
Dealing with health anxiety can be very stressful and hinder your life in many ways. You deserve to live a happier, less stressed life! Going to a therapist can help you learn how to stop health anxiety symptoms. Therapy can help you treat your anxiety symptoms and find ways to cope.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, is helpful when dealing with anxiety. This type of therapy helps you challenge your negative thoughts and reframe them more healthily. Also, consider getting help if you experience any of the other disorders mentioned in this article, like trauma or OCD.
Mind Connections is here to help! Our therapists offer support for all of the services mentioned above. If you need help, our team is here for you – you don’t have to face your worries alone!
Content Creator, Victoria Gallo; Reviewed by Dr. June