ANXIETY DISORDERS

Health Anxiety

That being said, while it is normal for us to worry about our health from time to time, experiencing constant and excessive worries about your health may be a sign of something more serious. This phenomenon, known as health anxiety, refers to a mental illness characterised by an excessive and irrational fear about having a serious medical condition despite having few or no symptoms.

Even with medical tests showing that you're healthy, you are not completely convinced and at the back of your mind, there is a nagging feeling that something is wrong.

Health anxiety is also known as illness anxiety, or hypochondriasis. People with health anxiety, sometimes referred to in popular media as hypochondriacs, often go to doctors for symptoms that they believe are linked to a medical problem or they may believe that their mild symptoms are more serious than they really are. This can be problematic especially when it is obsessive and persistent, which can lead to unhelpful behaviours such as doing countless body-checks and medical tests, or spending large amounts of time online reading about their symptoms. In severe cases, these behaviours can become disruptive or cause significant distress to the person’s life, such that it impacts their daily functioning or relationships with others.

What Health Anxiety Feels Like?

Persons who suffer from health anxiety experience symptoms like…

Ψ Constantly worrying about your health
Ψ Frequently checking your body for signs of illness, such as lumps or pain
Ψ Feeling nervous and obsessed with frequently checking your health status
Ψ Avoiding people or places out of a fear of contracting an illness
Ψ Constantly looking for information about symptoms and health conditions on the internet
Ψ Fearing that physical sensations are caused by a serious medical disease
Ψ Constantly talking to others about health problems
Ψ Making doctor's appointments to check up on mild symptoms or normal body functions
Ψ Significant distress over the possibility of being sick, such that it impairs your normal daily functioning

Can Health Anxiety be Addressed?

Fortunately, health anxiety can be managed. Two commonly used plans to manage health anixety are pharmacological management (i.e. medication) and psychotherapy.

There are different types of psychotherapies that can be used to address health anxiety. One example is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which has become a popular option for the management of health anxiety. CBT helps individuals to manage the anxiety they feel towards their physical symptoms, through learning various techniques to alter their negative thoughts, assumptions and behaviours. This in turn helps to diminish their symptoms gradually.

Some techniques that are used in CBT include:

Ψ The ABC Model

This model technique teaches one how to reinterpret irrational beliefs which will result in alternative behaviours. The ABC Model involves 3 aspects: Activating Event, Belief, and Consequences. The ABC model was developed by psychologist Dr Albert Ellis.

Ψ Exposure Therapy

This technique involves exposing the person to his or her trigger to help reduce their anxiety responses. It is a type of psychological therapy that was developed to help people confront their fears.

Ψ Cognitive Restructuring

This technique focuses on finding and altering the person’s irrational thoughts to promote more adaptive and reasonable thoughts. The goal is to replace one’s cognitive distortions or negative thoughts with more balanced thoughts that do not induce anxiety.

Ψ Worst Case/Best Case/Most Likely Case Scenario

This technique teaches one to let our thoughts ruminate by exploring all three scenarios to help us rationalise our thoughts and develop actionable steps to control and change one’s behavior.

Ψ Behavioural Experiments

The goal of behavioural experiments is to test and identify one’s negative thought patterns. In these experiments, one will be asked to predict what will happen and discuss the results later. It is usually recommended to start with lower anxiety experiments before tackling more distressing ones.

Self-Help Strategies to Cope with Health Anxiety

Outside of medication and psychotherapy, there are also self-help strategies that you can use to help manage symptoms of health anxiety. With that said, here are some tips on how to cope with health anxiety:

Ψ Manage your stress levels

Since stress can contribute to the occurrence of health anxiety, finding ways to relieve your stress can be helpful in managing your feelings of anxiety whenever you feel worried about an illness or condition. Try to engage in relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, visualisation, and progressive muscle relaxation that may be helpful for relieving stress in the mind and body.

Ψ Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is a technique that involves focusing on your body in the present moment. It may help you better understand the normal bodily sensations that you feel each day so that they feel more normal and less like potential health problems. It may also help to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress that are associated with health anxiety.

Ψ Avoid looking at unhelpful information online

Constantly reading frightening articles online about health conditions can heighten one’s anxieties and fears about contracting a certain illness. When you do seek information online, look for sources that are trustworthy and reassuring, but bear in mind to avoid constantly reading about health conditions or illnesses.

Ψ Change your focus of attention.

Try to move your attention away from health-related thoughts by keeping yourself busy with other things or activities. When you get the urge to check your body or look for health information, try to distract yourself by going for a walk, listening to your favourite music, or calling a friend for a catch up.

Ψ Keep a journal

Keep track of how often you check your body, how often you visit the doctor, or how often you look at health information online. Through being aware and recognising your own behaviour, you can learn to gradually reduce how often you do these things over a week.

Ψ Get back to normal activities

If you have been avoiding certain activities or events because of your health worries, try to introduce them back into your routine gradually in order to help you transition back into normal, regular activities. These can include doing sports, going out for dinner with friends, or bringing your pets out for a walk.

Ψ Be aware of negative thoughts and keep your worries in check

Challenge your worrisome thoughts by learning strategies to manage them and keep them in perspective. You can do so by writing your thoughts down on paper to help you see your thoughts from a different perspective. Next, challenge these thoughts by asking yourself: ‘is there a more helpful way of thinking about this?’ or ‘Is worrying about this helping?’. You can also try to shift the focus from your thoughts to something else (e.g. a fun activity) or focus on the things that you can control instead such as decluttering or cleaning of your work space.

Ψ Scheduling ‘worry time’

It can be tough to engage in your daily activities when anxiety and worry are constantly dominating your thoughts and distracting you from work or school tasks. This is where creating a daily ‘worry’ period or ‘worry time’ can come in handy.

To get started, determine a time of day where you can set aside 20 minutes to do nothing but worry. It can be in the morning or evening depending on your preference, but it should take place at the same time every day. During your worry period, you’re allowed to worry about whatever’s on your mind. Afterwhich, the rest of the day should be kept worry-free. That being said, worries will still come up at times outside of your scheduled worry time. When they do, briefly acknowledge them and make a note of it and then continue about your day. Remind yourself that you’ll have time to think about it later (during your ‘worry time’), so there’s no need to worry about it at that moment.

Setting aside time to ruminate on a regular, scheduled basis, can help one to gradually take control of unplanned and debilitating worrying. Furthermore, scheduling time for worrying helps you to break the chain of frequent worrying that you experience throughout the day and pushes you to develop a more balanced perspective.