How to Stop Worrying About Your Health: Breaking the Health Anxiety Cycle
Most of us worry about our health occasionally.
You notice an unfamiliar pain, a strange sensation or a change in your body and wonder what it might mean. Often the concern passes, particularly once you've had an explanation or medical reassurance.
But for some people, the worry doesn't go away.
You may find yourself constantly monitoring your body, Googling symptoms or asking other people what they think. Even after speaking to your doctor or receiving reassuring test results, another doubt appears.
What if they've missed something?
What if the test was done too early?
What if this new symptom means something different?
This can become exhausting. And unfortunately, some of the things you do to make yourself feel safer can actually keep the worry going.
As a psychotherapist and clinical hypnotherapist with more than 25 years' experience, I've worked with many people whose fear about their health has begun to dominate their thoughts.
Understanding the pattern is an important first step towards changing it.
Looking for Help With Health Anxiety?
If worries about your health, repeated checking or constantly seeking reassurance are becoming difficult to control, I've created a Health Anxiety Self-Hypnosis recording to help you develop a calmer, more balanced response to health-related thoughts and sensations.
What Is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety is excessive worry about having, developing or becoming seriously ill.
The physical sensations that concern you may be completely real. The problem isn't that you're imagining how your body feels. It's the frightening meaning you begin to attach to those sensations and the amount of attention they receive.
A headache becomes a possible brain tumour.
A skipped heartbeat becomes a heart problem.
A swollen gland becomes cancer.
Feeling dizzy suddenly seems like evidence of something serious.
Once that possibility enters your mind, anxiety increases. And anxiety itself can produce very real physical sensations, including a racing heart, dizziness, muscle tension, nausea, sweating and changes in breathing.
Those sensations can then give you even more to worry about.
Why Do I Keep Thinking I Have a Serious Illness?
When you're frightened about your health, your attention can become highly focused on your body.
You begin noticing things you might previously have ignored.
A twinge. A change in your heartbeat. A slight headache. An ache that wasn't there yesterday.
The more closely you monitor your body, the more sensations you're likely to notice.
Your anxious mind then asks:
What if this is something serious?
The difficulty is that anxiety tends to favour the frightening explanation rather than the ordinary one.
Instead of thinking, I've got a headache because I'm tired, you may think, What if there's something seriously wrong?
Once that thought takes hold, it's very tempting to investigate.
Why Googling Symptoms Can Make Health Anxiety Worse
If you've ever searched a seemingly harmless symptom online and ended up convinced you have a serious disease, you're certainly not alone.
You may start Googling because you want reassurance.
The problem is that almost any symptom can produce frightening search results.
A search for dizziness, abdominal discomfort or tingling fingers can quickly lead you from common and harmless explanations to rare and serious illnesses.
You then notice that you have two or three of the symptoms listed.
So you search again.
Perhaps you change the wording slightly:
"Headache and dizziness serious?"
"How do I know if my headache is a brain tumour?"
"Can doctors miss brain tumours?"
Instead of settling the question, each search creates another one.
How Do I Stop Googling My Symptoms?
Trying to promise yourself that you'll never search for another symptom may be unrealistic.
A better starting point is to recognise the urge before automatically acting on it.
When you feel compelled to search, try delaying it.
Tell yourself:
"I want to Google this because I'm anxious. I don't have to do it immediately."
Wait for 20 or 30 minutes and do something else.
Often the urge will reduce.
You're beginning to teach yourself something important: feeling anxious doesn't mean you have to respond to the anxiety.
Why Do I Keep Checking My Body for Symptoms?
Body checking can take many forms.
You might repeatedly check a mole, feel your lymph nodes, monitor your pulse, examine your skin, look inside your mouth, weigh yourself or compare one side of your body with the other.
Again, you're usually doing this because you want reassurance.
You check.
Everything seems fine.
You feel better.
But perhaps an hour later you think:
Did that lump feel exactly the same before?
So you check again.
This is one of the traps of health anxiety.
The checking provides temporary relief, which makes you more likely to check the next time you're worried.
Gradually, your brain learns:
When I'm frightened about my health, I need to check myself to feel safe.
Breaking the cycle means learning that you don't always have to perform the check.
Why Don't I Believe My Doctor When They Say I'm OK?
This can be particularly frustrating.
You've done exactly what you're supposed to do. You've spoken to a medical professional, perhaps had an examination or tests, and you've been reassured.
For a little while, you feel enormously relieved.
Then the doubts begin.
What if the doctor missed something?
What if I didn't explain the symptom properly?
What if I need a second opinion?
What if the test isn't completely reliable?
The problem is that health anxiety often demands absolute certainty.
Medicine cannot always provide that.
A doctor may be able to tell you that there is no medical reason to suspect a serious illness. Anxiety responds:
"But can you guarantee it?"
Trying to achieve 100% certainty can lead to repeated appointments, tests, online research and requests for reassurance.
Learning to tolerate a reasonable degree of uncertainty is therefore an important part of overcoming health anxiety.
Why Do I Keep Asking People for Reassurance?
Perhaps you frequently ask your partner:
"Does this look normal?"
"Do you think I should be worried?"
"Would you go to the doctor if this happened to you?"
Or you might repeatedly discuss symptoms with friends or relatives.
Their reassurance helps.
But only temporarily.
Before long, you need reassurance again.
This doesn't mean you should never discuss a genuine health concern with someone. The important question is whether you're seeking useful advice or repeatedly asking the same question because anxiety wants another dose of certainty.
Before asking for reassurance, try asking yourself:
"Have I already had an answer to this question?"
If you have, experiment with allowing the discomfort to be there without asking again.
It may feel difficult initially, but that's how you begin weakening the habit.
Waiting for Medical Test Results When You Have Health Anxiety
Waiting for a medical appointment, scan or test result can be particularly difficult if you're already prone to health anxiety.
Your mind has time to create frightening possibilities.
You may find yourself repeatedly checking your phone, searching survival statistics or reading stories about people who had similar symptoms.
Try to separate these two statements:
"I'm waiting for a result."
and
"The result is going to be bad."
The first is a fact.
The second is a prediction.
When your mind races ahead, bring yourself back to what you actually know right now.
You don't need to convince yourself that everything will definitely be fine.
You simply don't need to treat the worst possible outcome as though it has already happened.
The Health Anxiety Cycle
Health anxiety often follows a recognisable pattern:
You notice something → you interpret it as potentially dangerous → you become anxious → you check, Google or seek reassurance → you feel better temporarily → another doubt appears → the cycle begins again.
The aim isn't to stop noticing your body or to ignore genuine health concerns.
It's to change what happens after anxiety appears.
Each time you resist an unnecessary search, check or request for reassurance, you're doing something different.
You are allowing uncertainty to exist without immediately trying to eliminate it.
With practice, that can reduce the power the cycle has over you.
Five Things You Can Start Doing
If health worries are taking up too much of your time, try these simple changes.
1. Notice your triggers
Pay attention to what starts the worry. It might be a physical sensation, something you see on television, hearing about somebody else's illness or reading a health story online.
2. Delay checking
When you feel the urge to check your body or Google a symptom, postpone it rather than immediately responding.
3. Reduce repeated reassurance
If you've already received an answer, notice when anxiety is simply asking you to obtain the same reassurance again.
4. Question frightening predictions
Ask yourself:
What do I actually know, and what am I predicting?
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
5. Put your attention back into your life
Health anxiety pulls attention inward.
Deliberately redirecting your attention towards work, hobbies, exercise, conversation or ordinary everyday activities can help break the constant monitoring of your body.
Can Self-Hypnosis Help With Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety can become very automatic.
A sensation appears and, almost before you've had time to think, your mind has jumped to a frightening conclusion.
Self-hypnosis can provide an opportunity to step away from that automatic pattern.
During hypnosis, you remain aware and in control. The aim is to create a calm, focused state in which you can practise responding differently to anxious thoughts and physical sensations.
I've created a Health Anxiety Self-Hypnosis recording specifically for people who find themselves worrying excessively about their health.
The recording is designed to help you become calmer about bodily sensations, reduce the need for repeated checking and reassurance, and develop a more balanced response when worrying thoughts appear.
You don't need to eliminate every thought about your health.
The goal is to reach the point where a thought or sensation can occur without it taking control of the rest of your day.
When to Seek Medical Advice
Health anxiety should never be used as a reason to dismiss a new, persistent or concerning physical symptom.
If you're worried about a symptom, speak to an appropriate healthcare professional rather than assuming it is caused by anxiety.
Equally, if you've received appropriate medical advice but find that fear about your health continues to dominate your life, consider speaking to your GP or a mental-health professional about the anxiety itself.
The aim isn't to ignore your health.
It's to learn the difference between taking sensible care of yourself and living in constant fear of what might be wrong.
