10 Effective tips for managing health anxiety.
Health anxiety is treated using a comprehensive process combining cognitive and behavioral approaches,
(Also read: 5 Ways to Overcome Health Anxiety
What is health anxiety?
Being concerned about having or getting a serious disease or health condition. Believing that slight symptoms or body sensations indicate a serious illness.
Becoming easily alarmed about your health.
Finding little or no reassurance from doctor visits or negative test results.
Even after being convinced they are healthy, those anxieties still linger on, play on repeat continuously, and lead to an anxiety loop full of bad habits…
Health anxiety is ruining my life!
Sometimes, people have a fear of being sick when they're actually ok. This is called health worry.
For example, they might think that minor aches are indicative of something serious being wrong with them, such as a terminal illness.
However, if your head and gut are telling you the same thing, my friend, listen. They know all! Just joking, most of those little feelings are just normal body stuff!
What Health Worry Feels Like
When someone has health worries, they might: Feel scared about being sick a lot. Check their body to see if anything feels strange.
Ask grown-ups or doctors if they're okay, over and over. Stop having fun because they’re too busy worrying.
What Causes Health Worry?
Different things can cause someone to worry about their health, such as the following:
1. Once Getting Really Sick
In case someone was very ill before, they might keep worrying that it could be so again.
2. Worrying a lot
Some people just concentrate on what might go bad.
3. Hearing scary health stories
Looking at or listening to stories about a person falling sick can do the trick.
How to Feel Better When You Are Worried.
If someone worries about their health, here are things to help: feel better.
1. Talk About Your Worries.
Sometimes talking with an adult or someone who hears you can help calm concerns. Talking through concerns may help some of the worry disappear from your mind.
2. Breathe slowly and deeply.
If your heart pounds, you can make your breathing seem normal by breathing very slowly and very deeply.
3. Do not always check your body.
It is fine to not check into everything little. Most of the time, everything is just fine without having to check everything all the time!
4. Find Fun Things to Do.
Doing things you like, just like the happiness of playing or drawing, can help prevent too much consideration of having been sick.
When to Ask for Help.
If a person feels really anxious all day long, even after using these tips, they need to see a doctor or a person who helps fix feelings, such as a therapist.
Fun ways to stop worrying about your health.
Perhaps it will keep your head occupied with activities, that will be enjoyable for you as well as make you happy.
This way, you can understand, that having worries about health is okay and that there are ways to feel better.
Here are some interesting ways to feel better once you are worried about your health:
1. Create a Happy Book.
Create a scrapbook with all the happy things.
Have lots of pictures, drawings, or stickers of your favorite animals, foods, pets, or places to which you would like to go.
Write down your favorite joke. Look at your book for peace when worried…
2. Create a worry box.
Find a small box, and each time you begin worrying, draw anything about it on a piece of paper in words, put it into that small box, and close its cover.
Sometimes you may put a piece of your mind in an envelope and seal over your name…
3. Practice mindful coloring.
4. Play the "Grateful Game."
List down three neat things or things to be happy about or laugh about today,
Additional Tips on How You Could Feel Safe and Calm!
Once in a while, it’s normal to be a little worried, but here are a couple more things you can do to stay as calm and safe as you’d like to be when your health worries.
5. Calm Down Bottles!
Get an empty jar and fill it up with water. Add some glitter and a little glue. when feeling anxious,
give it a shake and watch the glitter go down in calmness. It can help you feel calm
and remind you that the most disturbing, worries eventually settle down.
6. Engage in Outdoor Activities!
Spending time in nature, like going to the park and playing outside, can make us happy. Looking at flowers, walking in green grass, watching birds, and feeling the wind help us divert our attention from worries, and we feel relaxed.
7. Read or listen to your favorite story!
- Stories can take us to really exciting places, and help us forget worries. Pick a favorite fun book or ask someone to read it to you. You can also tell your own interesting story about a brave hero who overcomes challenges.
- These small activities help you stay calm, have fun, and remind you that it’s okay to let go of worries. In time With practice, it becomes easy to feel better and focus on the things you love!
8. Remembering It’s Okay to Ask for Help!
- Sometimes, no matter how much effort we put in to fight them, they still appear too large. That’s when you need to consult a grownup you know well, like a parent, teacher, or counselor. They will also assist you in expressing your emotions and make you feel improved.
9. Remembering You’re Strong and Brave!
- Even when the worries come, remind yourself you're strong and brave. Every time you use these activities, you're practicing ways to handle those feelings and make yourself feel a bit better.
- Over time, it will get easier to keep those health worries small, letting you enjoy the fun things around you. Keep trying and be proud of every small step!
Keep Practicing and Growing.
- Every time you practice slowing down or letting go of worrying thoughts, you are giving your brain, more strength for holding in feelings. It would feel tricky to understand, such a thing as worrying when, in reality, doing. Slowly it becomes simple, and much simpler each time you try.
Imagine a Safe, Happy Place!
- When you feel anxious, shut your eyes, and think of a place that brings you joy and peace. It could be a snug room, a park, or a warm, sunny beach. Visualize the colors and sounds of that place. This can calm you down and remind you that you are fine.
Share Your Wins with Others!
- Share it with a grownup or friend; they will be proud of you, and it feels nice to know that others cheer you on. It's like growing a superpower, making you stronger and readyier to take on all the fun and adventure that's about you.
Never forget to be kind to yourself every single day.
- On certain days, worries seem so huge, and on others, they seem so little. Remember that every day is a chance to try out and get better. And that's perfectly fine—by doing little things in the right direction because every little one counts!
Keep trying and celebrating your progress.
- Celebrate that you were able to go a whole day without worrying or tried something new that brought you joy. Those are huge victories! And besides, you're learning to be the boss of your worries, which is awesome.
Keep Talking About Your Feelings!
- It really matters to talk about your feelings. Whether you are worried, happy, or even a little sad, sharing these feelings with someone you trust makes a big difference. Do not keep things bottled up inside. Talking helps understand what you feel and makes worries feel lighter.
Enjoy Every Day!
- Every day is different, and every day contains something interesting. Try to pay attention to good things around you—letting friends play together, let's have some tasty treats, or studying nature and enjoying the moment. In fact, a small feeling of happiness wards off fears and brings warmth into your heart.
You Are Not Alone!
- Remember, everyone worries at times, and that's perfectly fine. You're not alone in this. Sometimes talking to friends or family can help everyone work through their issues and ease worries. You can express yourselves and share with one another, and that can certainly make it easier to approach those worries together.
Final Thoughts
Learning how to deal with health-related concerns is basically like preparing for a great game. It takes preparation, tolerance, and positive support. Continue using these Affirmations for Health Anxiety; you will build up confidence in dealing with those health concerns. Believe it, you are so much stronger than you believe, and every day's a day to grow into the spotlight!
10: Hypochondria Stop:
The first step is motivation.
- This article is packed with useful information, so it's quite long; you're going to have to be motivated to read it all, but that is nothing compared to the motivation you will need to overcome your health anxiety.
There is no magical instant cure for hypochondria.
- So it's going to take a lot of hard work over a prolonged period. So how do you motivate yourself? You can start by getting a pen and answering the following questions. Where will I be in five years if I don't change how I manage my health anxiety?
How does my hypochondria affect my relationships?
- What would life be like if I didn't have health anxiety? What does my health anxiety prevent me from doing that I would like to do now.? Put this list somewhere you will see it regularly to motivate yourself to keep working on your health anxiety.
Step two
To accept and understand that your symptoms suggest anxiety.
- Instead of googling signs of a heart attack, or Is my headache a brain tumor, google physical symptoms of anxiety or Watch me read positive affirmations. Anxiety symptoms explained' This will help you see your symptoms from a different and less scary perspective. It will also help you challenge the anxious thoughts, which we will talk more about later.
Step 3. Understanding the anxiety cycle.
- I have covered this in many of my articles, but it goes like this. You get a thought like, What if I have a heart attack?" The thought makes you feel anxious, and the anxiety causes your heart to beat faster and stronger.
To try to reassure yourself, you check your pulse.
- It's fast, which makes you think there is something wrong with your heart, so you feel more anxious. Making your heart go even faster, and you start to notice other symptoms like faster breathing and sweating, so you feel more compelled to reassure yourself that you are safe.
- You take your blood pressure, but it's high, or you think it might be high, which reinforces the anxious thoughts even more. And so it goes on. Let me know in the comments below if this sounds familiar to you.
Step 4: Addresses the thoughts part of the anxiety cycle.
- CBT identifies thinking errors. Common thinking errors in hypochondria are emotional reasoning and catastrophization... In emotional reasoning, you conclude that a thought is true because of how you feel, despite evidence to the contrary. In catastrophe, your anxious thoughts escalate into imagining a catastrophe...
Practice spotting these thinking errors.
- Once you've spotted the thinking errors, start to challenge them. Filling in the health anxiety thought record sheet can really help. You can print out the sheet from a great website called "Getselfhelp.co.uk." I've put a link to this thought record in the description. This thought record helps you challenge your negative thoughts by rating how they affect your anxiety...
Looking for an alternative perspective.
- And then rewriting your anxiety after challenging the thought. Use this form regularly until being able to challenge your thoughts becomes natural. The questions at the bottom of the form are particularly helpful. The thought record also has a column for behaviors.
These are what are known as safety behaviors.
- In CBT, safety behaviors are the things you do to try and make yourself feel safer. These are things like googling symptoms. Constantly checking your body or seeking reassurance from friends and family that you are not seriously ill. But as we saw from the anxiety cycle, these behaviors don't make you feel safer. They just fuel the anxiety.
(Also more: 13 Ways To Cope With Health Anxiety
Step 5 is reducing your safety behaviors.
How do you do this?
First, make a list of all your safety behaviors, and then each day keep a tally of how many times you use them. At the end of the week, count up how many times you've used each one.
For the first week, don't try to reduce them just.
- Get used to counting them. In the second week, just try to reduce them slightly. Don't try to stop them completely. One, it's quite impossible, and two, it can be counterproductive. The anxious brain accepts small, gradual changes.
It does not like big, sudden changes.
- At the end of each week, rate how your health anxiety has been overall. It will take a few months, but as you successfully reduce your safety behaviors, you should see your anxiety score reduce. This is because you are removing the fuel that drives the health anxiety.
Step six is behavioral experiments.
- Your health anxiety safety behaviors reinforce your negative thoughts, but by experimenting with your behaviors, you can disprove your negative thoughts, which makes them lose their power. Getselfhelp.co.uk has a behavioral experiment form. Print it out using the link I've put in the description.
Here is an example.
- Let's say you notice the feeling of a lump in your throat. You get the thought that it might be throat cancer. Normally you would immediately make an appointment to see your doctor, but instead, you experiment by waiting two weeks before you book an appointment, and in that time you resist seeking any reassurance.
You write down what you predict will happen.
- Then two weeks later, you write down what actually happened. Then you reflect on what you've learned and rewrite your belief in the original thought. Behavioral experiments can also be used to target avoidance behaviors, which also fuel health anxiety.
For example,
- Despite the doctor confirming that your heart is fine, you might avoid exercise for fear of a heart attack. The experiment could be to go for a brisk walk or exercise at home. When the experiment shows that you are not going to die, you can start increasing your exercise, which is good for both your physical and mental health.
Step 7 is STOPP.
STOPP is a technique used in CBT to interrupt negative thoughts before they take control of you. See my article on how to use STOPP.
Step 8 is mindfulness.
- When worried about your health, your mind goes to some imagined future scenario. Mindfulness helps you bring your mind back to the here and now. Accept that you've had anxious thoughts about your health. Don't judge yourself. It's just a thought.
Now observe your environment.
- What can you see, hear, smell, or touch? If you're in the middle of doing something like washing the dishes, do it mindfully. Notice the temperature of the water and the feel of the bubbles. I will write an article on mindfulness soon, but there is plenty of information on the internet.
Step 9 is worry postponement.
- If your health worry is really strong, just postpone the worry. You have promised your anxious brain that you will deal with its concern just later. When later comes, you will often find that the worry has passed or is no longer so strong. If it's still strong, use the health anxiety thought record.
Step 4. Step 10. Accept setbacks.
- Be patient with yourself and persevere. It takes a long time to retrain an anxious brain. Safety behaviors will creep back in. Some days your anxiety will feel as bad as ever, but over time if you follow these steps regularly, your health anxiety will reduce and you can get your life back.
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