Coping with Health Anxiety
Most people with illness and health anxiety share common coping behaviors. These include:
Searching the internet for symptoms, possible causes, and serious health issues
Checking your body for signs of change such as pressing on your neck to feel for a lump, inspecting a skin spot to see if it’s changed since yesterday, or taking pictures of a body part so you can compare it to yesterday
Seeking reassurance from loved ones
Seeking reassurance from medical professionals with frequent doctor’s appointments
Completing medical testing to rule out serious issues
Avoiding conversations, movies, and other mention of health issues
Avoiding routine screenings for health problems (I.e. colonoscopies, Pap smears, eye exams, etc)
It doesn’t matter whether you’re healthy or sick if your whole life revolves around possible health problems.
For most people with illness anxiety, these behaviors become a part of daily life. This goes above and beyond the occasional doctor’s appointment. If you rely on reassurance to put your mind at ease, you might notice your anxiety goes down temporarily, only to have it flare back up after just a little while.
Unfortunately, these coping behaviors don’t seem to do much for putting your health fears to rest and can only make it worse over time. In some ways illness anxiety can actually have a negative effect on your health. The more time you spend engaged in these behaviors, typically the less time you might spend making healthy lifestyle changes to support your long-term health (i.e. regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and good sleep hygiene). Lastly, due to the anxiety of discussing medical topics, some people with illness anxiety will avoid routine medical screenings out of fear that the doctors may actually find something which can increase the odds of serious medical issues going undetected.
Most commonly feared illnesses:
Cancer
Alzheimer’s
Heart attack
We can help.
If you or someone you love is struggling with anxiety, please reach out. We offer anxiety treatment with CBT Therapists in Orlando and online throughout the state of Florida. Call today or send us your info and we’ll reach out for a free consultation to see if one of our therapists would be a good fit.
