It’s quite possible for us to become excessively worried about our health. This continually dwelling on health makes our symptoms seem worse. Much of our time is taken up with these worries and reassurance from a doctor that nothing is wrong doesn’t seem to help for long.
If you find yourself with many troublesome worries about your health you may be experiencing health anxiety.
Isn’t it normal to worry about health?
We all worry about our health from time to time, for example, if we had to go into hospital for an operation, or if we are recalled by our doctor following tests. Worrying about our health can lead us to improve our lifestyle, for example, to give up smoking or to eat a healthy diet.
When does worrying about our health become a problem?
Health worries become a problem when they begin to get in the way of normal life even though there is no reason to think that anything is seriously wrong.
What are the signs of health anxiety?
You may be experiencing health anxiety if you worry about your health a lot of the time when there is no medical reason to do this, and how you lead your life is affected by this. You may often seek comfort or reassurance from other people that everything is alright. This may be from family, friends, or your doctor.
You may find you are checking your body for symptoms, and that the more you check, the more you seem to notice strange feelings or lumps in your body. You may avoid certain activities as if you were ill, and you may avoid anything to do with illness e.g. information or medical programmes on the television.
On the other hand some people with health anxieties find themselves drawn to any information about illnesses and can begin to notice the signs of such illness in themselves.
Am I suffering from health anxiety?
Anxiety of any sort can affect us in at least four different ways. It affects:
- The way we feel
- The way we think
- The way our body works
- The way we behave.
In order to check out whether you may be suffering from health anxiety think about the symptoms you experience regularly:
- How you feel
- Anxious, nervous, worried, frightened
- A feeling of dread
- Tense, stressed, uptight, on edge, unsettled
- Unreal, strange, woozy, detached
- Panicky.
Hypnotherapy, or hypnosis, is an ideal way of permanently addressing all Anxiety issues, including Health Anxiety. Hypnosis works so well because it allows the therapist to address the subconscious directly, which is where the problem lies.
Rational arguments rarely solve anxiety issues, because they take place at the conscious level, but the root cause of anxiety problems always lies in the subconscious.
Click to read more about hypnosis and Health Anxiety