Health anxiety is an obsessive and irrational worry about health issues. Also known as hypochondria or illness anxiety.
What are symptoms of health anxiety/Hypochondria?
Scanning your body for pain
Googling symptoms
Excessively worrying about symptoms
Contacting the doctor regularly
Imagining or even creating pain
What's the cause trigger for health anxiety?
Usually it’s an event that directs your to focus on your health Someone close to you getting ill
A parent/carer having health anxiety
A pandemic would do it!
Then you may start googling symptoms, too much time doing this will start a habit.
Thoughts as much as actions can be habitual.
Focussing on your body can accentuate issues, sometimes even create them. Here the loop begins, you have told your mind to scan for pain and illness. So the nerve endings become more sensitive to pain and illness.
So everyday becomes constant circle of scanning for symptoms in your body. Because you focus on them, they become worse, which in turn makes you more concerned and on it goes.
Can health anxiety cause physical symptoms?
Absolutely, You are asking your body to look out for pain and illness. To do this your nerve endings have to become more aware/sensitive. Thus, causing any slight sensation to be identified as pain.
Worrying causes the release of adrenaline and cortisol into your nervous system. Increased amount of adrenalin and cortisol can cause a whole host of illnesses.
How can I stop my health anxiety?
The only way to stop health anxiety in its tracks, is to stop focussing on it. Easier said than done right?
Dr’s recommend CBT to most patients (which I am trained in) yet it’s a long process with little reward.
I work very differently to most therapists. You don’t need months of sessions to resolve the issue. You can bring you thoughts under control with just 1 session. 3 Sessions make the results permanent.
The DELETE method™ is a behaviour modification process. Similar to CBT in theory but 10x more powerful. We reroute your neural pathways using a pattern interrupt.
Instead of waking up and focussing on how you feel, researching illness, you can start to live again. Waking up with a sense of purpose, feeling relaxed, calm and happy.
The DELETE Method™ has a 99.9% success rate and is used to remove anxious thoughts. If you would like to apply for a consultation click the link below.