Health Anxiety

#HealthAnxiety #Anxiety

Health anxiety is an obsessive and irrational worry about having a serious medical condition. It’s also called illness anxiety, and was formerly called hypochondria. This condition is marked by a person’s imagination of physical symptoms of illness.

Or in other cases, it’s a person’s misinterpretation of minor or normal body sensations as serious disease symptoms despite reassurance by medical professionals that they don’t have an illness.

Health anxiety is an anxiety condition that is often housed within the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) spectrum of disorders. Those affected by health anxiety have an obsessional preoccupation with the idea that they are currently (or will be) experiencing a physical illness. The person experiencing health anxiety may fixate on any type of illness; a common example is fear they have/will get cancer.

Those who are affected by health anxiety are convinced that harmless physical symptoms are indicators of serious disease or severe medical conditions. For example, if a person experiencing health anxiety feels their chest is getting tight, they may believe that they are having a heart attack. Those with health anxiety frequently misinterpret physical symptoms of anxiety as a sign of an impending physical health problem.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

Illness anxiety disorder, sometimes called hypochondriasis or health anxiety, is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill. You may have no physical symptoms. Or you may believe that normal body sensations or minor symptoms are signs of severe illness, even though a thorough medical exam doesn't reveal a serious medical condition.

You may experience extreme anxiety that body sensations, such as muscle twitching or fatigue, are associated with a specific, serious illness. This excessive anxiety — rather than the physical symptom itself — results in severe distress that can disrupt your life.

Illness anxiety disorder is a long-term condition that can fluctuate in severity. It may increase with age or during times of stress. But psychological counseling (psychotherapy) and sometimes medication can help ease your worries.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

Health anxiety is an obsessive and irrational worry about having a serious medical condition. It’s also called illness anxiety, and was formerly called hypochondria. This condition is marked by a person’s imagination of physical symptoms of illness.

Or in other cases, it’s a person’s misinterpretation of minor or normal body sensations as serious disease symptoms despite reassurance by medical professionals that they don’t have an illness.

Health anxiety is an obsessive and often irrational worry about suffering from serious medical conditions. It is more formally known as illness anxiety, and used to be known as hypochondriasis.

Someone who suffers from health anxiety will obsess over their health: from their normal body functions to contracting illnesses and diseases. They may frequently visit their physician or spend large amounts of time reading about their symptoms and possible conditions.

In severe cases, health anxiety can become disruptive to a person’s life. It can interfere with their daily activities, hurt their work performance, and even cause strain in relationships. Fortunately, there are ways that you can cope with your health anxiety, including:

-Changing your focus of attention

-Practicing mindfulness

-Challenging your worrisome thoughts

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

Illness anxiety disorder, sometimes called hypochondriasis or health anxiety, is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill. You may have no physical symptoms. Or you may believe that normal body sensations or minor symptoms are signs of severe illness, even though a thorough medical exam doesn't reveal a serious medical condition.

You may experience extreme anxiety that body sensations, such as muscle twitching or fatigue, are associated with a specific, serious illness. This excessive anxiety — rather than the physical symptom itself — results in severe distress that can disrupt your life.

Illness anxiety disorder is a long-term condition that can fluctuate in severity. It may increase with age or during times of stress. But psychological counseling (psychotherapy) and sometimes medication can help ease your worries.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

In social anxiety and panic there are overlaps between anxiety, reassurance- and safety-seeking behaviors. So, someone with a fear of incontinence linked to panic may wish to reassure themselves by always knowing the location of toilets, and may recurrently empty their bladder even when not needed. In panic, self-checking can occur for flushing, heart rate, breathing, sweatiness and tremor. The checking itself exacerbates symptoms.

Obsessive–compulsive disorder behaviors such as counting, checking or cleaning occur as a form of self-reassurance that the feared consequence can be avoided or minimised. Excessive reassurance-seeking can be covert and hidden (counting/praying) as well as overt such as recurrently asking others for reassurance that the feared consequence has not occurred.

In health anxiety and dysmorphophobia, the focus of anxiety is inward-looking (with body-checking, mirror-gazing) or overt (with opinion-seeking from others). Diaries of physiological measures such as blood pressure, temperature and heart rate may be brought to professionals, as well as requests for examination (e.g. ‘Has this lump changed?’) or other similar reassurance-seeking comments (e.g. ‘Do I look pale?’).

In depression, similar to social anxiety, the focus is often on checking doubts that others judge the person negatively and on personal performance. Individuals seek opinions from others to check views of themselves, their work or performance.

Excessive reassurance-seeking is addressed with exposure and response prevention. This involves repeatedly facing the fear and choosing not to seek reassurance (i.e. not to check, measure, ask, review, do). Exposure can be paced to slowly and purposively help the person reduce the reassurance-seeking. Anxiety levels will eventually fall and the individual learns that reassurance-seeking is not needed to reduce anxiety, the feared outcome does not occur and that they have power over their thoughts and actions.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

Experts aren’t sure of the exact causes of health anxiety, but they think the following factors may be involved:

-You have a poor understanding of body sensations, diseases, or both of these things. You may think that a serious disease is causing your body’s sensations. This leads you to look for evidence that confirms that you actually have a serious disease.

-You have a family member or members who worried excessively about their health or your health.

-You’ve had past experiences dealing with real serious illness in childhood. So as an adult, the physical sensations you experience are frightening to you.

Health anxiety most often occurs in early or middle adulthood and can worsen with age. For older people, health anxiety may focus on a fear of developing memory problems. Other risk factors for health anxiety include:

-a stressful event or situation

-the possibility of a serious illness that turns out to not be serious

-being abused as a child

-having had a serious childhood illness or a parent with a serious illness

-having a worrying personality

-excessively checking your health on the internet

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#HealthAnxiety

Health anxiety is an obsessive and irrational worry about having a serious medical condition. It’s also called illness anxiety, and was formerly called hypochondria. This condition is marked by a person’s imagination of physical symptoms of illness.

Or in other cases, it’s a person’s misinterpretation of minor or normal body sensations as serious disease symptoms despite reassurance by medical professionals that they don’t have an illness.

Health anxiety is no longer included in the American Psychological Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It was previously called hypochondriasis (better known as hypochondria).

If your body is sending you signs that you’re ill, it’s normal to be concerned. Health anxiety is marked by constant belief that you have a symptom or symptoms of a severe illness. You may become so consumed by worry that the distress becomes disabling.

If you’re concerned about your health, the rational thing to do is see your doctor. With health anxiety, you’ll feel extreme distress about your real or imagined symptoms even after medical test results come back negative and doctors reassure you that you’re healthy.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety

#Anxiety #HealthAnxiety

A vicious cycle develops of noticing a sensation or learning of an illness in the world, misinterpreting it as threatening, then becoming anxious, and finally going to the doctor for reassurance. Reassurance from the doctor reduces the anxiety and brings relief temporarily. Soon the cycle starts again.

SENSATIONS : Any physical symptoms you’re experiencing such as muscle spasms, shortness of breath, lumps you hadn’t previously noticed, and headaches. What could they be?

PERCEPTION : The sensation you’re experiencing being somehow different to others. For example, the headache or muscle spasm lasting too long to be “normal.”

UNCERTAINTY : Asking yourself why with no resolution. Why do you have a headache when you’ve just woken up? Why has your eye been twitching for days?

AROUSAL : Coming to the conclusion that the symptom must, therefore, be the result of a serious illness. For example: If my headache has lasted for a couple of hours and I’ve avoided my phone screen and it’s still there, I must have an aneurysm.

CHECKING : At this point, you’re so aware of the symptom you need to keep checking if it’s there. You’re hyper-focused. For a headache, this could mean putting pressure on your temples or rubbing your eyes too hard. This then exacerbates the symptoms you were worried about in the first place and you’re back to square one.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/dealing-with-health-anxiety