CBT for Health Anxiety
If you’re feeling anxious about being ill – typically seriously ill – even if you are well and have no symptoms of a serious health condition, you might be experiencing health anxiety.
This tends to manifest as spending a lot of time looking up medical symptoms on the internet or thinking you have a serious illness, such as cancer, at the first sign of minor physical symptoms such as a scratchy throat or a cough. It may even persist despite being given a clean bill of healthy by a medical professional.
What is Health Anxiety?
Being concerned about your health is not the same as having health anxiety. It is natural to be worried about your health from time to time. Health anxiety is excessive and interferes with daily life. It consumes large amounts of your time that is spent looking up medical symptoms or going to medical appointments.
People with health anxiety also misinterpret normal, or minor, physical symptoms as being serious. A headache, for example, might make you worry you have a brain tumor, rather than putting it down to stress or sinus congestion.
Symptoms related to anxiety, such as dizziness, increased heart rate, and chest pain, can increase anxiety about health creating a problematic and ongoing cycle.
Are You Experiencing Health Anxiety?
It is also possible to experience health anxiety about a diagnosed, and existing, medical condition. It is not about whether or not you have physical symptoms, but how you are responding to, and coping with, physical symptoms – is your coping mechanism helpful or a great cause of stress?
If you’re unsure as to whether you are caught in a cycle of anxiety surrounding your health, consider the signs listed below.
You have no physical symptoms or minor symptoms and still worry you are sick.
You are told by a medical professional that you are not sick and/or a test result comes back negative, yet you still feel worried.
You are constantly looking up medical symptoms and information online.
You read a news article about an illness and start to worry you have it.
Your worries about your health are interfering with your daily life.
Signs that your health anxiety is becoming problematic:
It is excessive.
It is out of proportion to the realistic chances of having a serious medical problem.
It persists despite negative tests and/or reassurance from health professionals.
It leads to problematic behaviors such as excessive body-checking and medical test-seeking.
It causes you significant distress and/or impacts your functioning.
To get a better understanding of how health anxiety might manifest and what the common symptoms and challenges are, read this personal story from someone living with it.
How to Effectively Treat Health Anxiety
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) are two effective treatments for health anxiety. Both treatments provide strategies that teach you how to respond differently to unhelpful thoughts and physical symptoms and sensations, and effective ways to cope with stress and anxiety.
CBT can help you notice and name your unhelpful thoughts – “This headache means I have a brain tumor!” – and challenge and change these thoughts to be more accurate and helpful. CBT also helps you to change problematic behaviors that fuel anxiety such as spending long periods looking up medical symptoms or constantly contacting your medical provider.
ACT can help you learn acceptance-based coping skills that decrease the ongoing tug-of-war with anxiety. It will help you consider how health anxiety may be hindering your ability to engage in meaningful activities, and focus your energy on doing what you value.
Get Back Behind the Wheel
Health anxiety, like all anxiety, tends to be in the driver’s seat and you are simply along for the ride at the mercy of wherever it may want to take you. CBT, ACT, and other evidence-based treatments help to put you in the driver’s seat of your life.
Please contact us at CBT Denver to learn more about effective treatments for anxiety conditions including health anxiety.