Sick with Worry: Health Anxiety
Anxiety seems to target the things we care the most about. That's why people often worry about situations they fear could harm their loved ones, their work or finances, their social reputation, or their health and well-being.
Anecdotally, I've noticed an increase in health-related worries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes people who are concerned about contracting COVID, understandably so. But I've also noticed heightened fears about developing other serious health conditions like cancer, heart disease, or dementia.
While I can only speculate on the exact reasons, I wonder if the pandemic has made some people more vigilant about potential health risks in general.
Other situations that can contribute to health-related worries include chronic stress, trauma, the death of a loved one, negative experiences with health care providers, hearing worst-case stories about people with serious health conditions, or making big life transitions like becoming a parent.
What is Health Anxiety?
Worrying Excessively about Your Health
Health anxiety involves having frequent, upsetting fears about your physical health despite experiencing few if any concrete symptoms.
People living with health anxiety often worry they have a serious health condition that has yet to be diagnosed. They tend to dwell on worst-case scenarios, like dying unexpectedly.
Health anxiety can convince people that some unknown condition won't be discovered until it's too late for them to get treatment. They may feel overwhelmed by thoughts about what will happen to the family and friends they leave behind.
While many people worry about their health sometimes, with health anxiety, these worries are frequent, persistent, and distressing.
Fixating on Physical Sensations
Health anxiety causes people to become overly focused on any shifts or sensations in their body. Perhaps they notice a twinge in their abdomen or a change in their heart rate.
With health anxiety, people interpret normal body sensations as signs of a serious illness.
Fixating on our bodies can create a vicious cycle. People living with health anxiety tend to notice sensations they wouldn’t otherwise. Monitoring these symptoms can then amplify them further.
Plus, anxiety itself creates physical symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, feeling overly warm, headaches, stomach aches, muscle tension, or trembling. These symptoms then become fodder for health anxiety, feeding into an unhelpful spiral of fears.
Checking Symptoms or Seeking Reassurance
People often try to deal with health anxiety by seeking information and reassurance from others.
They may go to their doctor repeatedly or request a range of medical tests, in the absence of any physical symptoms. They may check in frequently with family or friends, asking for their reassurance that things will be okay.
Or perhaps they turn to Dr. Google for more information. As we’ve all likely experienced, the internet is full of extreme stories that often confirm a person’s worst-case fears about their health.
Health-related anxiety can also lead to checking behaviours. People may repetitively check their heart rate, blood pressure, or temperature in an effort to calm their fears. They may routinely investigate their body for any changes, including any new lumps or discolorations.
Checking in with our bodies and our health care providers - these are generally positive things to do. But they can become issues depending how often people are doing these checks and how anxious they feel when they’re not able to do them.
For people experiencing health anxiety, behaviours like monitoring physical symptoms and seeking reassurance become so frequent they interfere with their day-to-day routines.
When it comes to anxiety, reassurance is often short lived. Even when people experiencing health anxiety receive the all-clear from their doctor or see that their heart rate is within the “normal” range, they continue to fear that something life-threatening is being missed.
Avoidance
Sometimes health-related anxiety can invite the opposite response: People avoid anything and everything that could reveal a serious health issue. Or that gets them thinking about their own mortality.
Perhaps they put off going to their doctor for regular check-ups. They may avoid travelling, thinking they could get sick when they’re away from their trusted health care providers. Maybe they avoid being around people with serious health issues, because it brings up too many distressing thoughts, like “What if I’m next?” Or they stay away from places or situations they associate with poor health, such as hospitals.
When people avoid seeking health care due to anxiety, they may miss opportunities to address minor health issues that could actually develop into something more serious.
Help for Health Anxiety
If fears and worries about your health are taking a toll, talking with a mental health professional can help.
Strategies for addressing health anxiety include exploring beliefs and stories that feed into health-related fears, learning to tolerate uncertainty, building skills for staying in the present moment versus worrying about the future, and processing difficult past experiences.
Learn more about counselling for anxiety here.
Self-Help Resources
The Centre for Clinical Interventions offers some excellent self-help resources for health anxiety.
About Marnie Rogers-de Jong
My goal is to help people who feel overwhelmed by anxiety and perfectionism overcome their fears, embrace their unique strengths, and feel more content with who they are. I’m a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with a PhD in Counselling Psychology. I offer in-person counselling in Saskatoon and video counselling across Saskatchewan and Alberta.
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“Should” Stories & Perfectionism
“Should” rules are the impossible standards and expectations that anxiety and perfectionism convince us we need to meet.
“I should be working out 5 days a week”
“I should be further along in my career”
“I should be the best partner, parent, friend, or employee out there”
“Should” rules become a problem when we:
Burn ourselves out trying to be everything to everyone
Beat ourselves up for not meeting unreasonably high standards
Focus on other people’s expectations vs. what’s important to us
If you’re tired of trying to live up to so many “shoulds,” download my free worksheet. It will help you reflect on what rules you’re pushing to meet, where they come from, and how they’re affecting your well-being.
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