Did you know that anxiety is one of the most common mental health disorders in the U.S. affecting 40 million adults? If you suffer from health worries, you’re not alone.

Do you find your health worries getting in the way of day to day life? Do you wish you didn’t spend so much time thinking about your health?

In this article, explore what to do about health worries, and how to combat them. Read on to discover just how you can decrease your worries, and feel more fulfilled and happy again in life.

What Is Health Anxiety?

Health anxiety is where you find yourself overly worried about your health. Whether you’re concerned about the results of x ray labs, or have the thought that your symptoms are something serious, these can fall under health anxiety.

Common symptoms can include:

– Worried about your heart
– Thinking there’s something wrong with you medically
– Nervous about cancer that hasn’t been found
– Concerned about tumors

These are some of the common symptoms, but they don’t include all of what you might be experiencing. If you have health anxiety, you’re worried about something serious wrong instead of just a cold.

Worries Aren’t Always Health Anxiety

It’s common to have concerns about your health, but that doesn’t mean you have health anxiety. If you’ve experienced problems in the past, it’s common to be nervous that the problem will reoccur.

If you have health anxiety, you can have normal symptoms and think that you’re experiencing health issues. For example, do you notice that if you have a common cold you worry that it’s something more serious such as pneumonia?

How to Treat Health Anxiety?

Whether you’re experiencing health worries or anxiety, it’s treatable. Do you notice yourself constantly at the doctor’s office or emergency room?

Think to yourself about how much time you’re losing in your day by running to the doctor’s office. Do you notice yourself being retested for the same problems?

Psychotherapy

It might be a good idea to seek help from a therapist. What you speak to your therapist about will remain between you and them, and you can keep your meetings discreet if you don’t want others knowing.

Your therapist will work with you and provide cognitive behavioral therapy. This form of therapy can work well with treating health worries you might be experiencing.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy works by:

– Understanding how to cope with stress and anxiety
– Learning how to respond to your symptoms and sensations…
 
Continue reading the article and learn more about health anxiety on Daisy Linden’s blog.