Knowing And Understanding Health Anxiety

What is health anxiety? It’s an irrational and obsessive worry that you’re having some medical condition, which can be an injury, illness or disease. It was formerly called hypochondria and also called illness anxiety. There are some things about us that sometimes, we worry too much. This is a condition where someone is having the imagination of illness.

You may have too much anxiety that body sensations such as fatigue or muscle twitching are associated with serious illness

Symptoms

• Being obsessed with getting or having a serious health condition.
• Being easily agitated about your health status
• Searching online for the possible solution to your illness
• Talking about your possible illness more often
• Avoiding places, people or activities for fear of your health risk
• Having distress about it that it’s hard for you to function
• Often checking your body for any signs of disease

Causes

These factors play a major role in causing the illness anxiety:

• If you had a family who is worried a lot about your health or their health, then there are chances that you will have illness anxiety too.
• In your childhood, you may have had a serious illness so when being an adult physical sensations you had are scary to you
• You may be having little understanding of diseases and body sensations or both. You may start thinking that serious disease is causing sensations in your body, thus making you look for evidence that you have a serious disease.

Risk factors for health anxiety illness:

• Child abuse in the past
• Long time life stress
• Personality traits like the tendency of being a worrier
• Parent with illness or serious childhood illness

Complications

This disorder may be associated with:

• Financial problems caused by excessive medical bills or health care visits
• Having a mental disorder like somatic symptom disorder
• Family or relationship problems due to excessive worrying which can frustrate others

Prevention

If you are having this problem, then seek professional advice or help to stop symptoms from getting worse and damaging your life

Learn to know when you’re stressed and how it may affect your body. You should also practice techniques for stress management. Stick to your treatment plan to prevent worsening the symptoms.