Do you find yourself spending more and more time worrying about general health concerns going on in your body? Have you noticed that your attempts to find solutions to your health concerns are affecting your life in a negative way? Are you criticized by family and friends for jumping to worst case scenarios when it comes to your health? If you answered yes to any of these questions it may be time to consider getting help from trained professionals to rule out any underlying medical issues as well as treat what could be health anxiety.
Life experiences are one area that health professionals will look at when helping clients determine what may have caused an unhealthy preoccupation with health. Events in a person’s life such as family members or friends who struggled with serious health issues, having experienced a medical issue yourself, or having unexpected deaths of family members, friends, or classmates can all trigger how a person perceives possible health threats. In addition, growing up in an environment where others struggled with anxiety can also affect how a person copes with stress or anxiety.
After taking life events into consideration health professionals will then look to see what if any unhelpful beliefs, rules, or assumptions a person developed to help cope with these difficult life events. A natural response to crisis is self-preservation, a person endures a difficult situation and in an effort for survival desires to protect themselves from blank event happening again. Unfortunately, this type of response can make a person hypervigilant such as in the case with health anxiety. Spending increasing amounts of time and focus on bodily changes and symptoms maintains a certain level of anxiety and fear in an individual. Consequently, the way a person behaves or responds to symptoms also changes as a result of these fears and worries.
It is normal to worry about your health. Health anxiety relates to an excessive concern over one’s health that either initiates or maintains a person’s stress response and overall anxiety. If you struggle to control health related worrying explore my website and see if I am the right fit for you in terms of getting help regaining control over your thoughts and emotions when it comes to health anxiety.