Health Anxiety (Hypochondria)
If you feel like any of these issues effect you then you should contact your GP or an appropriate healthcare professional that specialises in the treatment of mental health conditions. This text is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to diagnose or outline a course of treatment for any particular individual or any particular condition. It is also not meant to contradict any existing diagnosis or treatment for any individual or condition.
What is Health Anxiety (Hypochondria)?
Health Anxiety is when your life is taken over by worrying you're ill, or about getting ill.
The NHS identifies the characteristic features of Health Anxiety as:
Constantly worrying about your health.
Excessively checking your body for signs of illness.
Always checking for reassurance that you're not ill.
Constantly worrying that a doctor or medical test may have missed something.
Obsessively looking at health information.
Avoiding anything associated with serious illness e.g. medical TV programmes.
Acting as if you are ill e.g. avoiding activities.
Self-help for Health Anxiety
The NHS recommends the following advice to help manage Health Anxiety:
1. Keep a diary
Record how frequently you check your body, seek reassurance or review health information. Try to gradually reduce how often you do these things over a course of a week.
2. Challenge your thoughts
Draw a table with two columns. Column one: is for your health worries. Column two: is for more reasonable thoughts. Example:
Column one: "I'm worried about these pins and needles".
Column two: "pins and needles are commonly from a faulty posture” and then record how frequently you are slouched over your phone, computer, tablet, on the couch, etc.
3. Keep busy with other things
For example going for a walk or completing the NHS couch to 5K.
4. Get back to normal activities
Try to gradually ease back into doing the things you've been avoiding due to your health concerns.
5. Try to relax
Try to engage in simple breathing or relaxation exercises.
Advice on how to use the internet
We live in an age of readily available information but that’s not to say that all of this information is correct or of high quality.
Some information may confirm what we thought, appeal to our beliefs, or be understandable and whilst this maybe reassuring, it doesn’t guarantee that this information is factually correct.
It can be potentially dangerous to make changes based on information that is not reliable or factual. This is why, in cases of Health Phobia, when anxiety dictates how we search and interpret information, the following points should be considered:
Information seeking
The words typed into a search engine determines the information that is found. For instance, if you search for “anxiety causing strokes” you will filter in all the webpages that talk about anxiety causing strokes and filter out webpages that don’t talk about anxiety causing strokes, or argue against it.
This biased searching validates the individual’s concerns and anxieties and fails to present a more balanced, well rounded perspective.
There are two steps you can take to change the way you gather and filter information from the internet.
Step 1: Use more helpful and less biased search phrases to find out what you want to know. For example, instead of searching “anxiety and strokes” try searching “what can cause strokes?”
Step 2: Look for ways of filtering in alternative view points. You can do this by typing in mismatching statements. For example, instead of typing “is coffee bad for you” try typing “is coffee good for you”
Evaluating health information
Anyone can post information and claim it to be fact. The internet and WhatsApp is awash with medical information targeted to appeal to a particular bias. The questions to ask are:
1) Is this written by a qualified and registered health professional e.g. a GP? The title “Dr” does not always mean a medically trained doctor.
2) Does the author represent an established and reputable health organisation e.g. government body, university or major hospital?
3) Is there a conflict of interest i.e. does the author profit out of this information?
4) Is the article well referenced? Being well referenced is not the same as just having references from dubious sources that are hand picked to agree with the author’s opinion.
5) Can you verify the information provided to you in the article?
6) Was the research based on people similar to yourself e.g. similar age, height/weight, gender, diagnosis, comorbidities, etc?
7) Was the research based on many people? Good research involves testing large numbers of people.
8) Are the statistics clearly explained?
9) Is the information presented in the article consistent with health information from other reputable sources?
10) Is a review date provided on the article so that you can tell if the information presented is up-to-date?
11) Was the author telling the truth e.g. are they actually a medically trained doctor? Did they actually do the research? Are their references correct?
Whilst the internet can be useful and informative it should NEVER be used to make a diagnosis or change your medication, diet, or other lifestyle choices. Before you make any changes you should first consult with an appropriate healthcare professional.
Reference for advice on using the internet with Health Anxiety
https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/-/media/CCI/Mental-Health-Professionals/Health-Anxiety/Health-Anxiety-Information-Sheet---03--Dealing-with-health-information.pdf