Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2022 11:07:54 GMT
How to overcome worrying about your health
Forever looking up symptoms and fearing the worst? There are ways to stop the endless checking and find real peace of mind
by Karen Cassiday
psyche.co/guides/how-to-overcome-the-endless-checks-of-health-worries
Need to know
Have you ever stayed up late at night comparing your symptoms with terrible medical conditions online? Have you felt terrified that fate has finally caught up with you when you notice a spot, rash or odd bump on your body? Do you dread getting test results from your doctor because you know it will be bad news? Of course, it’s normal to worry about health from time to time, but if you answered ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, then you might be like the other 979 million in the world who experience ‘illness anxiety disorder’ – either focused on your own health and/or the health of someone you love.
Unless properly treated, illness anxiety disorder can be chronic and disabling. The constant worries about illness, even after getting reassurance, can interfere with school, work, sleep, relationships, and lead to depression and suicidal thoughts. It can also lead to unnecessary medical tests and procedures when doctors accidentally get caught up trying to reassure patients nothing is wrong. Whether your health anxieties are currently mild or more serious, the aim of this Guide is to help you break out of this trap and regain perspective and peace of mind.
Consider a patient with illness anxiety disorder who I worked with – let’s call her Lizzy. Lizzy’s friend had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer after noticing impaired vision in one eye and breaking her finger turning into a wall. Lizzy soon began to check her own vision by covering each eye with a hand, and she realised her vision was sometimes fuzzy in one eye compared with the other. She also noticed the sensation of losing her balance when turning corners sharply. She began researching the type of cancer her friend had, hoping to understand her friend’s symptoms but also to verify she was OK herself.
Unfortunately, instead of feeling reassured, Lizzy discovered that impaired vision and dizziness were possible symptoms of brain cancer, along with headaches and losing focus, both of which had happened to her within the past few weeks. Lizzy then began to talk to others to see if they had the same symptoms and they all told her not to worry, but she could not stop worrying because how could she be sure she did not have brain cancer? She began thinking about saying goodbye to her children and partner, getting painful treatments and receiving hospice care to the point that she cried, and felt nauseous and shaky. Since the shaky feeling would not go away, she misinterpreted this as an additional sign of cancer.
Lizzy was referred to me after she had tearfully begged her doctor for a brain scan to detect brain cancer. Her doctor correctly realised she was anxious, and saw no need for any tests because he understood her symptoms were either the product of anxiety or normal variations in vision and concentration.
The problem of intolerance of uncertainty
If, like Lizzy, you have extreme anxieties about being or becoming ill, it might surprise you to learn that your problem is not your health. It is your intolerance of uncertainty about illness and health. People who are comfortable with uncertainty about health tend to think: ‘I must be tired or stressed, so I will forget about this symptom.’ In contrast, when you have intolerance of uncertainty, your mind tries to take a better-safe-than sorry approach to the infinite set of possibilities. You get easily triggered when you notice bodily symptoms such as rashes, bumps, spots, pain, fatigue or malaise. Your symptoms can be real, but you misinterpret them as dangerous signs of serious illness. For example, you might notice a mole and then worry you might have malignant melanoma, a life-threatening cancer. I had another patient call me in tears when he feared one pupil was larger than the other – he’d been comparing his eye-pupil sizes in the mirror and become convinced he had a brain tumour in his optical nerve that had changed the pupil size of one eye.
When you have illness anxiety disorder, your mind loses its ability to be flexible and to imagine the myriad other explanations for your symptoms and, instead, becomes stuck imagining the worst. You might even say things to justify your worry, such as: ‘Well, someone has to worry about my health,’ or ‘It’s a parent’s job to worry about their child’s health.’
Intolerance of uncertainty makes you falsely believe you are playing it safe, and that your worry and reassurance-seeking is a way of acting responsibly about your health. You might find it difficult to imagine that people without illness anxiety disorder do not worry or do reassurance-seeking when they are faced with medical symptoms or a diagnosis of serious illness. However, research shows that optimism – the ability to imagine a good outcome even while not knowing how to get there – is a strong correlate of good mental health.
It’s possible to live well with an illness
You might be thinking – but many people really do have serious illnesses, their worries are not irrational! However, contrary to popular belief, most people with serious or terminal illness do not suffer from illness anxiety disorder, and they are able to enjoy life and live well, despite the knowledge of a future that contains illness.
What usually happens when people receive a serious medical diagnosis is that they will have an initial period of adjustment followed by a desire to live well in the present moment and to enjoy all good moments that can be had. When I led a support group for terminally ill patients, they felt frustrated with the pity of others and very much wanted to focus on having fun, enjoying moments of feeling well. They told me: ‘We want to live as much as we can because we know that we are going to die!’ I realised they did not consider their lives to be tragic or unlucky compared with others’ lives. Instead, they viewed worry about the future as a waste of time because they knew theirs was shorter and more uncertain.
Forever looking up symptoms and fearing the worst? There are ways to stop the endless checking and find real peace of mind
by Karen Cassiday
psyche.co/guides/how-to-overcome-the-endless-checks-of-health-worries
Need to know
Have you ever stayed up late at night comparing your symptoms with terrible medical conditions online? Have you felt terrified that fate has finally caught up with you when you notice a spot, rash or odd bump on your body? Do you dread getting test results from your doctor because you know it will be bad news? Of course, it’s normal to worry about health from time to time, but if you answered ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, then you might be like the other 979 million in the world who experience ‘illness anxiety disorder’ – either focused on your own health and/or the health of someone you love.
Unless properly treated, illness anxiety disorder can be chronic and disabling. The constant worries about illness, even after getting reassurance, can interfere with school, work, sleep, relationships, and lead to depression and suicidal thoughts. It can also lead to unnecessary medical tests and procedures when doctors accidentally get caught up trying to reassure patients nothing is wrong. Whether your health anxieties are currently mild or more serious, the aim of this Guide is to help you break out of this trap and regain perspective and peace of mind.
Consider a patient with illness anxiety disorder who I worked with – let’s call her Lizzy. Lizzy’s friend had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer after noticing impaired vision in one eye and breaking her finger turning into a wall. Lizzy soon began to check her own vision by covering each eye with a hand, and she realised her vision was sometimes fuzzy in one eye compared with the other. She also noticed the sensation of losing her balance when turning corners sharply. She began researching the type of cancer her friend had, hoping to understand her friend’s symptoms but also to verify she was OK herself.
Unfortunately, instead of feeling reassured, Lizzy discovered that impaired vision and dizziness were possible symptoms of brain cancer, along with headaches and losing focus, both of which had happened to her within the past few weeks. Lizzy then began to talk to others to see if they had the same symptoms and they all told her not to worry, but she could not stop worrying because how could she be sure she did not have brain cancer? She began thinking about saying goodbye to her children and partner, getting painful treatments and receiving hospice care to the point that she cried, and felt nauseous and shaky. Since the shaky feeling would not go away, she misinterpreted this as an additional sign of cancer.
Lizzy was referred to me after she had tearfully begged her doctor for a brain scan to detect brain cancer. Her doctor correctly realised she was anxious, and saw no need for any tests because he understood her symptoms were either the product of anxiety or normal variations in vision and concentration.
The problem of intolerance of uncertainty
If, like Lizzy, you have extreme anxieties about being or becoming ill, it might surprise you to learn that your problem is not your health. It is your intolerance of uncertainty about illness and health. People who are comfortable with uncertainty about health tend to think: ‘I must be tired or stressed, so I will forget about this symptom.’ In contrast, when you have intolerance of uncertainty, your mind tries to take a better-safe-than sorry approach to the infinite set of possibilities. You get easily triggered when you notice bodily symptoms such as rashes, bumps, spots, pain, fatigue or malaise. Your symptoms can be real, but you misinterpret them as dangerous signs of serious illness. For example, you might notice a mole and then worry you might have malignant melanoma, a life-threatening cancer. I had another patient call me in tears when he feared one pupil was larger than the other – he’d been comparing his eye-pupil sizes in the mirror and become convinced he had a brain tumour in his optical nerve that had changed the pupil size of one eye.
When you have illness anxiety disorder, your mind loses its ability to be flexible and to imagine the myriad other explanations for your symptoms and, instead, becomes stuck imagining the worst. You might even say things to justify your worry, such as: ‘Well, someone has to worry about my health,’ or ‘It’s a parent’s job to worry about their child’s health.’
Intolerance of uncertainty makes you falsely believe you are playing it safe, and that your worry and reassurance-seeking is a way of acting responsibly about your health. You might find it difficult to imagine that people without illness anxiety disorder do not worry or do reassurance-seeking when they are faced with medical symptoms or a diagnosis of serious illness. However, research shows that optimism – the ability to imagine a good outcome even while not knowing how to get there – is a strong correlate of good mental health.
It’s possible to live well with an illness
You might be thinking – but many people really do have serious illnesses, their worries are not irrational! However, contrary to popular belief, most people with serious or terminal illness do not suffer from illness anxiety disorder, and they are able to enjoy life and live well, despite the knowledge of a future that contains illness.
What usually happens when people receive a serious medical diagnosis is that they will have an initial period of adjustment followed by a desire to live well in the present moment and to enjoy all good moments that can be had. When I led a support group for terminally ill patients, they felt frustrated with the pity of others and very much wanted to focus on having fun, enjoying moments of feeling well. They told me: ‘We want to live as much as we can because we know that we are going to die!’ I realised they did not consider their lives to be tragic or unlucky compared with others’ lives. Instead, they viewed worry about the future as a waste of time because they knew theirs was shorter and more uncertain.