People dealing with health anxiety experience a never-ending sequence of panic and anxiety and fatigue. A positive development exists because individuals can escape this recurrent pattern. Many individuals fail to progress away from health anxiety even though they are unaware of the major errors that keep them trapped in this condition. This essay will analyze the three primary errors people commit when attempting health anxiety recovery along with effective methods to leave these patterns permanently.
Table of Contents
Mistake #1: Believing That Worry Equals Protection
One of the most common mistakes people make when dealing with health anxiety is believing that constant worry and hyper-vigilance will keep them safe. It feels like if you let your guard down, even for a second, something terrible might happen. Does this sound familiar?
Why This Is a Trap
Your brain along with your body fails to recognize the difference between actual threats and psychological threats. Your nervous system treats ongoing preoccupation with negative possibilities as though actual threatening events are taking place in the present moment. By remaining in a state of tension your body searches continuously for symptoms while anticipating catastrophe to emerge from any direction.
How to Break This Pattern
The key to breaking free from this cycle is to prove to yourself that safety exists outside of worry. Start with small steps:
- Take a deep breath and remind yourself, “Right now, I am safe.”
- Observe a bodily sensation without immediately assuming the worst.
- Challenge the belief that worry is necessary for survival.
These small but powerful steps help retrain your mind and body to experience peace without fear.
Mistake #2: Identifying as an Anxious Person
People dealing with health anxiety develop a belief that anxiety has become their core identity while experiencing the condition. People who develop this belief often had previous experiences like residing in an environment that regularly spread anxiety.
Why This Keeps You Stuck
If you see health anxiety as part of your identity, letting go of it can feel terrifying. Questions like Who would I be without this? or What if I lose control? can arise. The fear is no longer just about symptoms; it’s about losing a part of yourself.
How to Reframe Your Identity
You are not your anxiety. You are not your fear. You are not your past conditioning.
To break free:
- When you catch yourself thinking, “I’m just an anxious person,” stop and reframe: “This is something I learned, and I can unlearn it.”
- Give yourself permission to adopt a new identity one that is not ruled by fear but instead built on resilience and strength.
- Practice separating yourself from anxious thoughts. You are the observer, not the thoughts themselves.
Mistake #3: Being Afraid of Feeling Good
Many victims of health anxiety become uncomfortable when they encounter brief periods of calmness. Your long period of excessive worry has made peacetime seem both unfamiliar and risky to your mind.
Why Good Feelings Trigger Anxiety
Your subconscious mind associates suffering with safety not because it actually protects you, but because it’s familiar. When peace enters the picture, your mind panics: Why do I feel okay? Is something bad about to happen? Before you know it, you’re pulled right back into fear.
How to Embrace Peace Without Fear
Instead of questioning moments of calm, allow them. When you feel peace, tell yourself:
- “This is safe.”
- “This is allowed.”
- “This is my new normal.”
The more you practice leaning into calmness, the more your mind and body will accept it as the default state rather than a threat.
You Are More Than Anxiety
If you recognize yourself in any of these patterns, know that you are not alone. These deeply ingrained habits can be unlearned, and healing is possible.
Overcoming health anxiety isn’t about fixing yourself it’s about rediscovering who you truly are underneath the fear.
Take the Next Step
If you’re ready to take a structured, step-by-step approach to overcoming health anxiety, check out the Health Anxiety Recovery Program at TheAnxietyGuy.com. It’s time to stop just surviving and start truly living.
If this post resonated with you, be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear this message. You are more than anxiety. You have the strength within you to overcome it.
Take care and keep moving forward!
Comments (4)
Awesome message.
Going through dp dr every day sensations and feelings intrusive thoughts ruminating
Thank you Dennis you hit the nail on the head .Ive read one of your books .Ive suffers this for 2years all through trauma .Ive had Scans that are fine .ive phoned ambulances and been up to ER numerous times .Ive always come home .I seem to want reassurance all the time .ive lost friends as they don’t understand but they are real pains they truly are .i thought I would end up putting myself in a mental hospital .Thank you again l love you too Jackie .I can’t afford to get a programme at the moment .if there was any chance to pay you in two instalments it would be easier Bless you 🙏🏻❤️
Thank you for this podcast, Dennis. Very helpful, especially part encouraging us to reinforce and normalize feelings of happiness and calm. It helped explain an extreme and scary reaction I get from my subconscious that might be a vestige of the mind-control experiments done on me during the Cold War, which happened to me before the age of 12. Five times in my adult life, I have had a transcendent moment when I see a bright light and get a a very wonderful and positive thought like: “Everything is going to be okay.” Or, “I am beautiful.” Suddenly, I am thrown to the ground. I get scraped up and need to go to a chiropractor. As I said, it can be quite scary and unsettling. Next time I get the light and the wonderful thought, I will breathe, stay grounded and integrate the sense of safety. It happened a few weeks ago. I actually thought it might be demonic possession, since I was exposed to satanic ritual abuse as a child. Bless you, Dennis for all you do to help millions of anxiety sufferers recover.