Health anxiety can be a very persistent and difficult condition to ‘overcome’. Read on in the following three reasons why your health anxiety may still be around. These insights are intended to help you spot and confront what’s sustaining your anxiety — so you can take steps back your way towards mental health control.
Table of Contents
1. The Fear of Not Fearing and Truly Living
Addiction to Suffering
The paradoxical fear of not fearing is one of the major blocks to overcoming health anxiety. This fear produces an internal dynamic in which the idea of life without anxiety is desirable as well as terrifying. You might think that fear has served to keep you out of potential physical danger and you can’t break away from illogical fears.1
The Role of Fear in Your Life
Fear is now a lock, a mechanism you use to protect you from harm. Though, this idea is totally wrong. Fear does not in any way protect you from illness or injury. Realizing that the fear itself hasn’t kept you healthy is a good thing.
The Fear of Truly Living
Another part of this block is the fear of living. It’s a fear spawned from an identity crisis– you fear not knowing who you are without health anxiety. You’ve been living in your comfort zones — mentally, emotionally, and behaviorally for years. Stepping out of that familiar space into the space of inner peace could feel so daunting.
Moving Beyond the Fear
To overcome this fear you have to let go of the lies you’ve been telling yourself. Know that fear isn’t keeping you safe, so start taking small steps towards living differently from now. It can be learning how to laugh, smile, and ask for help again. If you’re willing to take small steps, you can start proving to yourself that life out of your anxiety is possible.
2. Identification with Health Anxiety
The Lower Self and Health Anxiety
The second major block is of identification with health anxiety. Your personality is made up of your lower self who later on connected health anxiety to why it’s you, that you are a hypochondriac. This is a challenge because it makes it difficult to differentiate your self from your anxiety.2
The Power of Disassociation
Because you have to disassociate from the identity of being a health anxiety suffer. Whenever anxious thoughts arise, let them be and don’t make a reaction to them. These thoughts are just a pattern of thought and behavior and they don’t have to be who you are.
Embracing a New Identity
Start living with a new identity and give yourself a permission to be different. Leave room to be able to talk, create, do your normal things without responding to every anxious thought that comes into your head. If you do this, you may begin to redefine who you are outside of your anxiety.
3. Addiction to Hyper Arousal
Stimulation and Anxiety
The third big block is the addicted use of arousal to a state of hyper arousal, through stimulation. But being always stimulated — checked off every box on your bucket list, from crazy to frequent flier miles — keeps your internal panic alarm turned on and means you’re not able to really relax or find peace.3
The Impact of External Stimuli
Health anxiety can be driven by external stimuli, as may happen when scrolling on your phone, comparing yourself to others, or keeping up with political news. Your state of hyper arousal doesn’t just happen at home, both your environments, be that busy cafes or even your own home, can also contribute to you unconsciously feeling hyper aroused.
Finding Comfort in Non-Stimulation
What you need is to get comfortable with not stimulating. It’s about making choices consciously to avoid those environments and activities that set you off. Replace these with activities and places that will have you going from a state of hyper arousal to one of inner peace.
Conclusion
If you start with these three major blocks to breaking free of health anxiety, fear of not fearing, identification with health anxiety, disease addiction to hyper arousal, you can start to get free from it. Of course, nothing that is overcome happens overnight, and overcoming health anxiety is no different. While it is pressing down, you are more than your anxiety and the right strategies, along with the right mindset, will help you take back control of your life.
For more resources and support on overcoming health anxiety, be sure to visit https://dennissimsek.com/anxiety-programs. The comprehensive Health Anxiety Program and other valuable tools are available to help you on your journey to mental well-being. Remember, you are not alone, and you have the strength within you to overcome health anxiety.
Citations
- Recent Advances in the Understanding and Treatment of Health Anxiety” Author: Peter Tyrer Link: SpringerLink ↩︎
- Title: “Health Anxiety: Detection and Treatment” Author: Peter Tyrer and Helen Tyrer Link: Cambridge Core ↩︎
- Title: “Health, Psychosocial and Cognitive Factors Associated with Anxiety Symptoms” Author: Lina Sofía Moreno Mendoza, Martha Trujillo-Güiza, Diego A. Forero & Sandra Báez Link: SpringerLink ↩︎
