I’m glad you’re here. In this post I want to walk you through a choice I made in my own healing: living to protect myself from symptoms, or learning how to heal what lies beneath them. If you’ve been trapped in a cycle of body scanning, searches, and short-term fixes, this will feel familiar, and it might help you shift toward lasting freedom.
Why protecting symptoms keeps me from reaching the Root Cause
When I lived inside protection, everything I did was aimed at avoiding discomfort. I would change plans, skip stressful situations, and keep my life inside a tiny safe zone. That felt smart in the short term. It felt like survival.
But protection taught my nervous system to stay alarmed. I treated symptoms like the enemy instead of signals I could sit with and learn from. The result: more checking, more gadgets, more avoidance, and less life. Over time I noticed my world shrinking, and the anxiety kept showing up no matter how many short fixes I used.
A simple image I use to explain this
Imagine a smoke alarm that goes off every time you boil water. Instead of fixing the sensitivity, you put in earplugs or stop cooking. That might stop the sound, but it doesn’t fix the alarm. Protection can work short term, but it does not change the system.
What protection looks like in daily life
I saw protection in small habits and in big ones: carrying monitoring devices everywhere, using apps to track every beat, avoiding exercise that raises heart rate, or skipping social events because I feared fainting. Those actions felt smart. They felt like control.
But they also kept me from teaching my body that sensations are not automatic danger signs. Protection is a survival move. It’s not weakness. It’s how the nervous system tries to keep you safe. The issue is long term: the more I focused on avoidance, the more my brain assumed life was dangerous.
How I shifted from symptom control to Root Cause healing
Switching to root-level healing started with one idea: safety is something I can reclaim inside myself, not something I build around every symptom.
I began to practice small exposures that showed my nervous system I could handle sensations. For example, instead of avoiding exercise because my heart rate went up, I started with five-minute walks and let my body feel alive. When dizziness hit, I paused, breathed, and reminded myself I had been okay before.
Case example: learning to stay at social events
I worked with someone who left parties early because she feared fainting. Her life narrowed because she protected herself. We practiced staying ten minutes longer at gatherings, noticing how discomfort rose and fell. Over time her brain learned fainting was not the inevitable outcome, and her world widened again.
Practical steps I used to teach my nervous system
1. Gentle exposure
Start small. Do the thing you’ve been avoiding for a short, safe period. Let sensations come. Notice them. Tell yourself you can handle them.
2. Pause and breathe instead of checking
When a symptom appears, stop the automatic checking loop. Breathe. Remind yourself of past evidence that you are okay.
3. Challenge the beliefs that feed the fear
Ask, do I truly believe I am fragile? Do I believe safety only exists when symptoms are gone? I practiced telling a new story: even with sensations, I am whole and okay.
4. Build safety from the inside
Use self-soothing tools that do not just suppress symptoms but change my relationship to them. Over time, my nervous system learned a different pattern: sensations can arise and I can stay centered.
Finding the underlying cause and staying with the work
Getting to what lies beneath symptoms means curiosity and patience. I explored what made my nervous system sensitive: long-term stress patterns, beliefs about fragility, and the stories I told myself about danger. That work is slow. It is steady. It asks for compassion more than perfection.
A few times I slipped back into protection. I treated those moments like data, not failure. I reminded myself healing is made of tiny steps practiced over and over.
Where to go from here
If this resonates, pick one small step this week that leans toward the root instead of more protection. Stay curious about the beliefs that keep you stuck and practice one short exposure. You don’t have to stop all protective moves overnight. Healing is gradual and kind.
If you want structured support, I built a 12-week program called the Health Anxiety Recovery Program at anxietyguyprograms.com that guides you through these shifts step by step. I also share deeper ideas and tools in my books on Amazon.
Thank you for spending this time with me. If this helped, share it with someone who might need a new way to think about symptoms. Remember: you are more than your sensations. You are safe, you are whole, and your healing is happening. See you next time.
How long did it take you to recover from health anxiety using small steps and practising these techniques?
Hi Lindy — great question.
It’s tough to give an exact timeframe because recovery looks different for everyone. What usually happens is that, little by little, each panic attack becomes less intense and less frequent until one day you realise you haven’t had one in a long time.
The key is consistency. Think of it like the 10,000-hour rule — lasting change takes steady practice. Don’t stop doing the steps that help you, even when you start feeling better. Too many people quit too early, and that can slow progress or revert back to our old habits that caused the anxiety. We’re looking to make permanent changes to who we are, and that takes time, patience, and commitment.
Stay with it, and celebrate each small win along the way.