Table of Contents
Episode Introduction: Embracing Health Anxiety
Warriors, I welcome you to the Health Anxiety Podcast show, episode number 48.
Boy, I love this podcast. Thank you for joining me. And if you know anybody out there that’s suffering from health anxiety, please take a moment to share this podcast with them so that they can gain the knowledge they need to not cope with health anxiety, but to heal for good.
This podcast episode is brought to you by my site, DennisSimsek.com , where you’ll find all my programs, master class options, as well as a blog that you can go to because there’s a tremendous amount of health anxiety-related content there that will help you at www.theanxietyguy.com.
Gratitude and Shared Journey
My friends, I’m truly grateful to be able to do this podcast every month for you because I’m always trying to put myself in the mind and body of a health anxiety sufferer. And the more I do that, the more I find how confusing things are and how debilitating things are for a health anxiety sufferer.
You know, if you’re coming from Reddit, there’s a crowd coming from Reddit lately because there are posts going around about the Health Anxiety Podcast show. And you’re new to this information. I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart, I’ve been where you are. And I am, in fact, in a better place now. And I’m… I’m no different or any more special than you are. And you’re going to be able to do the same very, very soon.
Beyond Coping: Revealing Root Causes
And so I need you to understand that although you are suffering from health anxiety and you’ve got this reaction, you’ve got this instinct that says we’ve got to focus on ways to cope and manage our symptoms, I want to look beyond that. I want to look towards the root causes that are causing us to experience this level of sensitivity towards our symptoms and things in the outside world.
Defaulting to Familiarity
And so, warriors, in life, we default to whatever is familiar to us. Remember that. To a health anxiety sufferer, this means that fear, catastrophic perceptions, and pessimism have a much greater chance of being acted on than the positives.
Acting on Fear: Understanding Emotional Responses
When a health anxiety sufferer experiences a health anxiety, experiences a moment of fear, it’s very likely that they will act in accordance with that fear. If a health anxiety sufferer experiences a moment of a catastrophic perception, I may die in this moment, or this is the symptom that’s going to get me, or I’ve got to go to the doctors or the hospital, it’s very likely that they will act on that because things are getting emotional at that point. It’s no longer a thought or a feeling. When things become… When things become emotional, it becomes more difficult to reverse.
Intro to Emotional Refractory Period
And what we need to understand is that there is a system within us. There’s a filter. And that filter is called the emotional refractory period. And today in this podcast, I want you to understand more deeply what the emotional refractory period is and how it’s affecting you and leading towards your health anxiety.
The Emotional Refractory Period: A Psychological Filter
The emotional refractory period, my friends, is a filter that’s designed to keep you in the same state that you’re already in to the exclusion of everything else. So what this does is it wants to keep you in a place of fear and being deeply sensitized and feeling like you’re always looking over your shoulder at the next potential threat. This is what the emotional refractory… This is what the emotional refractory period does.
Filtering Perceptions: Staying in the State of Fear
It will sort for information in the outside world that re-triggers the state that you’re already in. So what happens is you won’t really focus on the good things around you, nor will you perceive them as good.
As a health anxiety sufferer, when the emotional refractory period is on and we are in a scared or fearful emotional state, we will tend to perceive everything in line with the state that we’re already in. We will tend to perceive everything in line with how we’re feeling unbelievable. Next thing you know, we’re looking at a door and we’re wondering how we’re going to trip over it.
Heightened Sensitivity: Seeing the Worst in Everything
Or we’re walking down a street and we’re feeling kind of sensitized and we’re wondering if anybody is going to help us if in fact we have a panic attack or worse. And so we start seeing the worst in everything. That is the emotional refractory period. It always seeks to maintain the stability, the state that you’re in.
Prolonged Anxiousness: A Persistent Presence
And it changes your perceptions to allow, in this case, the anxiousness to last as long as possible. It’s like a little life form that doesn’t want to go away.
A good example of this with health anxiety is when a person experiences a positive change of some sort. That win gets replaced with a feeling that it mustn’t be entertained further. But rather, a focus on a potential upcoming threat must take over.
The Struggle with Positivity: Defaulting to Fear
So even if there is something good that happens in a health anxiety sufferer’s life, there is never enough thinking or behaving around it to grow it into an emotion or a belief or a habit. Rather, what’s been practiced the most often is defaulted to, which is fear, which is a threatening world, which is health anxiety.
Changing Your Body, Changing Your Mind
Do you know the fastest way to get out of this negative emotional refractory period? It’s to change something about your body. Something or anything about your body. In that moment where the fear takes your attention and you start moving yourself towards catastrophic ways of perceiving your symptoms or the situation, it’s in that very moment that you must change something in your body. Don’t look to grapple with your thoughts.
Avoiding Positive Affirmations: The Adrenaline Trap
Think positive, think positive, think positive. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine. No, no, no, no, no. You’re only adding to the adrenaline. It’s going to make it worse.
The Power of Physical Change
What you want to do is make a change in your body. Biggest thing you can do, best thing you can do is to slow down, is to watch your speed and to go at a neutral speed and allow, simply allow, trust and allow that, that the symptoms in combination with those intrusive thoughts will lessen in strength over time.
Embracing Trust: A Fundamental Shift
You must trust. You must trust. So a change in your speed, a change in your breathing patterns, a change in your posture, a change by using more hand gestures, a change in your facial expressions, it doesn’t matter to me what change you make through your body. You need to make one because a health anxiety sufferer will fight harder to keep what they believe they already have, which is being barely functional in society than to gain something new.
The Container Effect: Emotional Refractory Period
This ties into the emotional refractory period because it keeps us contained in a container. We’re living in a container as a health anxiety sufferer. Can you see that? It keeps us believing that this is all there is and this is as good as it’s going to get. Well, let me tell you something. It’s not. It’s not all there is. This isn’t all you’re going to get. So stop believing the story you keep telling yourself. Go beyond the story. Tell yourself a different story. And when you tell yourself that different story, do something that strengthens that new story.
Understanding the Emotional Refractory Period
Warriors, I really want you to understand the emotional refractory period. And what I want you to do is I want you to stop internalizing so much. You’re beating yourself up so much when in fact there are systems within you that are pretty much working automatically.
Recognizing the System: It’s Not You
It’s not you. It’s the system. And what we have to do is we have to recognize that the emotional refractory period is in fact trying to keep us in the same anxious state that we’re in and to the exclusion of everything else. It’s not you. It’s not you.
You Are More Than Anxiety
I love you all from the bottom of my heart. I hope that you’ve gained a little bit of clarity today. Make sure to subscribe. And if you get the chance, please give this podcast a positive rate and review if you’re enjoying it.
Stay Informed: Catch Up on Previous Episodes
Please catch up on the previous episodes, and I’ll see you very, very soon. Don’t forget that you are more than anxiety.
Connect on YouTube: Subscribe to The Anxiety Guy’s Channel
Head over to YouTube today and make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. And if you have any other questions on any of my recovery programs, head over to TheAnxietyGuy.com today. I’ll see you soon. Bye-bye.
Warriors, if you are enjoying this podcast, please subscribe and give it a positive rate and review. Also, don’t forget to check out the original Anxiety Guide podcast on iTunes with new episodes airing every Monday morning, Pacific Standard Time. Remember, you are more than anxiety. See you in the next episode.
