For a cheerful and contented life where you live every day and every moment of your life is only possible when you are healthy. Suppose you are not beneficial anything your favorite place, whether or even food cannot make you happy. Taking care of your health is so essential for a happy life. But getting extra worry about anything, even health, is not good. When you get extra tense about your health, you became a patient of hypochondria.
What is health anxiety or hypochondria?
Health anxiety is a mental disorder that people face. Most people have health anxiety in their early adulthood age. Those who have to go through any serious illness or have seen or have lost their loved ones because of any significant disease face this health anxiety. Hypochondriac is the one who always has evil thoughts about their health. They always feel and think that they have any severe illness. They are unable to come out from this fear. Even if they sneeze or have a simple cough, it seems a sign of any severe and extensive disease for them. Every year thousands and thousands of people face this illness anxiety or health anxiety.
Symptoms of health anxiety:
Here are the symptoms that show that you are facing the mental disorder of health anxiety.
- The first and foremost symptom is that they are every time in the thought of their health and illness.
- They always keep on checking their body if there is any sign of illness or pain.
- They always thought that their doctor or the medical report had missed their illness or anything because they were even not ready to believe in their test report, which clearly shows that they are completely healthy and did not have any disease.
- They never get tired from watching and reading stuff related to health. Even some of them only use media for just watching health videos or reading health blogs. They constantly seek health information on the internet.
- They start avoiding physical activities and act as they are ill and cannot do effortful work.
- They visit the doctor frequently.
- They avoid visiting places and people they thought can make them ill or get sick after going there.
- During the days of trending disease or seasonal diseases, they are sure that they are coming down with that disease like flu season.
- Students with health anxiety also trouble with their academics; Essay Help UK helps students in any unhealthy and financial situation.
Tips to overcome health anxiety:
If you are facing health anxiety or illness anxiety, you can overcome it by following these easy and adaptable tips.
Change your focus of attention:
The people who face this disorder always thought about their health or illness. Their one and only focus is their health. The more they focus and observe their health, the more they note physical sensations. And this is an alarming situation and the point where you need to divert your end of attention. Changing your focus of attention is the best solution to overcome your health anxiety. The less you thought about your health, the more you overcome your illness anxiety. You can divert your focus of attention towards anything that you like most or have an interest in. For example, if you want to paint, you can spend your time painting. Or some of the easiest ways of changing your focus of attention is to make your self busy in cleaning and decorating your room or house, gardening and planting new plants, reading books or your favorite writer and genre, watching movies, playing games, solving a puzzle, and going for hike or tracking. No matter which activity you select, the main goal of doing that activity is to divert your attention from your health or the illness that does not exist in reality.
Psychotherapy:
Psychotherapy is the most common treatment of health anxiety. Two therapies for health anxiety disorder are cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT):
Cognitive-behavioral therapy which is also known as CBT is the most common therapy for the treatment of illness anxiety. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the first and best option. Through this therapy, the person facing this disorder learns the effective ways to overcome the disease and manage anxiety. The skill learned from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy are helpful in the fight against hypochondria. The patient with health anxiety can take this therapy either in a group or individually. They have both options where they feel comfortable. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, they learn the new and proper way to observe your body sensations, how to overcome and counter this anxiety, how to respond to the symptoms that your bodies show and that there is no need to check your body again and again frequently to reassure your health or illness. They came to know how these worries about the condition are affecting their behavior. And the most important thing that they did not need to stop doing physical activates. They can perform physical tasks without any worry.
Acceptance and commitment therapy:
Acceptance and commitment therapy is also a therapy that is helpful against the mental disorder of illness anxiety. However, it is not expected as cognitive behavioral therapy but is an effective treatment of health anxiety. But the way of treatment in acceptance and commitment therapy is slightly different from cognitive behavioral therapy. Here the person with health anxiety is encouraged to accept this disorder and then learn new and healthy ways to overcome these feelings. This therapy is not equally effective for everyone, unlike cognitive behavioral therapy.
Self-help for the treatment of health anxiety:
Therapy is a professional way of treatment, but self-help can help you in speedy recovery. You can help yourself by avoiding reading health information every time, avoid alcohol and drugs that cause any anxiety, learning relaxation techniques, doing meditation and yoga daily, take an interest in activities, especially outdoor activities, and making a schedule for the appointment with the doctor to avoid the frequent visit to doctors. By overcoming these symptoms of health anxiety by yourself and your effort, you can quickly get rid of this illness anxiety.