Are you overly anxious about your health? Do you find yourself paying a lot of attention to tiny aches and pains in your body and frequently googling your symptoms? And most importantly, is your excessive concern about your physical health affecting your mental health?
Health anxiety can manifest itself in various ways. With the ongoing pandemic especially, we are seeing more and more people suffer from illness anxiety disorder, finding themselves preoccupied with and highly anxious about and their health, living in the fear of developing a serious illness; related or unrelated to covid.
Health anxiety is extremely debilitating and can affect your daily functioning.
If you believe you are suffering from a mild case of health anxiety, here are some helpful self-care tips:
- Keep track of your thoughts: maintain a dairy and note down how often you check your body for lumps, ask people for reassurance that you are not ill or google your aches and pains.
- Address your thoughts: if you find yourself worried about a headache, remind yourself that a headache can often be a sign of stress, lack of sleep, excessive screen time and so on.
- Stay busy: “an idle mind is devil’s workshop”. Stay busy; take up a new hobby or enhance an old skill, do anything you enjoy; but do not let your mind wander to the land of illnesses.
- Try relaxation techniques: meditate or even engage in simple breathing exercises to calm yourself down.
If your symptoms persist for more than 6 months, seem to be getting worse, interfering with your social or work life or if you just need someone to talk to, DO NOT be afraid to seek help. Through the therapeutic process, we will together to create a safe space for you to address your concerns and work on helping you reduce your symptoms.
