skippy66
19-11-14, 13:26
Some think that health anxiety is purely a problem for the mentally weak, outcasts of society who always have and always will have mental health issues.
This is simply not the case. HA affects people from all walks of live, from surgeons (medical students have an incredibly high incidence of HA) to lawyers to bin men to housewives.
I personally think that it's a combination of what's in the genes and learned behaviour, either passed on by the way your parents brought you up (you may have seen them stressing about their health) or brought on by a particularly stressful event or illness.
The second most important thing to remember is that it can affect ANYONE.
The first most important thing (excuse my bad grammar) to remember is that YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM. As soon as you start thinking that way "poor me, why does this not happen to everyone else, I will never beat this, I am going to try to get signed off work because of this" - this is the point that HA gets incredibly difficult to beat. But it can still be done.
I strongly believe that if you do these things you will beat health anxiety:
- Get physically fit
- Practise stress-reduction techniques
- Get more stuff in your life - this was a massive one for me as my HA developed when I had little else to do.
- Avoid reassurance/Dr Google
- Look at life from a distance and try to think philosophically about things
This is simply not the case. HA affects people from all walks of live, from surgeons (medical students have an incredibly high incidence of HA) to lawyers to bin men to housewives.
I personally think that it's a combination of what's in the genes and learned behaviour, either passed on by the way your parents brought you up (you may have seen them stressing about their health) or brought on by a particularly stressful event or illness.
The second most important thing to remember is that it can affect ANYONE.
The first most important thing (excuse my bad grammar) to remember is that YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM. As soon as you start thinking that way "poor me, why does this not happen to everyone else, I will never beat this, I am going to try to get signed off work because of this" - this is the point that HA gets incredibly difficult to beat. But it can still be done.
I strongly believe that if you do these things you will beat health anxiety:
- Get physically fit
- Practise stress-reduction techniques
- Get more stuff in your life - this was a massive one for me as my HA developed when I had little else to do.
- Avoid reassurance/Dr Google
- Look at life from a distance and try to think philosophically about things