New symptoms!

[dsmman12. pj]

what does everyone do when a new symptom appears out of no where. I was sitting when all of sudden I got really dizzy headrush then it was gone. I've been dizzy before but this was quick. How does everyone deal with new symptoms?

[Amurfina]

Any new symptoms trigger health anxiety for me so new symptom = panic. I can’t help wondering how ‘normal’ people cope when they get an ailment. Do they just brush it off because I over analyse, panic, start thinking ‘but what if’ and start the whole cycle of anxiety. The thing is as my counsellor told me, how many times have you had a symptom before that you panicked about that turned out to be nothing and how many times has a symptom turned out to be your worst fear? Then do the maths... This helps sometimes to calm me down.

[dsmman12. pj]

[QUOTE=Amurfina;1948604]Any new symptoms trigger health anxiety for me so new symptom = panic. I can’t help wondering how ‘normal’ people cope when they get an ailment. Do they just brush it off because I over analyse, panic, start thinking ‘but what if’ and start the whole cycle of anxiety. The thing is as my counsellor told me, how many times have you had a symptom before that you panicked about that turned out to be nothing and how many times has a symptom turned out to be your worst fear? Then do the maths... This helps sometimes to calm me

Thanks for the reply I agree. It's just so hard when you are in the moment to stay calm and logical.

[BlueIris]

What you need to do is learn to control the panic response. AnkietyJoe explains it far better than I do, but the trick is to teach yourself not to react when you have the initial worrying thought - it's just a thought, it can't hurt you. Human bodies are weird, and very little of what they do carries much significance beyond the moment.

The Headspace app has an analogy that's been very useful to me - think of your thoughts as traffic speeding down a busy motorway; you can choose to sit at the side of the road and let them pass by, or you can run into the road every time you notice one you don't like and try to catch hold of it. The second way isn't likely to end well. It's tough, but every time you want to chase a car, remind yourself that if you just sit by the roadside it'll be gone in half a second. At first, you'll have to do this dozens of times a minute. If you practice, though, it'll get easier. My health anxiety used to be absolutely crippling; I won't say it's gone completely now but I don't let every worry destroy my life for days or weeks any more.