For anxiety sufferers I can highly recommend Dr Claire Weekes 'Self Help for Your Nerves', and Richard Carlson 'Stop Thinking Start Living'. Books like David Burns 'Feeling Good New Mood Therapy' and J Bourne 'Anxiety and Phobia Workbook' have sections on health anxiety and CBT exercises to help you think more logically.
I have suffered from huge health anxiety in the past due to having lots of ectopic heartbeats (pvc's) every day for 9 years. At times I have been paralysed by anxiety, afraid to move because I was convinced I was about to drop dead, afraid to sleep because I believed I would die in the night. I was agoraphobic briefly, leaving the house only to take the kids to school. I am still suffering, but much better than I was.
The above books have helped a great deal and it really is a question of thinking too much about stuff and not being able to think logically about our health.
Some of the exercises are things like making a list of how you feel and then writing a logical response:
1. I'm going to die because my heart is missing beats -
I have seen several doctors who are not concerned. I have had all the tests and been told it is benign.
2. I can't cope with the panic I feel -
the feeling will pass, it always does. Let your body do it's thing, relax and float through it.
3. Physically I feel awful, there must be something seriously wrong with me -
how you feel doesn't always mean there is something wrong with you. The physical symptoms like chest feels tight, shaky, are more to do with anxiety than anything else.
This page gives more examples. It's not my page BTW, I just came across it today as I was looking for a CBT exercise as an example to show you all:
http://iveronicawalsh.wordpress.com/...tive-thoughts/
The thing is, we need to challenge our automatic negative thoughts and realise that it is our distorted view of the world is causing us to be anxious about things. Another thing for me was learning to accept uncertainty. I don't like surprises, I like to plan and be organised. Accepting that I cannot control my body/health has been very difficult.
I hope this all helps. If you are anxious about health, remember you cannot always control your body 100% (though healthy diet, no smoking etc. will help) but you can start working on the the thing that you can do something about - ie. the anxiety.