Understanding Health Anxiety
Share
Most people experience occasional worries about their health. A headache, an ache or pain, a new sensation. It's a normal part of being human.
For some people, a symptom doesn't simply come and go. Instead, it triggers a chain reaction of worry, checking, Googling, reassurance-seeking and worst-case thinking. Even after receiving reassurance from doctors, family members or medical tests, the relief often lasts only a short time before another concern appears.
I regularly meet people across Beverley, Driffield, Hull and East Yorkshire who describe feeling trapped in this cycle. They know their fears may be excessive, yet the anxiety feels impossible to switch off.
Why Health Anxiety Feels So Real
One of the biggest misconceptions about health anxiety is that people are "imagining" symptoms.
In reality, anxiety can create very real physical sensations.
When the nervous system becomes activated, people may experience:
• Increased heart rate
• Muscle tension
• Dizziness
• Tingling sensations
• Digestive discomfort
• Breathlessness
• Headaches
• Fatigue
The more attention we pay to these sensations, the more noticeable they often become.
Imagine buying a new car and suddenly noticing the same model everywhere. Your brain begins scanning for it.
Health anxiety works in a similar way. The mind becomes highly tuned to physical sensations, making them seem more frequent and more significant.
The Hidden Cycle That Keeps Health Anxiety Going
Many people believe that checking symptoms or seeking reassurance should reduce anxiety.
Unfortunately, it often has the opposite effect.
A typical cycle may look like this:
- Notice a physical sensation.
- Interpret it as dangerous.
- Search online or seek reassurance.
- Experience temporary relief.
- Become hyperaware of the body again.
- Notice another sensation.
- Repeat.
The short-term relief becomes part of the problem because the brain never learns that uncertainty can be tolerated safely.
How CBT Can Help
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying the thinking patterns that fuel anxiety.
Many people with health anxiety experience:
• Catastrophising
• Worst-case thinking
• Overestimating risk
• Selective attention to symptoms
• Excessive reassurance seeking
CBT helps clients step back and evaluate whether their thoughts are based on evidence or fear.
The goal is not blind positivity.
The goal is balanced thinking.
How ACT Can Help
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) takes a slightly different approach.
Rather than trying to eliminate every anxious thought, ACT teaches people how to change their relationship with those thoughts.
Instead of:
"What if this symptom means something serious?"
ACT encourages:
"I notice my mind is having that thought again."
This small shift can create significant psychological distance and reduce the struggle against uncertainty.
Because the truth is that no one can achieve 100% certainty about their health.
Learning to tolerate uncertainty is often one of the most powerful steps towards recovery.
Where Hypnosis Fits In
Health anxiety is not only a thinking problem. It is also a nervous system problem.
When someone has spent months or years living in a state of vigilance, the body often becomes conditioned to react automatically.
Clinical hypnosis can help reduce physiological arousal, improve relaxation and reinforce healthier mental habits.
Many clients describe feeling calmer, sleeping better and becoming less reactive to physical sensations after treatment.
Rather than fighting the mind, hypnosis works alongside it, helping create new patterns of response at a subconscious level.
A Multi-Modal Approach
At My Soul Coach, I use a combination of CBT, ACT and clinical hypnosis through my MSC Method® approach.
Each person is different.
Some people need practical tools to challenge unhelpful thinking.
Others need help accepting uncertainty.
Many benefit from calming an overactive nervous system.
Combining these approaches allows treatment to be tailored to the individual rather than relying on a single technique.
When To Seek Support
If worries about your health are beginning to affect your sleep, relationships, confidence, work or daily life, it may be worth seeking support.
Health anxiety can feel isolating, but it is highly treatable when approached correctly.
Final Thoughts
The aim is not to ignore genuine health concerns.
The aim is to stop living in fear of every sensation, ache or symptom.
When the mind learns that uncertainty is manageable, life becomes much bigger than the next symptom.
If health anxiety is affecting your quality of life, I offer private sessions from my therapy room in Lockington near Beverley, serving clients across Beverley, Driffield, Hull and East Yorkshire, as well as online across the UK.
Book a free phone consultation to discuss whether support may be helpful.