How To Manage Health Anxiety

This episode is centered around our health anxiety and the coronavirus. Knowing how to manage health anxiety during times of upset can lead us to panic and feel frightened,

Lots of people experience health anxiety and it can come from past experiences or from how our mind can focus on one thing during times of stress and anxiety. At times it can also be a result of feeling under pressure, stressed or anxious which can result in physical feelings like aches, pains, headaches, stomach and skin complaints are examples.

I hope you find this episode helpful and if you have any questions or comments then please get in touch.

https://www.horizonplymouth.co.uk 

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Therapy Guy.

It's great to have you listening and I appreciate all

your comments and questions that you've been sending in to

us over the past few weeks and rest assured we're

going to be answering all all of those things over

a future episodes so keep on listening.

Today though, what I want to talk about is

a lot that's in the news at the moment

and it's to do with health and health anxiety.

Now I'm sure everybody that's listening would have heard

of this coronavirus, heard of what's going on throughout

the world and obviously now here in the UK,

the coronavirus is obviously spreading and it has a

lot of flu like symptoms and everything else.

But it is reading a little bit of

this hysteria and social media and the media

are contributing to that as well.

I feel what I'd like you to do because I

think this ties into obviously people's health anxieties at times

and I do see a lot of people who suffer

with health anxiety in different formats or whatever.

And this can come in from constantly worrying about

their health overall to checking their signs for illnesses

such as lumps or bumps or pain.

Asking people for reassurance that they're not ill.

Worried that a doctor or medical test might

have missed something so frequenting the local doctors

or GPS or hospitals can be looking or

obsessively looking for health information on things like

the internet and good old Google.

And when things like illnesses or things happen

on TV we can then suddenly start to

worry that we might experience those things.

And obviously then you have another extreme where people can

act as if they're ill and just to avoid physical

activities because it really builds in their minds.

This is all to do with anxiety and because

of anxiety itself gives us some physical responses.

This can often be misinterpreted

as having something medically wrong.

So for example, if someone is quite anxious they may

be very tense, they might hold their body in a

certain position or sit in a certain way.

This can lead to pains in their body,

it can be pains in their back or

we can have headaches and something like that.

And that can be classically places

of tension, stress and anxiety.

But we can sometimes mistake

these four signs of illness.

What can we do about it?

Obviously within the latest outbreak. Within this.

What's happening around the coronavirus at the moment there's

a lot of misinformation that's being put out outside

and a lot of things are happening which I

feel are almost like the classic Chinese whispers where

one piece of information gets leaked or gets mentioned

and by the time somebody else.

Maybe 100 or 1000 people later have heard about it.

It is something so far away from what was originally

said that it can be misinterpreted and obviously cause people

a lot of panic and a lot of anxiety.

What I would suggest you do is just do what

you should normally be doing with regard to the coronavirus.

Just basically wash your hands, take care of, if

you would, any other way, in peak flu season.

Eat properly, sleep properly, ensure your diet

is as healthy as you can be.

Cheque in on people that may be

elderly or have pre existing medical conditions.

Just make sure that they're okay and they have

enough food and they're looking after themselves, too.

Obviously, use certain websites for information.

Don't go googling things.

Don't go looking on forums or anything else,

because if you're already anxious, your mind can

then lead you to the worst case scenarios.

That's what it's designed to do.

I would suggest you look on reputable

government websites, look on the NHS website.

There's plenty of information that has been written

with a rational and common sense approach.

Obviously, we've all heard stories of the people

stocking up, people going and getting all the

toilet rolls and hand sanitizers and everything else,

and I can understand that.

But again, let's have some

rational thoughts amongst it.

It's just spreading and it causes great deal of

worry and distress to certain types of people.

What I'd encourage you to do, again

is just be sensible, be rational.

Look, if you're aware of those signs, then

see if isolate yourself off the same as

what you would do in a natural way.

We might have the cold and the flu.

You avoid certain things.

You use tissues.

They said, you wash your hands, you

look after yourself a bit better.

And if you're worried, then contact one one or go visit

your local GP or speak to them on the phone.

That's what a lot of people are doing now.

But try not to get dragged into

that anxiety response and dealt with the

hysteria that's happening at the moment.

If you have any questions,

seek a proper medical response.

Google isn't a doctor.

It's got lots of fantastic information and

it's a great tool to be used.

But just be careful what you're searching for and

what information and where you're getting it from. Okay?

What you can do sometimes is challenge your thoughts.

And it's something that I often do in my therapy rooms.

So I might ask people, if they're at home

to maybe draw sort of a column or a

table where they have like, a section where they

write down what they're worried about in one column.

And then we encourage them to think a

more balanced way in the second column.

Okay, so you could be worried about losing your job.

Yes.

And in the second column you might actually put down,

well, I've been in this job, there's no opportunities.

The boss is quite understanding all these

sort of things in the second column.

So it rationalises, it out with the health.

If you've got pain, you can say, yes, I'm worried

about this pain in my back or my leg.

Or wherever it is, but then start to

think about, have you over exercised, have you

possibly pulled a muscle doing something that you

haven't usually done or something?

And try to be more rational.

Another good way and a tip that I often use

is trying to think what somebody else would say.

So what would your doctor be saying to you?

What would independent, harsh person be telling you about

this fear or this hope that you're having.

Try to get back to doing normal activities, keeping your

routine structure as best as possible, going to bed at

the same time, getting up, doing everything that you'd normally

do in your day to day routine.

And then obviously, if the anxiety

is getting worse, please try some

breathing exercises, some mindfulness techniques.

There is lots available.

Again, some of them are available on the NHS website.

There's also the Mind website, which is really good

and packed full of information about mental health and

well being and it has some fantastic breathing exercises.

There's also apps like Headspace and Calm.

There's lots of things that you can try.

Of course, if you feel really worried about your

health and it's starting to get worse, or your

symptoms are getting worse, please don't hesitate to bring

a doctor on one, one forward voice.

Yes, I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, I'm just

saying that we need to approach things as rational and

as calm a way as possible and just go about

your things in your life as best as you can

at this moment, keeping an eye on what the government

is saying on the government website.

There's lots of information on the local government website at

the moment, which is www.uk, and at the moment

the number of cases that are in the UK that

have been tested and have been positively confirmed.

It's quite small when you think

of the population as a whole.

Now, I'm not saying that this isn't

going to get higher or anything else

because obviously there is that opportunity.

Just like any flu or virus epidemic, we

have these peaks and troughs that we work

through and obviously it's going to affect different

points of the population at different times.

Health anxiety is quite normal, it's a thing we

see often and it can be treated really well

by some psychological therapy, some counselling, CBT, all that

sort of thing, if you find that it's continuing

after all the coronavirus and everything else has moved

on and after it's been more contained.

So please keep yourself safe, look after each

other, try to keep as rational as possible.

If you need or have any questions or

you want any more advice, please don't hesitate

to comment or leave your feedback.

We're more than happy to get back to you

and we'll try to give you advice, like I

said, that is on the government websites or the

NHS, because that's where the best information is at

this moment in time, so take care of yourself.

Please listen to the next few podcasts are

coming out over the next few weeks.

And for a while, this is just me signing

off as a therapy guy, saying goodbye for now. Thank you.

Bye.