Understanding And Untangling Health Anxiety
- Oct 1, 2024
- 11 min read
Eszter Noble is an RTT® practitioner, Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Coach, specializing in anxiety, fears, and depression. Her method utilizes the most effective techniques from CBT, NLP, psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy, with the ability to provide freedom from any issues and deliver permanent, lasting solutions.
Our health should always be taken seriously, we need it for the rest of our lives. Health anxiety should also be taken seriously. It exists on a spectrum from mild, occasional worries to severe, debilitating fears. For those with more severe health anxiety, the constant worry about illness can impact relationships, work, and their overall quality of life and it’s a very real problem.
Health anxiety involves an intense preoccupation with the belief that one has, or is in danger of developing, a serious illness, despite medical reassurance and a lack of concerning symptoms.
The dose makes the poison
Understanding what our mind is trying to do, is by far one of the most important steps in untangling and tackling this issue.
You may have heard the saying before, that “the dose makes the poison” and it’s very fitting for when we talk about health anxiety. Of course, it’s crucial to keep ourselves out of harms way, to take care of our body and to stay safe, but when an excessive worrying about one's health takes over and it interferes with daily life and wellbeing, it truly becomes and a problem.
Trouble is, we can actually get addicted to stress and with time we need to add more and more concerns onto our plate just to hit the same rush we have gotten used to. The body becomes habituated to high levels of stress hormones, leading us to unconsciously seek out stressful situations to maintain those hormone levels. Stress addiction has become very common, a physiological and psychological dependence on stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
Breaking this vicious cycle requires conscious effort to change thought patterns and behaviours that perpetuate stress. Sometimes we are so used to how we behave, how we are, we don’t even realise we have a problem. A few years ago, I met someone through work, and she became a truly great friend. She pointed out to me that most of my sentences, stories I tell, start with:
“I was so angry, let me tell you!”
We often laugh about it, and she has noticed I started adding in variations as well but haven’t shaken the habit entirely. When you are used to doing something for many years, it becomes part of your identity. If friends or family point something out, don’t immediately shift to the defensive gear, listen, they may be on to something. The more you repeat a ‘mantra’ the more you will live by it. It’s important to become aware and challenge your negative thoughts.
Watch your words
Even when we don’t speak, we say a lot. We say a lot to our subconscious that is always listening. You don’t have to say words out loud to give your mind instructions, to tell your mind what it is you want. The problem is, your mind’s job isn’t to distinguish between good or bad, true or false, it listens to the words you use, which then shape your reality. When we use harsh, dramatic language, we feel all the emotions that go along with using those words. Have you ever said something like: “this traffic is driving me insane, it’s ruining my day, (if not your entire life). Do you say such sentences in a calm and collected manner or shouting, angry and upset?
Every thought you think causes a physical and emotional reaction in your body. If I asked you to think about your absolute favourite meal or even just to imagine biting into a juicy lemon, I guarantee there would be a physical reaction to that. Your imagination is incredibly powerful and there are principles rooted in neuroscience and psychology that discuss the profound impact of thought and imagination on our brain's wiring and our emotional state. This idea suggests that when we vividly imagine an experience, our brain processes it similarly to an actual event, leading to real physiological changes. By consciously engaging in positive mental imagery and emotional alignment with what we truly want, we can harness our brain's power for change, ultimately influencing our personal reality. Change starts by changing your language.
Notice carefully the words you use. Catastrophizing, imagining the worst possible outcome is of course completely unhelpful in most cases and can lead to significant emotional distress, including increased anxiety and depression. So why do we do it?
Especially when we are dealing with health concerns, we cannot see into our body and even if we were able to, we probably couldn’t make sense of the findings. The unknown is completely overwhelming. In most cases there will be a strong sense of helplessness and in a weird way catastrophizing gives a fake sense or power over the situation and allows us to blow off steam.
Unfortunately, the more we allow disempowering words and give into feelings of helplessness, it can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where we inadvertently contribute to the negative outcomes we fear by acting out of anxiety rather than rationality.
How stress from traumatic events contributes to health anxiety
As difficult as health anxiety can be to live with, the good news is that absolutely no one is born with it. That means that it hitchhiked its way into the person’s life, it was picked up somewhere along the way. For instance, stress from traumatic events can significantly contribute to the development and aggravation of health anxiety in several ways:
Heightened physiological arousal: Trauma activates the body's stress response system, leading to increased heart rate, blood pressure, and other physical symptoms. This heightened state of arousal can make a person more aware of and concerned about bodily sensations.
Hypervigilance: Traumatic experiences often lead to a state of hypervigilance, where a person becomes overly alert to potential threats. This can translate into excessive monitoring of bodily symptoms and sensations.
Altered cognitive processing: Trauma can change how someone may interpret bodily sensations and health information. Harmless physical sensations may be misinterpreted as signs of serious illness.
Increased sensitivity to stress: Trauma can make individuals more sensitive to future stressors, potentially amplifying anxiety responses to health-related concerns.
Disrupted sense of safety: Traumatic events can shatter one's belief in personal invulnerability, leading to heightened concerns about health and mortality.
Neurobiological changes: Trauma can cause changes in brain structures involved in fear and anxiety responses, potentially increasing health-related worries.
These are just some examples of how trauma can contribute to health anxiety. It's important to note that not everyone who experiences trauma will develop health anxiety. After significant, negative, distressing events the mind will be working overtime to identify threats and make sure it keeps you alive. Your mind doesn’t care if you thrive, it cares if you survive. Self-help strategies can be useful but when dealing with health anxiety, often it’s better to seek professional help, such as trauma-informed cognitive behavioural therapy or hypnotherapy, which can be highly effective in addressing both trauma symptoms and health anxiety.
Overthinking symptoms and underestimating a real threat
Having a headache doesn’t have to be fatal, feeling pain in certain parts of the body usually can be alleviated successfully, however there is one major threat to our health that is being continuously overlooked. The ‘fuel’ we give our bodies. The food we eat every day has an enormous effect on our health, and that’s where we need to direct more attention.
The problem with eating ultra processed, unhealthy food is that it’s been genetically engineered to be addictive, to taste amazing and to always leave us wanting more. The harsh truth is that the manufacturers of sweet, savoury, greasy, processed food do not care about our health, just about their wealth. Companies have to be profitable of course, but at the expense of our health?
When we eat such food, it doesn’t hurt, on the contrary, for most it’s a blissful experience that begs to be repeated, it’s a sure and easily repeatable way of getting a dopamine hit. This "rush," which makes us feel good just reinforces the behaviour of eating sugary & processed foods.
From an evolutionary perspective, hunger often triggers a stress response, as it signals a potential threat to survival. This can lead to heightened emotional states. The parts of the brain that control vital functions like breathing, heart rate, hunger, and basic movement patterns, operate largely outside of conscious control and reflect our primitive neurological heritage. This is important to point out because, despite living in a very modern environment, our brains haven’t quite caught up yet.
Sugar for instance, used to be a very scarce resource. When our ancestors found a bit of honey or a juicy mango, there was no self-control, there was no, “I’ll just have a bit now and leave some for tomorrow”. There was no tomorrow! No guarantee whatsoever that you would find that source of sweetness again. Unfortunately, our mind still lives by this principle to this day. Our brain often reacts to stimuli before conscious thought occurs. This rapid, subcortical processing allows for quick responses to potential threats, a feature that was crucial for survival in our evolutionary past but has since become somewhat of a hinderance.
Another issue with sweet and fatty foods, especially in that combination is that it literally takes us back to being a baby. When we were just a few weeks, few months old, being breastfed or having the formula was a very bonding and an especially soothing experience. When we are upset about something, 99% of us crave ice cream, chocolate, something sweet and fatty. Our subconscious wants to go back to that time we felt safe and protected. Or have you ever reached for a celery stick when distressed?
There are so many pitfalls and evolutionary elements that need to be considered when we look at our behaviour, health and way of living. Our mind often has a very different agenda, and we need to become aware. So, taking that into consideration, and our environment filled with other people’s agendas for profit and gains, it’s no wonder we stumble onto the wrong path at times.
Food has a profound impact on our health, affecting even gene expression, hormones, brain chemistry, immune system, and the gut microbiome. We simply cannot afford to feed ourselves overly processed food. Our diet has an impact on mental health and can lead to not only mood disorders and contribute to depression, but there have been many studies showing its involvement in dementia as well. According to Harvard Medical School which followed over 72,000 people for 10 years, found that those consuming the largest amounts of ultra-processed foods had a 25% higher risk of developing dementia compared to those who ate little of these foods. Like I said, it doesn’t physically hurt to eat the donuts but trust that it’s causing long term, in many cases irreversible damage. So, is it really worth it?
I could spend days debating and discussing the subject but instead, I would like to outline some ways to navigate the vast jungle of junk food we find ourselves up against. I often joke and say:
“Just don’t buy or eat anything that comes in a colourful bag” – but it’s actually not bad advice.
Things to watch out for when considering your next meal
Can it be found in nature? Chickens, fruits, vegetables can be found in nature, but I haven’t yet seen a fountain of fizzy drinks in a field.
Do you recognize the ingredients? And this is where my colourful bag theory fits in. If you look at the back of a packaging and don’t recognize most things listed, can barely pronounce some of the words, you probably shouldn't have it.
Can you recreate it in your kitchen? Are you able to make barbeque flavoured popped crisps in the comfort of your own home? What about a fizzy blue drink to wash it all down with? Perhaps not, but don’t feel too bad, it’s better this way.
Does it rot? Sounds disgusting? Unless you’re a pickle you may not want to consume all the preservatives and chemicals designed to lengthen shelf life. Avoid foods that do not rot or decompose, as these are often highly processed and lack nutritional value.
Stick to simple and go back to basics. When you fill up on healthy foods and nourish your body, you will crave less of the empty calories that are just designed to keep you hooked and hungry.
What do you need to ACE IT?
Anxiety and fears go hand in hand. We often fear the unknown, we worry when we don’t have enough information, it’s the uncertainty that can be so paralysing. Health anxiety has all these elements, and more. What’s important though is to focus on what we can control.
Absolutely anything we do, any behaviour we exhibit has a role, a reason, an intention.
Always start with “what”. Asking yourself what a behaviour is attempting to accomplish, is one of the best ways to understand and untangle it, and it will fit into one of 3 categories:
The behaviour is trying to get you attention, which sometimes can be negative and not what you’d hoped for. This comes from feeling overlooked and unimportant.
The behaviour is trying to punish the person for some perceived sin or wrongdoing.
It is trying to protect from a situation that is deemed a threat.
I worked with a client who would get debilitating stomach pains almost without fail, each time she needed to do a presentation at work. Sometimes she would power through it but often the pain would be so bad she would have to call in sick. For her, there was nothing worse in the world, than having to speak in front of others. She made this so abundantly clear to her mind that this chronic issue developed. Her mind was trying to protect her from an extremely uncomfortable situation, in the ‘best’ way it could. The mind also works in mysterious ways.
So, what can be done to avoid getting into such situations in the first place?
Here’s how to ACE IT:
Awareness of how you speak. Notice the disempowering words you use.
Choices that are more positive. Think about your attitude, words, actions.
Empowering language. Say things like: “I can deal with it”, “I can do it”!
Imagine better outcomes, what you expect you realize, so expect amazing things!
Tell yourself you are safe. Your mind needs reassurance and to feel secure.
As much as I am a fan of self-empowerment and dealing with issues by ourselves, an alternative ending could be, T for ‘talk to a therapist’. No one is born with health anxiety, it develops either in early years from observing our environment or later in life, but there is always a reason for it. Alongside other techniques, hypnosis is a very effective way to work with the subconscious and to understand when and how the anxiety developed. Unless the root cause is addressed, it can be difficult to completely eliminate the problem.
To end on a more positive note, I’d like to remind you that not only is excessive worrying often unproductive and unfounded, but only about 4% of what we worry about ever happens. This statistic highlights the futility of worrying about things that are either unlikely to happen or beyond our control. When you lead with gratitude and seek positivity, you will find evidence for it, so let go of unproductive worry and channel your energy into actionable areas of your life.
Read more from Eszter Noble
Eszter Noble, Clinical Hypnotherapist & Coach
Eszter Noble is an established Clinical Hypnotherapist using the RTT® (Rapid Transformational Therapy) method, trained by world-renowned hypnotherapist Marisa Peer. She is known for dealing with extremely difficult cases and clients who have been stuck for years and who have tried it all. Specializing in anxiety, fears, and depression, she is extremely intuitive and honest, dedicated to empowering her clients to become the best possible versions of themselves. Offering her expertise in English, German, and Hungarian, Eszter’s mission is to take the taboo out of therapy.
