What is illness anxiety disorder? Are you always worried about your health?

Illness anxiety disorder is a complex mental health issue. Do you have troubling symptoms and sensations that you cannot stop obsessing about?

Have you hired doctors, therapists, bodyworkers and coaches with the hope that they will fix your symptoms? Do you want nothing more than certainty that your body and your health are fine, but no matter how much googling you do, you can't find that certainty?

This is what illness anxiety disorder or hypochondriasis can make you think and question constantly, through the day and weeks to come. However, the good news is that the condition is highly treatable.

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What is illness anxiety disorder?

Hypochondriasis can keep you on the edge. (Image via Vecteezy/YES studio)

Imagine that your health concerns lie on a continuum. There are general concerns about how you have been doing physically, and on the other is excessive anxiety and obsession about having an illness or hypochondriasis.

For the latter, it's important to seek the consultation of a mental health professional, especially as it can impact your everyday functioning.

Illness anxiety disorder can occur within many mental health conditions including, generalized anxiety disorder and OCD. The primary symptoms of health anxiety is that you have frequent worries about your health and a tendency to interpret bodily sensations as indicators of illness.

Illness anxiety is no joke. It can feel like a never ending vicious cycle. It starts with you noticing a symptom. You start to hyper-focus on the symptom. Maybe you even start to check other bodily sensations like your heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level to make sure that they're normal.

You google your symptoms, get in touch with a professional and worry about what you find online. You go to the doctor, and they reassure you that everything is fine. Maybe you forget about this symptom eventually, but another bodily sensation happens, and the cycle starts all over again

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What treatments can I receive for illness anxiety?

What types of treatments can you receive for this condition? (Image via Freepik)

There are effective treatments for illness anxiety disorder, including cognitive behavioral therapy with exposure and response prevention and mindfulness. What can help you in conquering this health anxiety was to really know what stress and anxiety do to the body.

By really understanding the process of the body going from 0-100 of full-blown phobia of being sick. You must also be aware and understand what symptoms you can develop by having anxiety.

Instead of fixing the symptoms you're so obsessed with, mental health professionals work with health anxiety clients to learn how to be present with their discomfort. That can include the discomfort of perseverating, obsessing over, googling about and feeling whatever they are feeling. Yes, a therapist may not encourage avoidance coping to manage this condition.

Mental health professionals help you confront your fears, resistance, perfectionism, how you connect with you bodies and why your relationship with their bodies is pain-focused rather than pleasure-focused.

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Everyone has health concerns, but they can often tip over into anxiety and gradually into illness anxiety. Getting rid of symptoms doesn't necessarily heal the condition.

Rather, learning how to relate differently to your body, without fear, regardless of the outcome is how we overcome illness anxiety disorder. With the right support and treatment, you can slowly and gradually become comfortable with your symptoms and eventually get rid of them.

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Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a Master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.

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