in today's video we're going to be talking about how some of the things you might be
doing to protect yourself may actually be making your health anxiety worse
[Music]
hi everyone today's video continues a series of videos that I've been doing on health anxiety
and developing an understanding of where health anxiety comes from
in today's video we're going to be talking about some of the things that we do to try and protect
ourselves or keep ourselves safe with regards to our health and how these things might actually
be playing a role in causing or maintaining health anxiety fears but before I get into
that just a couple of disclaimers to go over I'm a registered psychologist in the province
of British Columbia Canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended as
a substitute or replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional
now with those things out of the way let's start talking more about health anxiety
um in a previous video I talked about how past negative Health experiences can contribute to
a person feeling a heightened vulnerability with regards to their health things like having family
members experience a serious illness or you having experienced a serious medical problem yourself
or even having a family member with health anxiety
these types of negative Health experiences can contribute to a person feeling more anxious and
vulnerable about their health almost feeling like they're at greater risk of something bad happening
so if you have this heightened sense of vulnerability regarding your health
think about how that might affect you and think about how you might respond
whenever we feel like we're in danger it's natural to want to engage in behaviors to do something to
protect ourselves it's natural to want to take steps to be safe and protect ourselves
so you're feeling anxious and vulnerable about my health and the possibility that I might
experience some serious medical condition then it only makes sense for me to take some steps to
try and protect myself or keep myself as safe as possible now there's two common ways that people
tend to do this in health anxiety the first is developing rules and assumptions about health
and the second is increasing their sensitivity to health or health related symptoms
so let's start by first talking about common rules and assumptions that people will hold on to that
tend to make health anxiety worse the first thing we'll say about this is that we all tend to have
rules and assumptions about various aspects of Our Lives for example I might have a rule that
I need to brush my teeth twice a day otherwise I might get cavities or other dental problems
this is probably a pretty good rule to follow
but rules and assumptions are only helpful as long as they're realistic and flexible
in this example it's fairly likely that if I don't brush my teeth regularly I'm going to experience
some dental problems so that rule is realistic but it's also important that the rule is flexible so
my goal might be to brush my teeth twice a day but I also recognize that it's not the
end of the world if I miss brushing my teeth once in a while I can be flexible about that
so rules and assumptions aren't in and of themselves bad or unhelpful
they only become problematic when our rules and assumptions are either inaccurate or
completely rigid and inflexible and this is where health anxiety comes in
at the core of health anxiety people often have unhelpful rules and assumptions about
themselves their health the Health Care system and medical professionals these rules can these
rules and assumptions can then contribute to high levels of anxiety about health
and these rules and assumptions are often inaccurate and rigid and inflexible
so some common examples of Health rules that might contribute to anxiety are things like
any bodily symptoms or changes need to be taken seriously I have to report any unusual
Body Sensations to my doctor in order to be healthy uh I can't have any physical symptoms
if I do have any physical symptoms I need to have a diagnosis in order to move forward
my health rules can also relate to medical professionals things like my doctor must be
certain about what's going on with me or my doctor should be able to explain all
of my bodily Sensations that I'm concerned about those are all examples of Health rules
people also have a lot of assumptions about their health including things like
any symptoms of pain discomfort or bodily changes
are signs of a problem if I don't pay close attention to health symptoms it could kill me
if my doctor orders a test then it's a sign that there's something wrong if my doctor doesn't know
exactly what's going on or what the problem is then it must be something grave and serious
if my doctor can't assure me that everything is okay then it must mean that there is some
underlying serious problem if I don't have regular checkups or testing I could miss something really
important that's going on in my body if I'm not hyper aware of what's going on in my body if I'm
not paying a close attention there may be an underlying problem that could be getting worse
if I don't keep persisting or checking in with my doctor my doctor might miss something really
important so those are all examples of assumptions that can often take place in health anxiety
and sometimes people can have both rules and assumptions about their health at the same time
so for example if my doctor can't tell me exactly what's going on then it must be serious and I need
to have further testing and further investigations if I have a mole that I'm concerned about I have
to keep measuring the size of the mole otherwise I won't know if it's growing or getting worse
doctors are human they make mistakes they miss things and so what that means is that
I need to see lots of different doctors until I get a clear sense of exactly what's going on
now sometimes when I discuss these rules and assumptions with my clients they can
relate but then question why they hold these rules
and assumptions and doesn't everyone think the same way
now it's important to remember that past experiences can play a role in developing
these rules and assumptions for example if my mom was really anxious about her health
when I was growing up think about how some of her behaviors May contribute to me developing
certain rules and assumptions about health any minor Health complaint any sniffly nose any minor
growing pain would trigger multiple trips to the doctor and lots of time worrying about it and lots
of time looking up information about it even if the doctor assured her that nothing was wrong
these types of negative Health experiences and Associated heightened vulnerability to
health and health related concerns set up a person to develop these unhelpful beliefs
and assumptions about their health again the whole purpose of these beliefs and assumptions
are to try and keep myself safe but all they're really doing is focusing on negative aspects of
Health likely making my health anxiety worse so one thing I often encourage clients to do
is to think about what the rules and assumptions they hold about their health and what are some of
the experiences that may have contributed to developing these rules and assumptions
so it's important to think that through and and to think about where did these rules and assumptions
come from what might have triggered them
now the other thing that people do to protect themselves in the context of health anxiety
is to be more sensitive and more aware of any health related symptoms or health related matters
and this is usually done by increasing focus and attention to a particular physical sensation
that the person is concerned about and what tends to happen is that the more you pay attention to a
particular physical sensation or symptom the more intense that physical symptom or sensation gets
for example as you're watching this video you're paying attention to what I have to say because
that's what seems to be the most important and relevant information being presented to you at
this time what you're probably not noticing is the feeling of the shirt you're wearing the parts
of your body that the shirt is touching versus the parts of your body that your shirt is away
from the texture of the shirt against your skin the weight of the shirt the sound that
the shirt makes As you move the feeling of the shirt is it slides across your skin As you move
but now that I've pointed out some of these things you might be more aware of the sensation
of your shirt on your body whereas 30 seconds ago you didn't even notice it
now as you pay attention to it the sensation of the shirt is much more intense and noticeable
think about how this might relate to health anxiety for most of us we don't typically
pay much attention to minor aches and pains or our general physical functioning like our
heart rate or how much saliva I'm producing or the weird creaks and cracks of my joints
we just kind of accept that our bodies are like cars sometimes running fine other times making
weird creaking noises but for the most part they get us back and forth to where we need to go
and as long as we take care of them with routine maintenance
for someone with health anxiety
health is at risk that their health is under threat and so they increase their sensitivity
to any signs of danger or threat or health problems as a way of protecting themselves
so what happens with health anxiety is the person becomes more sensitive or tuned in to
any concerning signs or symptoms and then pays close attention to those signs and symptoms in
their body and the more they pay attention to those physical Sensations the more intensely they
notice and the more intensely they experience the physical Sensations which then just triggers even
more anxiety or concern because the physical sensation seems to be getting more intense
additionally the more do you pay attention to the physical sensation the more you notice unusual
details of the sensation and that gives you even more to worry about for example if I'm concerned
about having throat cancer I might pay close attention to what it feels like when I swallow
but when I pay such close attention to my swallowing I notice that it feels a bit
more challenging to swallow almost unnatural or difficult so what I do is I try swallowing again
while paying attention to it which just reinforces that unusual feeling that I'm noticing
but what's really going on here is that swallowing in and of itself is a bit of an
unusual sensation if you actually pay attention to it but if you're not paying attention to it
it doesn't feel like anything unusual at all so if you notice that you're highly
anxious about particular physical Sensations or symptoms think about what those symptoms
are how often you're checking on them and how much time and effort you spend focusing on them
but also think about what you notice as you pay so much attention to these Sensations
and how the sensations may actually seem to get stronger the more you pay attention to them
now notice it's not the sensation that's getting stronger necessarily but it may
just be that you're so focused on it and so this is where our model of health anxiety stands at
this point in the previous video I talked about how negative Health experience is like a family
members having an illness the death of a loved one negative information in the media or on the
Internet how these negative Health experiences can lead me to having an increased sense of
vulnerability about my health I see myself at risk that something bad is going to happen to my health
and in response to this I attempt to protect myself and to protect my health through using
these various unhelpful rules and assumptions that we talked about earlier in today's video
but I also then increase my sensitivity to signs or potentially concerning symptoms I
become highly tuned in to any signs of Potential Threat or danger to my health
and so all of these things lead to increased susceptibility to developing health anxiety
so these are the risk factors these are what we call predisposing factors that can leave a person
vulnerable to developing health anxiety should they experience a trigger and in future videos
I'm going to be talking about some of the types of things that may trigger episodes of health anxiety
the various triggers that may activate this health anxiety that's just under the surface waiting to
be Unleashed so I hope you'll keep an eye out for those videos in the coming weeks and months
um I'd love to hear any questions or thoughts you might have about this so please leave me
some comments in the comments section down below if you've been enjoying my videos and would like
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every week when I post a new video so that's all for today's video as always thank you for
making it all the way to the end of this video and I will see you in the next one