today we're going to be talking about why people start to worry about their
health and how health anxiety gets triggered
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hi everyone in today's video we're going to continue our series of videos
on health anxiety which is also known as hypochondriasis or illness anxiety disorder
and today's video is going to be focusing on two main factors that can trigger a person to start
worrying excessively about their health 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 now in previous videos I talked about the various factors that can
predispose or set up a person to develop health anxiety it's almost like these factors create
a dormant health anxiety within a person lying just under the surface and this dormant health
anxiety doesn't cause any problems unless the person is exposed to something that triggers the
health anxiety and causes them to start worrying excessively about their health I've talked about
how past experiences like previous experiences with illness themselves seeing a family member
struggle with a health condition or having a family member model health anxiety Behavior
I've talked about how these can lead a person to feel more vulnerable with regards to their health
and what this can do is to increase How concerned a person is about their health and their health
status and they become extremely sensitive to Any Body Sensations changes or symptoms
the person becomes hypersensitive to any signs of potential health risk or illness
so if a person has these factors that predisposes them to develop health anxiety this dormant
condition that lies under the surface until it until it's activated that raises the question
of how exactly does health anxiety get triggered what are some of the factors that can take this
dormant health anxiety that's lying just under the surface and that isn't causing a person
problems in their day-to-day life and how can it become something like like hypochondriasis
which causes huge amounts of distress anxiety and interference in a person's life
now to try to explain this I want you to imagine asking a friend or family member whether they've
ever worried about their health what do you think they would say well most people will acknowledge
having some health related concerns from time to time health is a common topic that people
worry about but for most people the worries about their health come and go just like other worries
now the interesting thing is if you ask those same friends or family who don't
experience health anxiety what factors might get them to start worrying about their health
those are probably going to be the same factors that would trigger an episode of health anxiety in
someone with hypochondriasis the difference is for people who don't experience high levels of health
anxiety these triggers may start an episode of some worry about their health but they eventually
dismiss those worries and move on with whatever I'll say we're doing they move on with life
but for someone with health anxiety these triggers get combined with inflexible and inaccurate Health
rules or assumptions that a person may have beliefs like any bodily symptom or change
needs to be taken seriously I must not have any unusual physical symptoms in order to be healthy
I have to pay close attention to my health symptoms otherwise I might miss something
and that could kill me those types of beliefs rules and assumptions become activated and flare
up to pour gasoline on this smolding health anxiety which just lies under the surface
so in other words for a person with health anxiety they likely have had negative past
experiences that lead to unhelpful beliefs rules and assumptions about their health
this is kind of like the stick of dynamite so all it takes is that there's a little bit of a
trigger or a match to ignite the dynamite and cause the health anxiety to blow up
and the thing is this is all happening in the background it's not that people are necessarily
aware of this while it's happening this isn't necessarily a conscious process
so that's how a person gets set up for these triggers to really affect them and cause the
onset of an episode of health anxiety but what exactly are these triggers well
there are two main types of triggers there are internal triggers and there are external triggers
internal triggers are things that happen within us these internal triggers can be any physical
Sensation that you might notice in your body so common examples of internal triggers are
things like having ringing in your ears noticing increased sensitivity to hot or cold on your teeth
stomach distress having gas noticing tingling or numbing in some parts of your body noticing an
increase or a decrease in your heart rate noticing fluctuations in energy level even things like
noticing you have more saliva than usual sometimes you might notice new or unusual symptoms for you
things like a rash that you've never had before or headaches if you're not used to having headaches
you may notice that one of your eyelids tends to Twitch or flutter and wonder what's going
on with that but you might be wondering what where do these internal triggers come from well
what's causing them what why am I having these internal Sensations or these internal triggers
our bodies is that they're constantly changing in a process called homeostasis
our bodies are constantly adjusting depending on environmental factors
and so things like heart rate for example can be affected by outside temperature changes which we
generally aren't really paying attention to so a person might notice a change in heart rate that
was caused by it being warmer outside but they don't really register or the connect the two
the other thing is that our bodies are sometimes a lot like old cars
they get weird creaking noises or aches or funny Sensations that come and go but generally speaking
we're able to function fine and those physical Sensations don't mean anything's necessarily wrong
but imagine for someone with health anxiety you start to notice some of these internal triggers
and these internal triggers can then ignite that dormant underlying predisposition to
worry and worry about health and then kaboom the health anxiety blows up now aside from physical
Sensations going on in your body there are a number of external factors or external triggers
that can get this health anxiety ball rolling this can be things like hearing about a co-worker or
an acquaintance who's been recently diagnosed with a serious illness you can be hearing about
health scares in the news various illnesses or diseases that are spreading in the community
it can be coming into contact with someone who's not feeling well and
then starting to worry about whether or not you might have caught something from them
health anxiety can sometimes be triggered by having an upcoming medical appointment maybe
it's been a while since you've seen your doctor and they want you to come in or have some sort of
diagnostic test and this can trigger a lot of anxiety about what if there's something wrong
and if you get those medical tests results and the results come back inconclusive which can
be pretty common with a lot of diagnostic tests this inconclusivity can also then trigger high
levels of anxiety or concern even something like traveling overseas or being away from your health
care system if I'm in a different country I might start worrying about what would happen
if I got sick would I be able to communicate effectively with the doctors would I be able
to get appropriate treatment would I be able to pay for the treatment and sometimes these
external or internal triggers can work together to make a double whammy trigger for a person with
health anxiety for example suppose I read a news article about someone who developed throat cancer
and then I start noticing some tenderness in my throat or some unusual Sensations when I try to
swallow and it leads me to start wondering if maybe there's something wrong with me
so any of these internal or external triggers can start a spiraling collection of what if
Health thoughts and once a person who's predisposed to hypochondriasis starts on
that what if were we train it can be really really difficult
to break out of that cycle and so this is where our model of health anxiety stands at this point
a person has a predisposition to health anxiety based on prior experiences and unrealistic or
unhelpful rules or assumptions about their health that person gets exposed to either internal or
external triggers which then activates those unhelpful rules and assumptions things like I
can't be healthy and have any unusual physical symptoms if I do have any unusual physical
symptoms I need to know exactly what's causing those symptoms otherwise it must be something bad
if I don't take this seriously if I don't pay close attention to it I could miss something
and that could lead to a serious ill illness or disease that could potentially lead to my death
and so the health anxiety stick of dynamite gets lit and explodes
but the thing is people with hypochondriasis typically don't experience health anxiety it's
just an ex just an acute explosion of worry about their health that goes away relatively quickly
what usually happens is the health anxiety gets activated
but then there are a series of other factors that maintain the health anxiety and keep it going
and in the next video in this series I'm going to be talking about a number of these
factors that tend to maintain health anxiety and keep that health anxiety fire burning
even after the initial trigger May no longer be present so please keep an eye keep an eye out for
that video in the coming weeks in the meantime if you want to learn more about health anxiety
and encourage you to check out this 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'll see you in the next one