Transform Your Life with AZ Hope Wellness Center LLC

Health anxiety, also known as hypochondria, can feel like you’re trapped in a loop of constant worry about your health. If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over physical symptoms, fearing the worst despite reassurances from doctors, you might be dealing with health anxiety. Here’s what it might look like—and how you might relate to it.

The Endless Search for Reassurance

Imagine feeling a small twinge in your chest or a slight headache, and immediately, your mind goes to the worst-case scenario. You might think, “Is this a heart attack? Could it be a brain tumor?” Even after checking with a doctor, the worry doesn’t go away—it might even intensify.

You might find yourself constantly searching for information online, hoping to find reassurance but often ending up more anxious. Googling symptoms late into the night, reading story after story about serious illnesses, and then comparing them to your own experiences can make the anxiety spiral out of control. You might visit multiple doctors, hoping that one of them will finally tell you what’s really wrong, even though they all say you’re fine.

The Physical Symptoms

Health anxiety isn’t just in your mind—it can manifest in your body, too. The stress and worry can lead to real physical symptoms, which only fuel your fears. You might feel dizzy, short of breath, or have a racing heart. These symptoms can feel very real and very frightening, convincing you that something is seriously wrong, even when there’s no medical reason to believe so.

Sometimes, it’s the constant monitoring of your body that keeps the anxiety alive. You might spend a lot of time checking your pulse, examining your skin, or taking your temperature, looking for any sign that something isn’t right. This hyper-awareness of your body can make every little sensation seem like a red flag, making it hard to trust that you’re actually okay.

During treatment, we will uncover the underlying reasons for your anxiety, the thoughts and beliefs about yourself, others and about the world that make our physical health feel so worrisome. You will work on techniques to calm down and learn what to do instead of seeking out reassurance from doctors and others about out health.  You may use some exposure techniques to learn to sit in the unknowing of what is happening with our body at any ggiven time/.