CBT for Health Anxiety: What You Need to Know
What Is Health Anxiety?
Most people experience some worries surrounding their health and seek appropriate care for their needs. You may have worried about health concerns like increased blood pressure or abnormal weight gain, among other things, and may have had some anxiety surrounding these symptoms. If your feelings of anxiety do not subside after receiving care from medical providers, you may be experiencing health anxiety. You might notice that the fear and anxious feelings surrounding these symptoms never seem to go away. You may even notice them getting worse, and that you are not able to cope with these thoughts and feelings. For example, thinking that “something bad is going to happen if I ignore this stomachache”.
The fast-paced life in New York City can also elevate these experiences. As symptoms intensify, health anxiety may develop into hypochondria or clinically known as Illness Anxiety Disorder. This is when someone’s anxiety about their health increases to the point that they have severe worries or fears that they have, or will develop, a serious condition that they have not been officially diagnosed with yet. It’s crucial to receive professional help regarding these issues because it can help you to understand how your brain may be affecting your body more than you realize. It’s also important to get help with health anxiety because it could actually be a sign of some more persistent mental health conditions, like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depressive disorders (DSM-5-TR, 2022).
Health anxiety can overlap with panic disorder, especially when physical sensations trigger fear and urgent reassurance-seeking.
Common Signs of Health Anxiety
An important first step to consider is understanding if you are experiencing the key features of health anxiety. You may realize that you are hyperattentive or aware of every small sensation in your body. Feelings that tend to be harmless may raise alarms. Over time, if you constantly stay alert to these features, you may unintentionally strengthen these habits. Once this attentiveness becomes a habit, it can be difficult to change without some help.
Another key aspect of health anxiety is the cycle of seeking reassurance. Repeatedly searching symptoms online, self-diagnosing, and getting multiple different opinions from doctors are very common. While these behaviors may reduce your anxiety briefly, the relief rarely lasts. With all this in mind, it's vital to acknowledge the next steps. We can help address these concerns with CBT for anxiety, an evidence-based approach that targets worry cycles and unhelpful coping habits.
How CBT Helps with Health Anxiety
If you decide to move forward with CBT at East Side CBT, you can expect to receive easily digestible information about anxiety and worry. It is first essential to understand your anxiety before trying to tackle the problem. CBT helps identify common thought patterns and behaviors that unintentionally maintain health-related fears. Rather than offering repeated reassurance, CBT can help you to develop insight into why anxiety persists and how your reactions can turn into physical sensations that sometimes mirror the health concerns you are worried about in the first place.
CBT treatment for health anxiety will include a wide variety of practical skills. These skills are implemented to eventually lower catastrophic thinking, reduce reassurance-seeking behaviors, and gradually increase tolerance for uncertainty.
It is necessary to keep in mind that health anxiety treatment is highly personalized and paced at your comfort level. With time, you may feel more confident responding to anxiety rather than being controlled by it.
Gaining back control
Living in the world's busiest city, NYC, it’s very easy to recognize how time is one of the most precious commodities. Spending less time in doctors' offices and researching various diagnoses turns “what if something’s wrong?” into “what do I want to do today?”. To clarify, gaining back control does not mean eliminating every anxious thought. Gaining control means to learn how to appropriately respond to different circumstances.
Getting Support at East Side CBT
Through CBT, you may begin to recognize that anxiety is not dictating choices, routines, or a sense of safety. These feelings can help build more confidence and a more self-directed life. If you’re stuck in a loop of symptom-checking, reassurance-seeking, or constant “what if” thoughts, you don’t have to manage it alone. CBT can help you relate differently to uncertainty and feel calmer in your body again. Reach out to East Side CBT to schedule a consultation and learn what treatment could look like for you.