A mindbody approach to health anxiety
If you identify with the term “chronic illness” or “chronic pain,” then you identify with experiencing traumatic medical/health events. There’s no real way around it, and everyone I have worked with professionally, or know personally who fall into these categories, has their own story … or many stories.
When we experience trauma of any kind, we now know it lives in the body (van Der Kolk, Mate) until it is tended to. Over time, we may not be aware of this stuck trauma until we experience what we call “health anxiety.” I’m not going to quote any psychological or medical source on what “health anxiety” is, because the definitions are usually demeaning, condescending, and absolutely not trauma-informed. Health anxiety is a completely natural response to having experienced trauma in your body that is related to your health or wellness. Your system begins to send off warning signals when it senses anything close to that traumatic experience, to alert you to act so that you can protect yourself.
What you need in these moments is NOT WebMD or online forums reading others’ experience. These types of things are extremely common in-the-moment coping mechanisms, but they do not work. They lead to more confusion and more panic.
What you need in these moments is to send your system safety signals. You need to feel safe. Your system is screaming - possibly through an elevated heart rate, shortened breath, racing thoughts - that you are unsafe, and your brain is in its fear center, the amygdala. This is NOT the brain state in which you are going to make logical decisions about what is really going on in the moment. In these moments, you need to send signals of safety to your system so that you can regulate all of your somatic signals of panic and also to shift your brain out of the amygdala and into your prefrontal cortex, which is where your higher order thinking lives. THEN, you can assess with a realistic lens if you are in true danger in that moment.
So, how do you shift states? How do you down regulate? A variety of tools work, and you need to find what works best for you. It’s whatever leaves you feeling safer and calmer.
Some people - who have cultivated a mindfulness meditation practice - like to work directly with the mind to stop themselves from following these thoughts when they arise. Other people do better with somatic/body-based regulation practices to get OUT of the thinking mind and into feeling a sense of safety through the body. These practices could be diaphragmatic breathing, paced breathing, tapping, facial massage, holding an ice cube for cold exposure which actually regulates the nervous system, taking a cold shower, connecting with a loved one, connecting with a pet, or something else.
Tool options:
Meditation
Diaphragmatic breathing
Paced breathing
Tapping
Facial massage
Hold an ice cube
Take a cold shower
Connect with a loved one or pet
And many more!
The next time you face health anxiety, remind yourself that this experience is completely normal given your history. Remind yourself as well that your thoughts are not facts, and your thoughts are not necessarily always true. The thoughts you have in a high health anxiety moment are coming from a place of fear that is rooted in past trauma. And, you can shift your state. From that state, then you can assess if you are in a true emergency situation and take appropriate action or non-action.
Here is my recipe for you to come back to in a moment of high health anxiety: 1) Send signals of safety to yourself through a practice that works for you; 2) Once you are regulated, then ask yourself if you are in true danger; 3) Take action or non-action accordingly; 4) Whatever practice worked for you in the moment, do for 5 minutes EVERY day to build neural pathways around this practice; 5) Engage in any medical research that you need ONLY when you are in a calm, regulated state.
You CAN feel safe in your body again. This is the first step.