Hypnotherapy for Health Anxiety
What is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety is when you focus so much on worrying whether you have an illness or about contracting an disease that it begins to take over your life.
Health Anxiety Appears to be Increasing
At the moment I’m seeing an increasing number of clients coming to me for hypnotherapy to help with health anxiety.
This is perhaps unsurprising with the COVID-19 pandemic placing health issues firmly front and centre in the media and in the conversations we're all having with our friends and families. Many of us have changed from signing off our emails with 'Best wishes' or 'Best Regards' with 'Stay safe', something which may have looked out of place before.
Even before COVID19 came along, health anxieties has always been one of the most common types of anxiety I have been asked to help with.
Healthy Anxiety is Real and Very Common
If you suffer with health anxiety you may already be aware it can be simply exhausting, crippling. Hyper-viligence may cause you to notice any small change in how you feel physically and before you know it your mind has already concluded there’s something seriously wrong.
Some people call Health anxiety hypochondria and you may even see yourself as a hypochondriac. I'm not personally a fan of the word hypochondriac, perhaps because some people see hypochondriacs as "making their illnesses up". And this doesn’t acknowledge that any physical feelings that accompany your health anxiety are real. Just because they’re generated by your anxiety doesn’t make them "made up", they are just as real.
I want to reassure you health anxiety is really common, in fact it’s one of the more common reasons people come to see me for hypnotherapy for anxiety in Reading. And I also want to reassure you that there’s lots we can do about it.
What does your health anxiety make you do?
Health anxiety oftens forces us to be forever online googling symptoms we're experiencing or reading about diseases to see if we have any of the symptoms yet.
Some people find themselves pressing their GP to refer them for test after test. Those referrals may give temporary relief, but when the tests give the all clear their search for a different possible
disease begins anew. No amount of tests is ever going to put their mind at rest. They're forced to check and re-check just to make sure they haven’t missed anything.
If you have health anxiety you may find youranxiety prevents you doing more and more things you'd like to, for fear you'll catch something or become ill.
Please do get in touch if I can help you or someone you know with health anxiety.
My Current Fees - I offer face-to-face and online appointments
Initial 30 minute phone or in person consultation | Free | |
Hypnotherapy sessions | £90 |