Danielle Jhiani explains how safety behaviors like excessive handwashing, symptom Googling, and repeated doctor visits actually worsen health anxiety and OCD. Breaking the cycle means tolerating the discomfort of exposure and stopping the behaviors that keep you stuck.
Do you regularly worry or hyper focus on your health? Worry that something might go wrong, that you're going to get cancer, that you're having a heart attack, or something bad is going to happen? Do you find yourself hyper focusing on aches and pains or bodily sensations, or just the general feeling of feeling unwell? Health anxiety and OCD is actually very common and people will live with it for a very long time. The problem is it's actually making your health worse. And here's why. What we hyper focus on grows and the mental affects the physical and vice versa. So let's look at somebody who struggles with a fear of getting sick, getting cancer, or something bad happening to them. Maybe they start to wash their hands a lot more. Maybe they start to not leave the house and not go into public places as much. Or you find yourself thinking about it, worrying about it, and avoiding certain things that may cause you to get sick. And sometimes, sure, we're going to avoid going out and being around someone who has the flu, or maybe we're going to wash our hands before we eat or after we use the restroom. But if you are overdoing these behaviors, there are several problems. By not exposing yourself to germs, you're actually negatively impacting your immune system. It's called hygiene hypothesis. When kids are exposed to germs and sicknesses and infections, it actually builds up their immune system. Their body is able to learn how to fight these things off. Kids who grow up in extremely clean environments, it's actually proven that they get more allergies, asthma and skin conditions than those who grow up. Worry and anxiety can also negatively impact your immune system. The constant worry and overthinking and rumination takes a toll on the body. It uses up the body's energy that would normally be taking care of itself and creating new cells and fighting other infections. Additionally, the more you cope with worry and avoidance, the more you're training your brain to be anxious either about this topic or other topics in your life. As you start to go out, less isolate yourself. You're negatively impacting your mental health, your happiness, which again is going to affect other areas of your life, including your physical health. So how do you stop this worry and rumination, or this compulsions and safety behaviors with ocd, like constantly going to the doctor, searching Google every time you have a symptom, hyper focusing on those symptoms, or overdoing the supplements? First, I want you to start practicing leaning in to the possibilities of life. The possibility that maybe you'll get sick, maybe you'll get cancer that something bad may happen. I know this is going to be scary and uncomfortable, but the more we accept and expose, the more comfortable your brain is going to get with it and the less anxiety that you're going to have. Also, when you lean into these possibilities and you don't do the safety response or the compulsion to prevent it from happening, you're going to see that you didn't have to do that thing and most of the time you didn't get sick and nothing bad happens. Now the next question is, what if that bad thing does happen? The reality is things happen, but fear is always going to give us worst case scenario. And if we're always listening to fear, the fear is going to grow. So we need to accept that maybe it will. But nine out of ten times that feared thing doesn't happen. And if it does, it usually doesn't happen. Like your brain is telling you. That story that your brain is telling you that it's going to be like is rarely the case. You will get through what is happening, but you're currently sabotaging your happiness today for a fear that something is going to happen in the future that hasn't even happened yet. Second, you need to expose yourself to your fears and stop the safety behaviors and the things you're doing to prevent that from happening. Don't call the doctor. Don't go to the doctor. Don't Google. When you find yourself worried about a feeling, sensation, ache or pain that you have, let it be there, let your body process through it. Most of the time these things fade on their own. If it's reoccurring, if you're not focusing on it but it continues to happen or gets worse, sure, then maybe it needs to be looked at. But not every ache or pain or symptom needs your attention. Choose to refocus your attention on anything else other than your health or this ache or pain or fear that you're having, and eventually your brain will disconnect from this and you'll be in the present moment enjoying your life, not worrying or thinking about this fear here. It's going to take time. It's going to take practice. But I promise you, I've dealt with this myself and I work with people every day who get better, who stop focusing on their health, who stop worrying about it, who can live a carefree life without the constant worry and anxiety that you're experiencing today. If you want help with this, check out the link in the description below. We can help you work through this, learn how to use these skills and others that is going to retrain your brain away from this worry and anxiety, this thing that is taking up so much time of your life, keeping you from being happy, enjoying these little moments and living a fear free life. We'll talk to you soon.
