Health Anxiety

Understanding Health Anxiety

Health anxiety is an ongoing fear that something is seriously wrong with your health. Concern about a symptom is understandable. The difficulty is when worry keeps returning, even after appropriate assessment, and takes over time you would otherwise spend working, sleeping or being with people you care about.^[1]

You might repeatedly check your body, search symptoms online or ask someone whether you look ill. Or you might put off care because the possibility of a diagnosis feels unbearable. These behaviors can be attempts to cope with genuine fear.^[2]

Health anxiety is a broad description, rather than one diagnosis. It can occur alongside several conditions, including other anxiety problems.^[1]

Why Can Checking Make Health Anxiety Worse?

In his explanation for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, therapist Ken Goodman, LCSW, describes how close attention to the body can magnify the significance of ordinary sensations. A person notices something, interprets it as dangerous and looks more closely, finding more reasons to worry.^[5]

Psychologists Sally Winston, PsyD, and Martin Seif, PhD, explain another part of this pattern in their ADAA commentary. When repeated reassurance briefly eases anxiety, that relief can strengthen the urge to seek reassurance again. Another answer may settle today’s question while leaving the need for certainty untouched.^[6]

An example might be checking a symptom, feeling reassured by one webpage, then opening another because the first did not address every possibility. This is an illustration, not a diagnostic test. The useful question is whether searching helps you take an appropriate next step or keeps restarting the same worry.^[5]

Health Anxiety and Related Diagnoses

Illness anxiety disorder involves persistent fear of having or developing a serious illness when physical symptoms are absent or mild. Clinicians consider the person’s distress, checking or avoidance, and whether another condition better explains the concern. Diagnostic criteria include at least six months of illness preoccupation, although the feared illness can change.^[7]

Somatic symptom disorder involves distressing physical symptoms together with excessive health-related thoughts, feelings or behaviors. “Somatic” means related to the body. Symptoms may have a diagnosed medical cause. A negative test or an unexplained symptom alone does not establish this diagnosis, and the person is not faking symptoms.^[3]

Health fears can also overlap with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), including repeated checking or reassurance rituals. In panic disorder, fear often centers on the immediate sensations of a panic attack. An assessment looks at the whole pattern, rather than matching one behavior to a label.^[1]

Getting Medical Care Without Dismissing the Anxiety

Start by telling a healthcare professional both what you have noticed physically and how much the worry is affecting you. Assessment may include an examination, your medical history and a mental health evaluation. A clinician should consider physical conditions and other explanations before deciding on treatment.^[4]

Registered psychotherapist Natacha Duke, RP, explains in a Cleveland Clinic article that physical illness and excessive health worry can exist together. She describes care that addresses both physical symptoms and the associated distress. Accepting help with anxiety does not require abandoning medical care.^[8]

Ask your usual clinician to help create a follow-up plan: which changes need prompt attention, whom to contact and when to return. A consistent care relationship can support appropriate assessment while reducing repeated visits or tests that do not address the ongoing fear.^[7]

Do not assume an emergency is anxiety. For sudden crushing or squeezing chest pain, or chest pain with shortness of breath, sweating or pain spreading to your arm or jaw, call 911. A history of anxiety does not make these symptoms safe to assess through an article.^[9]

Treatment for Health Anxiety

What CBT Can Help You Practice

Cognitive behavioral therapy examines how thoughts and actions affect fear. For health anxiety, this can mean recognizing a frightening interpretation, considering alternatives and gradually changing repeated checking or avoidance. The aim is to function better and respond more flexibly when uncertainty appears.^[4]

Ask the therapist to explain what that would look like in your life. Possible goals to discuss include spending less of the evening searching symptoms or attending a needed appointment you have avoided. Goals should fit your medical care plan, not replace it.^[2]

Whether Medicine Has a Role

A prescriber may consider an antidepressant, including a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), for illness anxiety disorder. Discuss potential benefits, side effects and follow-up. The choice depends on your circumstances and other conditions, rather than the diagnosis automatically requiring a prescription.^[7]

Ask how you and the care team will judge progress. “I can finish dinner without another symptom search” may be a more useful personal goal than “I must never worry again.” Keep necessary medical follow-up part of that conversation.^[2]

Finding a Health Anxiety Therapist Near You or Online

A provider who treats anxiety generally may have different experience from one who regularly works with illness fears and repeated checking. ABCT advises checking a therapist’s credentials and state license.^[1]

When contacting a local office or online practice, use questions such as these to compare the actual service:

• Do you treat health anxiety or illness anxiety disorder, and what approach do you use?
• How would you coordinate with my medical clinician, with my permission?
• How do you help someone who repeatedly checks symptoms or avoids appointments?
• Can you see someone located in my state, in person or by video?
• What would I pay, do you accept my insurance, and when is the first appointment?

You can also explore treatment options. Confirm that a particular provider treats health anxiety before booking. A search result or a general anxiety listing does not answer that question for you.

Helping Someone With Health Anxiety

Winston and Seif distinguish useful support from repeated attempts to eliminate all uncertainty. If reassurance has become a recurring ritual, consider discussing that pattern together with the person’s therapist. A change in how you respond should still leave room for appropriate medical care.^[6]

For example, you might say: “I can see this is frightening. I can help you contact your clinician or follow the plan you agreed on. I can’t promise that nothing is wrong, but I can stay with you while you decide the next step.”

Avoid mocking the fear or declaring the person healthy yourself. Duke emphasizes that people experiencing health anxiety deserve to have their concerns taken seriously. Support can acknowledge distress without pretending to diagnose its cause.^[8]

Getting Help for Health Anxiety

If health worries are consuming your day, bring the two-part appointment note to a medical or mental health visit. Ask for a plan that addresses your physical concerns, the worry and what you should do when either changes. You do not have to solve the diagnosis before asking for help.

If you or someone you care about is in emotional crisis or thinking about suicide in the U.S., call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for support.^[10]