The Therapy Edit - On 5 tips for health anxiety

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

In this solo episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna offers listeners 5 tips for managing Health Anxiety.Anna has direct experience of suffering with this crippling condition and knows first hand about the impact that it can have on your life. Follow these 5 therapeutic suggestions and enjoy living your life more fully.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi there, welcome to today's solo episode. We are chatting health anxiety. So yeah, this one came in as a question when I did a shout-out on Instagram and someone said, please give us tips for health anxiety and triggering news stories about mums getting sick and dying. Or when you hear those stories, they just get, oh, they're just, you have a visceral response, don't you really? Right to the core of you.

And then you can find that your thoughts start whipping up and running off 100 miles an hour into a future that has not and may never happen. My daughter is getting a lot of anxiety at the moment about bad things happening. So, yeah, this is a topic of conversation in our household is dealing with anxiety, health anxiety. So I thought it would be good to chat about this. I will also say that I have done lots of podcasts on health anxiety before. So if you want to listen to more, have a scroll down the podcast feed, and you will find lots more on anxiety and health anxiety.

But here are five tips that I have for you today. Number one, be kind to yourself. When you are feeling anxious, when your mind is jumping to that worst case scenario, whether you've been triggered by a news story, something on a social media feed or hearsay. When you hear that something happened to someone, maybe in your local community

or you watch something on TV and it just sets you on this spiral of fear and anxiety, doesn't it? When you feel anxious in this way, I want you to think of your inner child. Little you, inside, you know, the part of you that says, how am I even an adult?

How am I even allowed to do such grown-up things? How can I make it through this day? How is it possible that I have children and how is it possible that I have a home that I'm responsible for, that little part in us that always feels young and vulnerable. And when you're feeling anxious, your inner child is scared. Your inner child is saying, but everything's going to fall apart, everything, nothing is stable, nothing is safe, everything is scary.

Reassure me, reassure me, I'm not okay, I'm worried, I'm scared. In those moments, I want you to think about how can you, mother, yourself. How can you harness that adult part of you? That parenting, nurturing voice. Nurturing. Okay, because this is often where we go. A bit wrong with this is that parent voice cracks down. I go, for goodness sake, why are you worried about this again? It's not even happening to you. What's wrong with you? What's, oh, you know, and it's that frustration. And then what happens to that little inner child in us? Doesn't help, does it? We know when we shout to our kids when they're having a tough time.

It doesn't help. They just feel more alone. They feel more unheard. So let's try a different tact. Nurture. Nurture yourself in this moment. I might say to myself, okay, right, we're going to make a plan.

Yeah. Getting a bit anxious. We kind of, yeah, we're spiraling a little bit. Let's make a plan. Let's take a deep breath. Let's find something to ground you. Let's find a way. to make it feel a little bit safer in this moment.

So try and conjure up that nurturing parenting voice. Have some compassion for yourself. You're feeling scared. When you feel anxious, you feel scared. And we know that when our children feel scared, we want to comfort them, not shout at them and criticize them. Because that is what helps, isn't it?

So, yeah, nurture yourself. Talk kindly. And then you can move through these steps. Number two, try not to write yourself in someone else's story. This is so often what we do, isn't it? We hear something, we see something and suddenly it's happening to us. And we are imagining what that person is feeling, what their family feeling, that torment, that pain, that grief, that anguish. And as we think this, we feel it. And our body is, our body doesn't know whether it's truly happening or not. This is a power. of the thoughts. Our body, you know, we can feel that adrenaline starting to pick up because

what we're doing is this story going on in our mind. Our body is just assuming it's actually happening. It can't take the risk to assume that it isn't, okay, because what is happening then so often is that survival anxiety response that is there to keep us safe and save our lives. But when these thoughts are what is triggering it, we don't actually need that ton of adrenaline. It just kind of makes it worse. So think about a little mantra. It might be that you say, I'm safe. We are well. I am safe. We are well. Someone else's story does not dictate mine. I cannot catch sad news. And I think this is it. Sometimes it feels like perhaps you've seen something that is just statistically really rare. Maybe you've read about an illness that you'd never even

heard of before and suddenly it feels really statistically certain that it's going to happen to you. So what can you say to yourself that might ground you? I am safe, I am well. Right now, I am safe, I'm well. Number three, make a plan and put it in your back pocket. Metaphorically, I mean, who does that these days, write notes and put it in their back pocket? We do it on our phone, don't we? But if you're worried about something, perhaps one of your kids has got a symptom, little bit of a rash and you're suddenly finding yourself spiraling of what it could be. Worst case scenarios, horrible, scary, sad, fearful and your anxiety is picking up and your adrenaline is firing.

Use that nurturing voice. Say right, okay, let's make a plan. Let's make a plan of action. It might be that you adopt a watch and wait rule. Maybe you set a timer and say, okay, I'm going to check on that in an hour. I'm going to set time on my phone. when you set a timer the timer is doing the holding for you the timer is going to do that reminding you know that that is ticking away there to remind you it might be there you limit the time the number of times that you check a temperature and you choose right i'm going to plan that i am going to check the temperature once every such and such minutes hour you know that this is kind of the sensible driven rule rather than the anxiety driven rule where you might just want to compulsively do the same thing over and over again to consistent reassure yourself. Part of your plan might be to speak to a trusted medical source. I'm going to

until tomorrow. And if I'm still so equally concerned, I'm going to speak to a trusted medical source rather than Dr. Google, because Dr. Google is not your friend. Okay. Yeah. It's just a mind field, isn't it? We know this, but yet we find ourselves going there. So perhaps you want to use that nurturing, parenting voice to say, okay, we know that actually, the doctor or the health visitor, whoever it might be, is a good go-to. So we'll see if tomorrow we're still worried, that's what we'll go. So make the plan, put it in your back pocket, have a little plan of action, then you know that that plan is there.

Number four, find ways to cope with life's uncertainty. So hard, isn't it? The uncertainties of life of which there are so many. And I think that's what often happens in these moments is that health and anxiety just taps into that feeling of potential impossibility and uncertainty. So how can you ground yourself into the now? Maybe using that mantra, one that I love is I will cross that bridge if I get to it. So a reminder that you have crossed so many bridges in your life that you may sometimes have thought, I could never go through that, I could never face that, I could

never journey through that, process that, but you have and you did. Number five, and this is really important. If you have been through any trauma that might be fueling the anxiety, if you are finding that your anxiety is really focused in one specific area and it's very reminiscent of something that you've been, that you've been through, or you've been through something that is that worst case scenario. So therefore, in that moment, it's really hard to reassure yourself that the worst probably won't happen because in a way in another in another context it already has and then in this case it's really good to get some support some trauma on my website i've got a helpful contact section where there are lots of different contacts there but the amazing thing

about trauma therapy is that we can find ways not to live in so much fear as if that thing has just happened or something else it is about to happen. We live in that kind of fight or flight, survival braced position mode, which is really hard, really, really exhausting and can fuel anxiety. So if you, if you recognize yourself in that, then, then I really encourage you to seek some support. So there we go. Some helpful tips for next time you find your, your thoughts spiraling. Be kind to yourself. Harness that, that nurturing voice. Try not to write. yourself in someone else's story. Number three, make a plan and put it in your back pocket.

Number four, find new ways to cope with life's uncertainties. And number five, address any trauma that might be fueling it. I've got loads of resources on health anxiety, by the way. I've got a whole workshop. It's just an hour. But I think that's like the most watched one that I've done on my website, anamatha.com. I've got my book, my Dave and Mother, which is all about worrying anxiety.

in the first years of parenting, but to be honest, it's relevant for all years of parenting. So that might be one that you want to have a look at if you want to delve a little bit more into this topic. But yeah, I'm glad you're here. If you have health anxiety, I promise you, there are so many ways to get a bit more headspace back, a lot more headspace back, and that feeling of safety. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Therapy. If you have enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe and review for me. Also, if you need any resources at all, I have lots of videos and courses on everything from health anxiety to driving anxiety and people

pleasing nail all on my website, anamatha.com. And also, don't forget my brand new book Raising a Happier Mother is out now for you to enjoy and benefit from. It's all about how to find balance, feel good and see your children flourish as a result. Speak to you soon. Thank you.