"I am afraid of getting seriously ill"

Sometimes people suffer from hypochondria. Especially in covid times, when you have to listen more closely to your body's signals in order not to miss a dangerous symptom. When the whole world is on alert, and there is no "paradise" left on the planet to escape to, it's hard not to panic. This background is a great opportunity for the fatal fear of getting sick.

What is hypochondria and is it possible to predict its development? How to get rid of it? How do I know if I am a hypochondriac?

Psychological causes of hypochondria

Hypochondria is not a disease. It is an anxiety condition during which a person is extremely concerned about having a disease. In addition to the psychological component, fear has a biological component. When we are afraid of something, fear hormones are produced. And if you are afraid all the time, there are so many of these hormones that they eventually become toxic to the body.

Stress hormones are adrenaline. In small doses, it is useful - adrenaline releases increase your senses to quickly orient yourself and save yourself. But when adrenaline goes off scale, it becomes dangerous. In the end, a person feels bad, which proves once again that he or she is really sick with something serious.

And then there's more. To protect themselves, people limit physical activity, and as a result, they begin to feel a lack of oxygen and weakness, which also confirms their theory of a fake illness. The immune system also suffers - it is destroyed by an army of hormones. A person becomes more vulnerable, catching viruses more easily, and getting sick for longer and more severely.

Carcinophobia (the fear of getting cancer) is one of the most common types of hypochondria. It manifests itself in two extremes: some people bother doctors on a daily basis, take necessary and unnecessary tests, diagnose themselves, and, without finding confirmation, go to the next specialist. Others, on the contrary, avoid visits to doctors in every possible way, because they are afraid that they will find something.

The psychological causes of carcinophobia include a lack of knowledge of the nature of cancer; a family history of bad experiences; fear of heredity; an excessive amount of tragic information about cancer; lack of positive examples proving the success of cancer treatment, etc.

How to get rid of hypochondria

In order not to worry too much about your health, you should develop new habits that will help you feel more confident.

Physical activity

Any physical activity switches the brain. For example, working in a flower garden immediately activates it. Thus, the part responsible for worry and anxiety is turned off for a while.

Meditation and mindfulness

Meditation practices and mindfulness are good for clearing the mind. Both techniques switch attention from the outside world to the inside. This helps to calm down and recover.

Self-observation diary

Keeping a diary helps to get rid of hypochondria. To do this, a sheet of paper is divided into 4 columns: 1. day; 2. reaction; 3. reason for the reaction; 4. rational explanation. For example, a reaction: "I felt scared". Reason: "I heard the news on TV". Rational explanation: "this news does not concern me".

Over time, such states will come less often because you will get used to rationalizing them. Your behavior can and should be trained, because if you want to get something you don't have, you need to do something you've never done before.

Switch to another wave

When a person is anxious, they hear someone's voice in their head. Imagine you are listening to the radio on a certain wave. If you don't like what's being broadcast, just switch to another one with the sound of the sea or birds singing. It's good to visualize everything in detail: how you pick up and press the button...

If hypochondria has not become chronic, a person is able to cope with it. But it will be faster and more reliable with a specialist. This is especially necessary when there are fears that things are much more serious. Hypochondria can be one of the symptoms of a serious illness, obsessive-compulsive disorder, when a person focuses on something too much.

Hypochondria in children

Hypochondria is the fear not of getting sick, but of dying from an illness. But for children under 6, death is when someone disappears or, like in a fairy tale, falls asleep forever. They are not so afraid.

death, like their parents, but it is the latter who tell them that it is fatal. My mother looks fearfully at the doctor in the white coat, which means that she should be afraid of them. Grandma cries all the time when talking about her illness, which means that being sick is always miserable. If, on the contrary, parents remain calm and optimistic in difficult situations, then children will more often feel and behave the same way.

Anxiety in an older child often manifests itself when some unpleasant information is hidden from him or her. For example, when parents avoid talking about death "in order not to scare". But this is what causes a child more anxiety than the subject of the conversation itself: "If my parents are so scared, it means that this is really something so terrible that I should be afraid of."

If mom and dad try to explain everything, the child will take what they hear in stride. After all, all his questions about "forbidden" topics, including death, are normal curiosity of a person who is exploring the world. How we answer them will determine how this person grows up.

Psychological support hotline fromPledges» the number 0 800 4000 23 is available:

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• for calls from abroad +38 050 493 03 07
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