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Do you experience anxiety or worry about potentially having or developing a serious illness (e.g., cancer)? Approximately 5.7% of Australians experience health anxiety during their lifetime.*

Checklist for Signs of Health Anxiety

Select signs below that affect you

A preoccupation with having or developing a serious illness or disease.

Significant anxiety and worrying about your health.

A tendency to scan your body and fixate on bodily symptoms.

Excessive checking of your body for signs and symptoms of illness. E.g., checking changes in rashes or the size and colour of moles, feeling for lumps and monitoring your heart rate or chest pain.

Excessive reassurance-seeking from friends, family and medical practitioners regarding health concerns. You may not respond to their assurance that you do not have a serious illness or negative test results, believing that something has been missed.

Excessive research on symptoms and potential illnesses on the internet.

Avoiding medical consultations or tests, visiting friends or family with a non-contagious disease or health-related information in the media, due to your anxiety associated with confronting reminders of health-related concerns or fears about being diagnosed with a serious illness.

What should I do?

Increase your awareness of your body checking and reassurance-seeking behaviour through logging when you engage in this behaviour, including the situation and thoughts that lead to the checking and reassurance-seeking, how anxious you were prior to and following engaging in checking and reassurance-seeking and details of how you checked your body or sought reassurance. See if your anxiety increases or decreases following engaging in these behaviours and how intrusive they have become in your life.
Consider the fact that the symptoms that you are experiencing may be normal bodily sensations that have come into your awareness through paying attention to a certain part of your body. Try focusing on your foot for one minute. What sensations do you notice? Were you aware of them prior to focusing on your foot? Did the sensations become more noticeable and intense over time? Did this increase your concern for these sensations?
Appreciate your positive qualities, and accept compliments
Approach someone for support. E.g., a family member, friend or GP.

Reach Out to a Therapist

Once you have tried these tips, engaging with a Psychologist allows you to develop a complete understanding of what’s happening and create a strategy to better manage your health anxiety. With the right support, we can help you effectively gain control over your health anxiety, such that you are less attentive to distressing bodily sensations or fearful of what they mean for your health. We will also help you regain lost time spent Googling symptoms and diseases and checking your body for signs and symptoms of illness, such that you can refocus on what is most important to you.

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If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, contact crisis support services such as Lifeline (13 11 14), the Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) or the NSW Mental Health Line (1800 011 511).

*Sunderland, Newby, & Andrews

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