Health Anxiety
Health anxiety can cause constant worry about symptoms or illness. Therapy helps you understand these fears, reduce reassurance-seeking, and regain a sense of trust in your body.
Understanding Health Anxiety
Health anxiety involves ongoing worry about having or developing a serious medical condition. You might frequently check your body for symptoms, seek reassurance, or spend time researching illnesses online — yet the relief never lasts for long.
Even when medical tests come back normal, doubts and “what ifs” can quickly return, creating a constant cycle of fear and checking.
Therapy can help you understand what keeps this cycle going and find ways to regain calm, confidence, and trust in your body.
Main Symptoms
Health anxiety can appear in different ways, but common signs include:
Persistent fear of illness despite medical reassurance
Frequent checking of body sensations or symptoms
Seeking reassurance from doctors, loved ones, or online sources
Difficulty focusing on daily life due to worry about health
Physical sensations of anxiety (e.g., racing heart, nausea) that are mistaken for signs of illness
Avoidance of health information or appointments through fear of bad news
Impact Health Anxiety Can Have
Health anxiety can be exhausting and distressing, often leading to a cycle of worry, checking, and temporary reassurance.
It can strain relationships, increase medical appointments, and make it hard to trust your own judgment about your health. Many people describe feeling trapped between fear and frustration, even when they know their anxiety is the driving force.
Therapy provides a safe space to understand this process and begin breaking the cycle.
How Therapy Helps
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the recommended treatment for health anxiety.
It helps you:
Understand the thoughts and behaviours that maintain health fears
Learn to tolerate uncertainty and reduce checking or reassurance-seeking
Rebuild confidence in interpreting normal body sensations
Focus more fully on valued activities and wellbeing
At Shire Therapies, our accredited therapists use evidence-based approaches with warmth and understanding. Therapy is collaborative and paced around your comfort, helping you develop trust in yourself and your health again.
Take The Next Steps
You don’t have to face this alone.
Book a session or Contact us to find out how therapy can help you move forward with confidence.