Your health anxiety coping plan

• Check less and seek less reassurance
• Face things you’ve been avoiding, step by step
• Loosen your focus on symptoms and worries
• Rethink worried thoughts
• Soften old “health rules” you live by

Using these skills often brings more anxiety, discomfort and uncertainty at first. In the long term, people tend to worry less, have fewer anxiety symptoms and get more time back for life.

The NHS suggests noting how often you check your body, ask people for reassurance or look up health information, then aiming to cut back gradually over a week.

Noting when and where you search or check helps you see high-risk times, so you can plan something else for them.

Triggers often activate long-held rules or assumptions about health. Asking where a rule came from, how it affects you and what a more helpful rule might be can weaken it over time.

Questions to ask about a rule

• How is it unrealistic or unhelpful?
• What impact does it have on my life?
• What would be a kinder, more balanced rule?
• Where did it come from, and why is it still here?

Practise putting your whole attention on a simple task, like washing dishes or folding laundry: the sounds, textures and movements. When your mind drifts to your body, gently bring it back.

Meditation is another way to train attention, by noticing thoughts and sensations without following them.

1. Choose a set time and place each day, for example 15 minutes in the early evening
2. When a health worry pops up, note it down and save it for then
3. At worry time, look at what’s still bothering you
4. Use a thought record for any worry that remains
5. When the time is up, move on to something else

Trying hard not to think about illness or death tends to have the opposite effect. Try not to picture a pink elephant for a minute, and notice what happens.

Letting thoughts come and go, without fighting or following them, usually works better.

The NHS suggests writing each health worry in one column and a more balanced thought in the other. For a headache, a balanced thought could be: “Headaches can often be a sign of stress.”

List more common explanations for a sensation, like stress, poor sleep, a strained muscle or anxiety itself. Anxiety can cause headaches and a racing heart.

• “My body is like an old car. Not every creak needs an engine overhaul.”
• “Checking calms me now but keeps the worry going.”
• “No one gets a 100% health guarantee, and I can live with that.”
• “This anxiety will pass. It can’t go on forever.”

Facing fears step by step helps people develop a more realistic view of both the actual chance of illness and their own ability to cope.

The NHS suggests distracting yourself when you feel the urge to check, such as going for a walk or calling a friend.

If you struggle with checking or searching, use a stepladder: break your goal into smaller steps and work up from the easiest.

Start with one or two goals that are important to you, so you’re more willing to put up with discomfort. Make them specific, like “exercise until I can feel my heart beating and I’m out of breath”.

Break the goal into small steps and rate each from 0 to 100 for distress. You can make steps easier or harder by changing who is with you, what you do, when and where you do it, and for how long.

Example: getting back to exercise

• A slow 10-minute walk
• A brisk 10-minute walk
• Walking up a few flights of stairs
• A short jog with a friend
• A full workout that gets your heart pounding

Safety behaviours are precautions you only feel okay with, like always carrying your phone “just in case” or not touching anything in a waiting room. Gradually letting them go lets you fully test your fears.

Stay in each step long enough for anxiety to ease, and repeat it until it feels easier before moving up. Each step you complete builds confidence for the next.

The NHS also recommends gradually returning to activities you’ve been avoiding, such as sport or socialising.

Too much checking and reassurance-seeking stops us building tolerance for uncertainty. Each time you sit with not knowing, you practise a skill that grows with use.

When the urge for certainty shows up, notice it, practise letting it go, and bring your attention back to the present. If it comes back, that’s normal; repeat.

Make specific plans, like “I will call Jane this week to catch up for coffee”, rather than vague goals.

The NHS suggests relaxation and breathing exercises for stress. Releasing muscle tension and practising mindfulness can help too.

Balanced routines, like regular sleep and meals, and moving each day in a way that suits you, support both body and mind.

Planning enjoyable things into your week gives your mind something better to do than scan for symptoms.

• Checking or searching creeping back
• Comments from others that you seem worried
• More anxiety symptoms than usual
• Starting to avoid things again
• Worried health thoughts returning more often

Times of extra stress, medical check-ups or receiving a diagnosis can all trigger health anxiety again. Knowing this lets you prepare.

Use a setback to learn something about yourself that can help avoid similar problems later. A written plan stops small setbacks turning into big ones.