Health anxiety & the people you love

Family and friends may join in the worrying, so everyone ends up more distressed.

Loved ones can feel helpless or frustrated when nothing they say seems to help, and the person can seem as if they aren’t listening.

People with health anxiety sometimes feel let down or even angry when family don’t understand, or don’t help in their search for answers.

Worry can bring a racing heart, chest tightness, dizziness and tingling, which can then be mistaken for signs of illness.

People with illness anxiety cannot control their fears, and they don’t create symptoms on purpose. Some even know their fears are out of proportion, and still can’t shake them.

Health anxiety can happen in healthy people, in people with unexplained symptoms, and in people with a diagnosed illness. It’s about how someone responds to symptoms, not whether symptoms exist.

No one can give a 100% guarantee about health, so reassurance can never fully settle the doubt. Each answer brings short relief, then the question returns.

When the cycle is broken, reassurance-seeking, worry and arguments tend to drop, while confidence, decision-making and the ability to cope with distress grow.

Your loved one may need help to plan and use their strategies, but let them take the lead. Be careful not to take responsibility for solving their worries.

People can cut back on reassurance-seeking gradually, for example by asking fewer people or asking fewer times a week, or by delaying a question for a few hours.

• Brushing it off: “Don’t worry. Stop thinking about it.”
• Judging: “Why do you keep asking? You’re doing this on purpose.”
• Reassuring again: “You’ll be fine.”

You may feel pressure to respond immediately. Try pausing and listening to the concern before you react.

Acknowledge how hard this is for them without answering the health question itself. For example: “I know this is very upsetting for you.”

If they’re learning strategies, kindly prompt them to use one, and remind them what has worked before.

Examples

• “Do you want to try waiting an hour and see how it feels?”
• “Shall we go for a walk together?”
• “Is this one for your worry time?”

Let them know you are there for them in many ways, but answering reassurance questions isn’t one of them. Staying consistent in message and tone helps most in the long run.

• Checking symptoms for them, or with them, on request
• Following household rules set by the anxiety
• Joining long online symptom searches
• Taking over tasks they avoid, like phoning for test results

• Encourage new steps, but don’t force them
• Learn about anxiety and CBT
• Offer to come along for a hard step, like a check-up
• Suggest a smaller step if one feels too scary

Suddenly confronting someone with what they fear can be overwhelming and erode trust. Gradual steps they agree to work best.

Worry about a loved one can lead to the same habits: checking them, asking how they feel again and again, or searching their symptoms. These bring short relief and keep the worry going.

If you have health worries about your child, or your child seems very worried about their own health, talk with your provider or theirs.

Shielding a child from every discomfort can teach them that anxiety is dangerous. Gentle, gradual encouragement helps them learn they can cope.

When someone you love has a real diagnosis, some worry is natural. Health anxiety is when the worry becomes excessive or out of proportion and takes over.

• “I can see how much this worry is taking out of you.”
• “I’d love you to have more support than I can give.”
• “Would you be open to talking to someone about the worry itself?”

Cleveland Clinic encourages people to be honest with their provider about how much health anxiety affects their life. Their provider can often work alongside a psychologist.

You might offer to help search for a therapist or come to a first appointment. Online CBT programmes have also helped people with severe health anxiety.