Tips for Taming Health Anxiety in College
According to a recent study published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, health anxiety among college students has increased over the past decades (Kosic, Lindholm, Järvholm, Hedman-Lagerlöf, & Axelsson, 2020). The authors of the journal article reviewed 68 studies including 22,413 Western university student participants from 1985-2017. They found there was a clinically significant increase in the mean score on a self-report measure of anxiety (the Illness Attitudes Scales).
This study has implications for health anxiety screening and treatment among college students, particularly given recent events. Since the emergence of our global pandemic, we might conclude that student health anxiety is even higher now. As high levels of health anxiety are increasingly common among college students, it is important for us to be aware of the signs and symptoms as well as available help for students who are experiencing it.
What is health anxiety?
Health anxiety, often called illness anxiety or hypochondria, is persistent, excessive worry about getting sick or being sick, even with minor physical symptoms or no physical symptoms. Students with health anxiety often misinterpret bodily sensations or physical symptoms (even symptoms of anxiety, such as increased heart rate, chest pain, or headaches) as being something serious. They may fear they have a serious illness, such as cancer, despite medical examination indicating the lack of a medical condition. This anxiety results in distress that disrupts daily life.
What are signs and symptoms of health anxiety?
Fear of getting sick or being sick without physical symptoms
Worrying that minor symptoms mean a serious medical illness
Constantly seeking health information from others (such as frequent doctor appointments) or online (such as checking symptoms on WebMD)
Repeatedly checking for signs and symptoms of a medical problem
Frequently talking about symptoms and possible illnesses
Avoiding medical care out of fear of being diagnosed with a serious illness
Persistent worry about health despite negative test results or a doctor’s reassurance of no illness
Anxiety about health that interferes with school life, personal life, social life, and/or work life
Tips for Taming Health Anxiety
Practice refocusing attention through meditation exercises (i.e., focusing on the here and now, including present sights, smells, sounds, touch, and taste) when engaging in everyday routine tasks (e.g., doing the laundry, eating a meal, exercising) to decrease the amount of time spent worrying about health.
Postpone worrying about health to a set daily “worry time” including a consistent time, place, and length of time (no more than 30 minutes a day) to prevent frequent rumination throughout the day.
Keep track of health anxiety using a daily thoughts journal to help identify common anxious thoughts. Practice reviewing these thoughts and asking the following questions to challenge the reality of them:
What factual evidence do I have to support this thought is true or false?
What is the likelihood this thought is true?
If this thought is true, how bad could it really be?
What could I do to cope if “the worst” happened?
Seek support from a psychologist who can provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to assist in facing health-related fears. Student Success Psychological Services offers online counseling that can help. Click here to learn more.
Find additional self-help resources for health anxiety from the Centre for Clinical Interventions: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Health-Anxiety
Find the link to the full research article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102208
Kosic, A., Lindholm, P., Järvholm, K., Hedman-Lagerlöf, E., & Axelsson, E. (2020). Three decades of increase in health anxiety: Systematic review and meta-analysis of birth cohort changes in university student samples from 1985 to 2017. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 102208.