Do you have a persistent, unreasonable fear of developing a severe illness so overwhelming that it takes over your life? Then you have hypochondria, also known as health anxiety.
When you have health anxiety, you constantly imagine physical illness symptoms or misinterpret normal body sensations as signs of severe health conditions.
While this condition can adversely impact your happiness levels and quality of life, you can overcome it with meditation for health anxiety.
Meditation can help you live a more relaxed, contented life by lowering stress and anxiety and boosting your mood. It can help you sleep better, lower your blood pressure, redirect your thoughts, etc.
If you’re up to it, you can watch this 10-minute guided meditation for health anxiety to help with your hypochondriac symptoms. It’s our little way of saying cheers to a happier, more peaceful, healthier, and long life!
Do you have a persistent, unreasonable fear of developing a severe illness so overwhelming that it takes over your life? Then you have hypochondria, also known as health anxiety.
When you have health anxiety, you constantly imagine physical illness symptoms or misinterpret normal body sensations as signs of severe health conditions.
While this condition can adversely impact your happiness levels and quality of life, you can overcome it with meditation for health anxiety.
Meditation can help you live a more relaxed, contented life by lowering stress and anxiety and boosting your mood. It can help you sleep better, lower your blood pressure, redirect your thoughts, etc.
If you’re up to it, you can watch this 10-minute guided meditation for health anxiety to help with your hypochondriac symptoms. It’s our little way of saying cheers to a happier, more peaceful, healthier, and long life!
How Guided Meditation Helps with Health Anxiety
There’s no better time to discuss anxiety than now, as the number of persons suffering from the condition has skyrocketed recently.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an enormous 25% increase in the global prevalence of anxiety and sadness was recorded in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The organization linked this problem to fear of infection, exhaustion, loneliness, pre-existing health conditions, grief, etc.
However, if you’re struggling with health anxiety, note that it is not the end of the world. With regular guided meditation sessions, you can kiss your anxiety goodbye in a short time.
Here’s how guided meditation for health anxiety helps you deal with your hypochondria and similar conditions:
Guided Meditation Enhances Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity to concentrate on oneself and determine whether or not one’s behaviours, ideas, or emotions are consistent with one’s internal standards.
If you have a high level of self-awareness, you can assess yourself objectively, control your emotions, match your actions with your ideals, and accurately gauge how others see you.
Self-awareness is effective in helping you deal with health anxiety, and guided meditation helps you to be self-aware.
As meditation increases your self-awareness, you’ll be able to identify and understand your anxiety. This puts you in a better position to deal with it better.
Guided Meditation Reduces Stress
Health anxiety disorder is a chronic condition whose severity might change. Plus, it could get worse when you’re under stress or as you become older.
As such, one of the best ways to deal with hypochondria is to tackle stress. Fortunately, meditation is one of the best ways to handle stress.
Cortisol levels rise in response to physical and mental stress. This negatively impacts the body, such as releasing cytokines, which can also trigger inflammation.
In addition to having a bad effect on sleep, these chemicals also raise the risk of anxiety and increase exhaustion. So, because meditation lowers stress, it also reduces anxiety.
Guided Meditation Improves Your Quality of Sleep
Studies have shown that sleep issues and anxiety usually happen together. Overwhelming fear and stress make it difficult to sleep and stay asleep all night.
This lack of sleep can worsen anxiety, creating a vicious cycle where you must deal with insomnia and anxiety problems together.
Again, this is one area where meditation comes to the rescue. You will get more restful sleep when you practice meditation.
It’ll help you relax and feel more peaceful by calming your body and mind. By fostering general serenity, meditation can help prevent insomnia and sleep problems when done before bed.
Guided Meditation Helps You Focus Your Attention
You can deal with your health anxiety by redirecting your thoughts from your health concerns. According to Harvard University researchers, our minds are preoccupied with thoughts 47% of the time.
These ideas frequently originate from one of two situations: either concentrating on the past or worrying about the future.
Both can result in tension and anxiety, with the latter causing melancholy and despair. Fortunately, shower meditation can help you focus on other things outside your health anxiety.
Guided Meditation Decreases Your Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is one of the physical symptoms of health anxiety. Fortunately, your physical health can benefit greatly from meditation as well.
Meditation helps your heart feel less stressed, lowering your blood pressure. Your blood pressure keeps dropping as you continue to meditate.
Final Thoughts
Since it’s normal for humans to look for danger, worrying about your health constantly is only natural. But you must be conscious and gentle to yourself when that vigilance turns into persistent fretting.
Although your health anxiety triggers may be due to past experiences/trauma, the little things you do daily can help to sow the seeds of worry and fuel your misery.
For example, constantly researching your symptoms can make them seem more severe than they truly are.
Fortunately, meditation for health anxiety is one of the best approaches to dealing with this condition.
From reducing your stress levels to helping you accept the natural changes your body experiences, health anxiety meditation will help you feel less worried over time.
So, what are you waiting for? Be sure to watch the 10-minute guided meditation for health anxiety video above to get started on your journey to a hypochondria-free life.
FAQs
Is meditation good for health anxiety?
Numerous studies have proven that meditation is one of the effective ways to reduce anxiety and depression.
Mindfulness meditation can also help you manage insomnia, stress, pain, and other symptoms associated with health anxiety.
How do I stop obsessing over my health?
Being in the present is one of the best ways to refocus your thoughts and prevent your mind from being preoccupied with thoughts about your body.
You can do this by practising deep breathing and mindfulness, using relaxation techniques, being in nature, or engaging in other calming activities.
What triggers my health anxiety?
Many factors may be responsible for your health anxiety. The most common ones include childhood trauma, extreme stress, other anxiety disorders, depression, physical abuse, etc.
Is health anxiety a mental illness?
Yes, health anxiety disorder is a chronic mental condition. It makes victims worry about life-threatening illnesses even after they’ve been certified okay by a qualified medical practitioner.
