Health Anxiety isn’t Attention Seeking
Health anxiety can feel overwhelming. It often shows up as a constant fear that something is wrong with your body or that you might become seriously ill.
For many people, especially those with a history of trauma or emotional neglect, health anxiety is not simply about symptoms. It is about fear, uncertainty and the desperate need to feel safe. But it is a treatable condition, and with support, people can learn to calm the fear, understand triggers, and rebuild trust in their own judgement.
What is health anxiety?
Health anxiety involves a persistent worry about illness. The mind becomes preoccupied with monitoring the body, noticing sensations and worrying about what they could mean. It isn’t “attention seeking”. It’s usually rooted in fear, past trauma, or a lack of trust in the body.
Common experiences include:
- Scanning the body for sensations
- Frequently researching symptoms and diseases
- Seeking repeated reassurance from doctors or loved ones
- Avoiding certain activities in case they trigger symptoms
There is a momentary sense of relief after reassurance, but it fades quickly, sending them back into checking, worrying and searching for answers. Even when medical checks come back clear, the fear does not always ease for long.
The cycle of health anxiety can feel relentless and can be exhausting and isolating.
How health anxiety develops
Health anxiety rarely appears out of nowhere. It often has deeper emotional roots that deserve understanding and compassion.
Many people who struggle with it have lived through periods where life felt unpredictable, unsafe or overwhelming. If you grew up in a home where emotions were dismissed or where abuse, chaos or neglect were present, you may have learned to stay on high alert.
When the body has been through chronic stress, trauma or emotional turmoil, it can become difficult to trust physical sensations. A tight chest might feel life-threatening. A headache becomes a warning sign. A moment of dizziness triggers spirals of fear. The body starts to feel like an unreliable narrator.
The impact of health anxiety
Living with health anxiety can be exhausting. Leading to constant vigilance, difficulty relaxing or sleeping, and feeling misunderstood by loved ones.
The emotional impact can be significant. People feel ashamed or frustrated, thinking they are overreacting or wasting a doctor’s time. This shame only reinforces the anxiety and makes it harder to reach out for help.
Health anxiety can also affect relationships. Loved ones may offer reassurance again and again, only to feel drained when the fear returns. The person struggling may then withdraw, feeling like a burden. This isolation feeds into the anxiety and increases the distress being experienced.
The link to trauma
Health anxiety is closely connected to how the nervous system responds to stress and past experiences. When someone has lived through trauma, the body may stay in a state of readiness, always scanning for danger. This reaction is not a flaw or a weakness; it’s the body attempting to protect you, even if the threat is no longer present.
Emotional neglect or invalidation can also play a role. If your feelings were not taken seriously growing up, you may have learned to doubt your own emotions and experiences. Physical sensations, however, feel more concrete. So anxiety shifts to the body because that feels like the only place where your concerns might be validated.
This can be part of why health anxiety is common among people who have experienced childhood abuse, domestic abuse or long periods of stress. The fear is real, even if the medical cause is not.
Major life events
Sometimes health anxiety shows up during significant life shifts. Hormonal changes such as pregnancy or menopause, bereavement, burnout, parenting stress, empty nesting, divorce and relationship breakdowns can all trigger a heightened awareness of the body.
When life feels uncertain, the anxiety may latch onto physical symptoms because they seem tangible and easier to focus on than emotional overwhelm. Health anxiety can become a signal that something deeper needs attention, not just a fear of illness.
You are not alone
If health anxiety is something you are living with, please know that there is nothing wrong with you. Your fear has a history, and your body is doing its best to cope with old pain and current stress.
With the right support, you can break the cycle and feel more confident and settled in your own body.
Rebuilding trust in your body
A key part of healing health anxiety is learning to trust your body again. This can feel scary, especially if your body carries old memories of fear or harm. With gentle support, this is absolutely possible.
People often begin by learning the difference between fear-driven sensations and genuine medical symptoms.
Counselling provides a safe space to explore triggers, patterns and the emotional roots of the anxiety. Over time, you can build new ways of responding to worries, and the body becomes a place that feels less uncertain.
How counselling can help with health anxiety
Counselling offers a calm and supportive space to understand what lies behind the fear and to learn tools that genuinely help. You will not be dismissed or told your worries are silly. Instead, the focus is on compassion, safety and understanding your nervous system.
Counselling can help you:
- Identify what triggers the anxiety
- Interrupt the checking cycle
- Calm the body during moments of fear
- Process trauma that may be fuelling the anxiety
- Build trust in your internal signals
- Reduce the urge to seek reassurance
This process takes time, but many people find that once the deeper emotional wounds are acknowledged, the fear about illness naturally begins to fade.
If health anxiety is affecting your life and you would like support, you are welcome to book a counselling session. Together we can explore what is driving the fear and help you find calmer, steadier ways to move forward, freeing you from the grip of anxiety.