Healthy Anxiety
One of the keywords for living a happy and peaceful life is health. Health, which is very much intertwined with sustaining our lives, is very valuable for us humans. This is why we may focus and worry about health-oriented thoughts. While health-oriented thinking is useful for some people and/or situations, it is a very useless and dysfunctional way of thinking for some people and/or situations.
Health anxiety is 'the belief that one has or will have a serious illness due to misinterpretation of somatic symptoms and excessive anxiety about one's health'. The psychiatric disorder in which health anxiety is seen is called 'Hypochondriasis'. Although there is no problem in the person's body, it is a form of discomfort that goes along with constant anxiety about illness and various physical complaints.
Anxiety is an emotion that helps us to survive. Therefore, having mild health anxiety supports the behaviors necessary for a healthy life. Because; mild anxiety is a source of motivating power for the person in the implementation of health-protective behaviors (balanced diet, exercise, etc.).
Health behaviors are all kinds of beliefs, attitudes, and actions that a person has to be healthy. It is possible to see the negative reflections of health anxiety on health behaviors. As the level of anxiety increases, health behaviors may show a tendency towards unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. A person with severe health anxiety has increased sensitivity to bodily sensations and misinterprets these sensations. The person constantly believes that they have a serious illness or that this serious illness will lead to very negative consequences such as death.
One of the most important consequences of health anxiety is that the person's life functionality is significantly negatively affected due to the increase in 'avoidance and security' behaviors. This is because people with intense health anxiety have the desire to be constantly alert to their bodily sensations and to struggle excessively with illness and death. To avoid and get rid of excessive anxiety, these people are constantly engaged in safety-providing behaviors (such as having health checks, and unnecessary use of health services).
A healthy life is one in which a person lives in good physical and mental health, enjoying life for many years without serious illness. Positive health behaviors such as physical activity, health responsibility, nutrition, self-development, interpersonal relationships, and stress management support healthy living and improve quality of life.