Health Anxiety: When Googling Symptoms Backfires

08:39

Health Anxiety: When Googling Symptoms Backfires

by Scarlett Grace

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

19

In this session, we'll be exploring health anxiety through the lens of cyberchondria. It's really common to get stuck in a loop of reassurance-seeking, using technology to attempt to ease health concerns. However, we'll explore why this doesn't work and how to best support yourself here.

Somatic Inquiry Health Anxiety Uncertainty Non Reactivity

Meet your Teacher

London, UK

Meet your Teacher

London, UK

Transcript

Hello, I'm Scarlet, Therapist and meditation teacher and today is the one video in a series on health anxiety. So we're going to be talking specifically today about when health anxiety basically shows up in the form of Googling symptoms to the point where we can really go down a rabbit hole, You know, Online, And we can really get caught in a cycle there. So it actually does have a specific name, And that can just be helpful to know there's actually a term, Which is cyberchondria. So that kind of cyber use, Let's say, Using technology. And I think firstly I just want to help you to really normalise this and normalise why we actually do this. You know, Health anxiety, As you know if you're watching this video, Brings up a lot of fear and doubt in our minds. It brings up a lot of fear around the unknown, What our body may or may not be doing. And so understandably, Our mind wants certainty. It wants to know. For sure, In a certain way, What may or may not be going on. So we seek that by going to places that feel quite, I suppose, Quite black and white, You know, Like a computer screen, Article, AI maybe. That feels as though it's going to contain us and it's going to help to give us an answer but what you've probably already noticed what usually happens is that As I say, We can get into this kind of rabbit hole where it doesn't matter how much we look, It's never quite satisfying that feeling because ultimately, No matter what, We're left with uncertainty and learning how to manage and deal with uncertainty is a big part of the healing with this. So with a lot of things that I teach my clients, There is not a lot really that lies in the fairly kind of yes or no category. You know, A lot of things are nuanced, A lot of things are, You know, Maybe this works for you, Maybe this doesn't work for you, We all need different sort of tools and techniques and stuff that's going to help us. But One thing I would actually say in my experience working with anxiety and working with health anxiety is that really really this probably for me does sit in the absolute no realm and what I mean by that is that Yes, If you've experienced googling symptoms and you feel that you can do that for 5-10 minutes and then you can step away, Okay, No problem. But usually there will be a lack of feeling as though we know when that's going to end and we keep going back. That can be for That can be for hours or that can be more of a continuous going back, Going back, Going back, Never feeling satisfied. So that's why I would say this fits much more into the absolute no-go. Although, And we'll talk about this in a moment, Although obviously how to actually ride out that urge is a whole other thing. You may, Up until now, Not have realised how much, If you struggle with anxiety or health anxiety specifically, That this, To Google, Is basically just a no. We just do not want to Google our symptoms. It's such a clear no. So although, Yes, There's a lot of questions for you maybe around, But how do I steer away from doing that? You may have never actually set the intention of, Oh, I didn't realise that for me personally, That's not really something I can afford to worry about. Really go near. And so now I'm intending that this is actually, This kind of behaviour is actually going to be a no for me. It's a little bit similar, Obviously different, But it's a little bit similar to many people who have recovered from or in recovery from eating disorders. The weighing themselves on the scale will be just an absolute no. It's not like maybe I could do it today. Maybe it's just that I can't do that with my recovery. That's just not something I can do. So with that, What we then want to start to think about is, Because this urge to search is probably still going to come up. We want to think about, There's many ways to do this, But I'm just going to give you a few. We can start to think about urge surfing. And if you don't know what urge surfing is, I'd recommend take a look in this space. There's lots of things on urge surfing. Something we actually use usually in addiction. So it's that feeling of the urge, Let's say to Google my symptoms is coming up, Up, Up, Up, Up. And usually at that point, When the urge gets really strong to do that, We will, Of course, Go and Google the symptoms. But with urge surfing, What we may not realise is that actually the urge gets to a peak and we may have never got past that peak. So once that peak happens, It will also actually drop back off again. So experiencing that in the body of what that feels like to have an urge coming so strong, But the peak actually happens and then it falls away is huge. The other thing I would say is that on the whole, If you've done any of my work on health anxiety in this space, Courses, Meditations, Health anxiety is all about learning how to respond to our body and to not react. So a big part of this is, How can I slowly, Gently say to my body, OK, If there's a problem, We're listening. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to listen, And I will take appropriate action. But the action that I take just never falls in this range of Googling. And we might want to create basically a plan of all the other things we do instead of Googling. So if I have concerns for my body, And as I'm responding to my body, Body and not reacting, If that was to increase, What is my plan that sits outside of searching online? One of those things can actually be to have a friend, Loved one, Relative, Someone that you trust to do that on your behalf, Although I would say that can be a little tricky, So maybe watch that. With that, What can happen is there can be downsides to that, But there at least is a buffer between you and the article, Whatever you're looking at, So that you've got a trusted loved one saying, Okay, I've taken a look, That intense feeling of anxiety, You know, I've looked and then these are the next steps. However, I would say better than that really is just a plan of action of if I do have these concerns, These are my steps. I visit my pharmacist is my next step. I book a doctor's appointment is my next step. But this is all about a responding bit by bit rather than a quick reactivity. Again, The reason why I stress why we don't want to do this is because no matter how much searching you do, You will always find at the bottom of every article, Anything you find online, That sort of small print, Red letters at the bottom that's like, You should be absolutely fine. But actually, This could be something serious. So it never really satisfies and reassures because that's usually what you're always going to find. I know that sounds simple. It's basically just a no, And obviously it's not as simple as that. But if we're taking just purely this area, We want to learn lots of techniques, Responding, Not reacting. We want to learn things like urge surfing. There's so much we can do. If I was to basically answer that question for you just really directly, This area is a no-no. How you do that is draw upon all this support, But it's a really clear-cut no, Because much like the person recovering from the eating disorder and it is always going to be a trigger when you go on the scales. I hope that helps and there's lots more support for you here for health anxiety. I'm Scarlet and hopefully see you in another video soon.