This is super difficult to do, curing health anxiety is very hard, and I haven't fully recovered myself. Atm, it feels like I've cured my health anxiety for about 70%. I'll write down what's caught me in the cycle, and what I've done to stay out of it.
1. Distractions: I truly believe distractions are necessary no matter what. Always have something to think about, when your brain gets bored, it just goes to the things that bother you the most. While distractions are important, they shouldn't be something to be constantly depend on. For the month I had my ALS fear, I distracted myself through playing games with friends all the time. When I'd get off the game or not talk with my friends, my anxiety would kick in. It was kind of like a comfort zone for me.
2. Imagine yourself with the illness you're afraid of, and understand your life isn't completely over because of some stupid disease. My fear is ALS and so if I get it, I'll die in 1-3 years, maybe much longer if I get lucky. The thing is, I know I don't have ALS but I do fear that I will get it very soon, how I cope is that I understand I will enjoy my life equally as much as I do right now even, if I get the illness. I've grown not to worry about things I can't control. If i get something, I'll deal with it and try to live my life to the fullest regardless. Please implement happy thoughts like these to help out.
3. Googling and research about the illness you fear.
All the googling and research I've done of ALS made me worry I'd one day wake up without my limbs working. It made me think that if I don't feel anything physically, that it's a sign I'll one day wake up with a disability in a limb. This then led to leg pains, and I did more research to see if people with ALS had pains, and guess what, they did. I got so sick of constantly finding myself on forums reading about ALS, constantly trying to reassurre and comfort myself. These don't help and they just make things 1000x worse. After stopping this cycle, my legs pain left me in about 3 days.
4. Checks.
Don't physically check yourself or examine your body for moles, and all that. It just adds on to the fear. Look at it like this, if you convince yourself to not fear cancer (or another illness), why would you waste time checking on yourself to ensure you don't have it? You're feeding the fears again, and also reassuring yourself in the process. Again, in the long run, this doesn't help.
5. Listen to self meditations, subliminals, binaural beats, self hypnosis, and etc.
They've helped me to a significant degree, and I think they'll help all of you as well. These are useful, but only if you guys change your thought process as well.
6. Go out and do things.
Don't stay home and suffer, go out and have a good time. It clears your mind and helps with logical thinking.
7. Don't constantly revolve your thoughts on your fears.
By obsessing over thoughts, you feed the fear. Break this thought process and curing health anxiety will become so much easier.
8. Don't make the mistake of going back to the cycle.
If you do good for weeks or maybe months, but you get a symptom of a disease you previously feared, don't immediately jump online and do research about it again. It'll only continue the process you sucessfully left, and it'l be horrible.
9. NEVER GIVE UP!
I wish you all luck, if anyone would like to add, please do so. I promise you, I followed these methods for a week, and I haven't had a single symptom of anxiety. Leg pain gone, my appetite is back (I enjoy food again), anxiousness isn't there, no more headaches, no depressed feeling, and etc. Please try this and give me an update on how you guys feel. I know I've only had this for a month, but it's been 4 days since I was feeling super down and bad, and I'm already sooo much better. I feel like I've actually claimed my life back.
Constantly thinking about something
Are you having Anxiety or worried? Click this and read it.
