Gordon J. G. Asmundson PHD, Steven Taylor PHD - It's Not All in Your Head - How Worrying About Your Health Could Be Making You Sick - and What You Can Do About It-The Guilford Press (2005)

It’s Not All in Your Head
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It’s Not All in
Your Head
How Worrying about Your Health
Could Be Making You Sick—
and What You Can Do about It
Gordon J. G. Asmundson, PhD

Steven Taylor, PhD
THE GUILFORD PRESS

New York London
© 2005 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
The information in this volume is not intended as a substitute for consultation with
health care professionals. Each individual’s health concerns should be evaluated by a
qualified professional.
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be obtained in writing from the Permissions Department of Guilford Publications.
Asmundson, Gordon J. G.
It’s not all in your head: how worrying about your health could be making you
sick—and what you can do about it / Gordon J. G. Asmundson, Steven Taylor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57230-993-8 (pbk.) — ISBN 1-59385-146-4 (cloth)
1. Health—Psychological aspects. 2. Compulsive behavior. 3. Health—
Miscellanea. I. Taylor, Steven, 1960– II. Title.
RC533.A85 2005
616.85′84—dc22
2004025955
To my amazing parents,
Calvin (who passed away during the writing of this book)
and Eileen, who taught me to soar,
and to my beautiful daughter and wife,
Aleiia and Kimberley,
who keep me well grounded
—G. J. G. A.
To Amy Sue Janeck and Alex Janeck Taylor

—S. T.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
Part I
UNDERSTANDING HEALTH ANXIETY
One Do I Worry Too Much about My Health? 3
Two Body and Brain: It’s Not All in Your Head 18
Three Do I Have Some Other Anxiety Disorder? 33
Four Sick and Sad: Am I Depressed, Too? 46
Part II
BREAKING THE HEALTH ANXIETY CYCLE
Five Understanding and Managing Stress 59
Six Thoughts That Influence Your Anxiety and How to Change Them 80
Seven Behaviors That Influence Your Anxiety and How to Change Them 104
vii
viii Contents
Part III
MAINTAINING YOUR GAINS
Eight Dealing with Doctors 135
Nine Helping Friends and Family Help You 146
Ten Living Life and Maintaining Your Gains 157
Resources 175
Worksheets 183
Index 207
About the Authors 211

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank several people for their support during the writing of this
book. Kitty Moore, Executive Editor, encouraged us to take on this project and
made working with The Guilford Press a pleasure. The thoughtful critiques of
Christine Benton and Ron and Judy Norton helped us improve the content and
readability of many chapters. Thanks also to John Walker for generously sharing
his time and ideas about the treatment of health anxiety and to the many
patients who have taught us so much from their personal experiences with
health anxiety. Last, but certainly not least, we are grateful to our families for
their unwavering love and never-ending support during this project: Kimberley
and Aleiia Asmundson, Amy Sue Janeck, and Alex Janeck Taylor (who was not
yet born but was kicking like a soccer star at the time of writing).
ix
Preface
Do you have symptoms that your doctor can’t explain? Do you worry that there
might be something seriously wrong with your body or about catching a disease?
Or perhaps you know someone like this. If so, you’re not alone. One of our
patients, John, suffered each day from stinging pains in his chest. He thought
there was something seriously wrong with his heart, and he worried about dying.
To his surprise and dismay, his doctor could find no medical cause. John sought a
second opinion and then a third and a fourth. Each time he was told there was
nothing wrong. One doctor even had the nerve to tell John that his problems
were “all in his head.” Yet his pains persisted and, as a result, he stopped doing
things that caused his heart to race and spent hours surfing the Internet for a
possible explanation for the way he was feeling. His life started falling apart.
Another patient, Debye, worried that she had stomach cancer. Debye feared
that she would have a slow, painful death just like her mother, who had bravely
struggled with cancer for years; Debye’s painful cramps were real. She wasn’t
imagining them. But her doctors, including a cancer specialist, were unable to
find a cause. John and Debye both had family and friends who were concerned
but frustrated because they couldn’t really understand what the root of the prob-
lem was or how to help.
We all have times when we worry about being sick or catching something
that will make us sick. But some worry more than others. The critical questions
are Do you worry too much about your health? and Do others tell you that you
should stop worrying so much over nothing? About one in every five people
worries a lot about his or her health, and this worry can sometimes be all con-
suming. It may be hard to tell when we’re worrying too much, especially when
we learn from an early age that changes in the way our bodies feel are things to
be wary of, monitored, and checked by a doctor if persistent. Reading this book
can help you decide whether anxiety is playing a role in your symptoms. If some-
body you know worries a lot about his or her health, this book will aid you in
xi
xii Preface
understanding what the person is going through and will give you ideas for how
you can help.
Debye’s cramps were not caused by cancer. She was suffering from stomach
upset from drinking too much coffee combined with the effects of being very
anxious. Misinterpretation of her symptoms was, in fact, an important source of
her problem. Thinking her cramps were a sign of cancer made Debye feel a great
deal of anxiety and caused her many a sleepless night. People like John and
Debye aren’t suffering from a medical disease—they’re suffering from what we
call health anxiety. They worry a lot about physical symptoms that are part of the
stresses of everyday life and not disease.
Even if you worry too much about your health, this doesn’t mean the prob-
lem is “all in your head.” Your symptoms are very real; it’s just that they are not
caused by a medical problem. Understandably, people usually resist this possibil-
ity at first. The good news is that you don’t have anything to lose by considering
whether anxiety could be contributing to what you’re going through. If, after
reading this book, you decide that you don’t have an anxiety problem, you’ve
learned something important. On the other hand, if you realize that you’re suf-
fering from too much worry about your physical symptoms, you’ve also learned
something valuable. You’ll have learned about what’s causing your symptoms.
The really good news is that help is available, whether you worry a lot about
your health or whether you’re concerned about someone who does. There are
proven, effective strategies for dealing with the experience of health anxiety.
Sometimes the hardest step is the first one: understanding and coming to grips
with what’s wrong. Once you’re over that hurdle you can learn and practice a
number of strategies that will allow you to control your health anxiety and get
on with living life. This book will help both you and your loved ones gain a
better understanding of your health worries and ways to overcome them.
Part I
UNDERSTANDING
HEALTH ANXIETY
One
Do I Worry Too Much

about My Health?
Joan: “Do something soon or I’m going to die.”

“A few Mondays ago I had a very rough day. It started off bad when a
traffic jam on the expressway made me late for the first of several impor-
tant meetings. My stomach was aching all day, and I had terrible cramp-
ing. The stuff I took to relieve my pain didn’t work. I tried to convince
myself that this was likely just the result of a very stressful day. But for
much of the day and through the night I kept thinking that something
was seriously wrong—most likely an ulcer but maybe even stomach can-
cer. My father died of colon cancer when he was in his mid-fifties. For
the past few weeks I’ve been paying close attention to my stomach and
I’ve been worrying a lot. It seems that something untoward is always
going on—nausea almost every day, heartburn on some days, irregular
bowel movements, and queasiness. I’ve seen my family doctor probably
three or four times in the past three weeks, but she tells me nothing is
wrong. She says I just need to watch my diet and take it easy. Two other
doctors I went to see last week told me the same thing. But I disagree.
My stomach pain can’t possibly be from poor diet and stress. I’m pretty
sure now that I have stomach cancer and that if something is not done
soon I’m going to die.”
Jonathan: “What’s wrong with me?”

“I’ve been having heaviness in my legs and feeling sluggish for the past
eight months. This doesn’t happen every day, but as of late I’ve felt this
3
4 I. UNDERSTANDING HEALTH ANXIETY
way more days than not. Sometimes I also get headaches and feel
clumsy. I’ve seen my family doctor as well as several specialists to try to
find out what’s wrong with me. At first I thought I might have the flu,
but after feeling lousy for three weeks I began to worry that I might have
Lou Gehrig’s disease. My uncle died from it a few years ago. The neurol-
ogist gave me a whole bunch of tests, including an MRI, and assures me
that I don’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease or multiple sclerosis. An internal
medicine specialist thought it might be Hodgkin’s disease, especially after
I told her about my night sweats, but her tests also failed to find anything
wrong. Now my family doctor assures me I probably have nothing to
worry about. But something’s not right with me. I’m not imagining my
sluggishness, headaches, clumsiness, or night sweats. I’ve been reading a
lot on the Internet about these symptoms. I think the doctors must have
missed something. Maybe it is multiple sclerosis or even a brain tumor!”
Bob: “Dangerous germs are everywhere.”

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a healthy habit of staying away
from germs. They’re everywhere—doorknobs, handrails, telephone re-
ceivers, ATM buttons, toilet seats, money—and really must be avoided.
Other people have touched these things, and who knows where their
hands have been or what diseases they have. I frequently see people
who, with good intentions of stopping their germs from spreading, cup
their hand over their face when coughing or sneezing. Good for them?
No way! These same people take their unwashed, germ-infested hands
and use them to operate the photocopier, twist open the lid to add some
cream to their java, and greet coworkers with a friendly and germ-laden
pat on the back. And that’s just the start. What do you think happens
when nature calls? The cough germs get spread to the bathroom door,
the toilet seat, the flusher, and join the splash and spatter germs of those
who’ve already completed their lavatory business. Most of my cowork-
ers don’t wash after flushing, and as a result their hands become a veri-
table germ party. Bathrooms are the worst for me. I try not to use them
in public but, when this can’t be avoided, I do most things with my
feet—opening the doors, lifting or lowering the toilet seat, and operat-
ing the flusher. In the past few weeks I’ve started carrying latex gloves
for those situations where I can’t handle things with my foot technique.
The gloves have proven useful in other situations, and I have started
wearing them regularly. My family and friends tell me I’m too worried
about germs and I have a germ phobia. I agree that I might be a little
obsessed, but I think it’s a healthy obsession.”
We all worry about our health from time to time, often because we try to
understand the reasons for the sensations our bodies are producing. Could my
Do I Worry Too Much about My Health? 5
upset stomach be the result of something I ate, or is it an ulcer? Are my head-

aches and sore eyes the result of a rough day, or do I have a brain tumor? What is
that pain in my chest area? Could it be something wrong with my heart? Why
have I been feeling so tired lately? Am I working too much, or could it be early
signs of multiple sclerosis? We may worry about catching some sort of disease.
For example, during the first few months of the severe acute respiratory syn-
drome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, many people worried about being exposed to
the virus after having encountered somebody with a cough. People who have or
have had a serious disease, such as cancer or a heart condition, also may worry a
great deal about their health. But some people worry too much. Joan, for exam-
ple, worried about having colon cancer, even though she had seen three doctors
who all told her she didn’t. Joan’s worries were excessive. It is estimated that
about 20 percent of the population—one in every five people—worry too much
about being sick.
If you’re reading this book, it is a safe bet that your doctor or doctors have
been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for some of the bodily sensa-
tions and disease-related questions that are causing you concern, let alone offer
you any effective relief. Do you spend some time each day worrying about the
causes of your bodily sensations? Are you afraid some sort of malfunction or
physical breakdown is happening in your body and that you have an undiag-
nosed disease? Do friends and family tell you that you worry too much about
your health or call you a hypochondriac or germ phobic? Have your doctors told
you there is nothing wrong and that you shouldn’t worry? Maybe you aren’t quite
sure and you wonder, “Do I worry too much, or do I really have a serious dis-
ease?” If so, this chapter will help you decide.
In the pages that follow, we suggest an alternative way of understanding the
sensations that cause you concern. This is a necessary first step in helping you
determine whether you worry too much about your health. We also ask you sev-
eral questions and have you complete a self-assessment regarding your health-
related worries. You will probably be skeptical at first of the alternative explana-
tions we suggest. We know this from our experience with the many people we’ve
seen in our research and clinical practice. The cognitive-behavioral approach we
use asks you to consider that the bodily sensations that concern you might not
be symptoms of disease but rather result from such things as stress and fatigue.
Even if considered with the greatest of reluctance at first, our approach can be
very effective in helping you identify your health-related worry and, where
excessive, improve the many areas of your life that it affects. If other things
haven’t helped, isn’t it worth a try?
What Is Health Anxiety?
Most cognitive-behavioral researchers and practitioners use the term health anxi-
ety to describe the wide range of worry that people can have about their health.
Many of the questions you will be asked about have a specific focus on health
anxiety. Thus, to help you fully understand how to determine whether you worry
too much about your health, we first discuss the terms health and anxiety, as well
as their combined use.
Health
Health is sometimes thought to be the absence of disease. If you don’t have a
virus, tumor, ulcer, or some other pathology in one of the body systems, you must
be healthy. We, like many health care professionals, don’t care much for this
notion of health: It implies that either you have health or you don’t. Being
healthy involves more than not being sick. An important part of health is physi-
cal well-being. Being happy, feeling fulfilled, and having a good social support
network are also important. Thus we might think of health as made up of physi-
cal, emotional, and social components. We might also think of it as occurring on a
continuum that ranges from very poor to very good. The World Health Organi-
zation has used this definition of health since the 1940s. Some people don’t like
this definition because it means you have to be doing well in all three of the
physical, emotional, and social areas to have very good health. This may not
always be possible, but it’s something we can all try to achieve.
Anxiety
Think back to times when you’ve felt anxious about something other than your
health. Did you feel you were in danger? Were you uncertain about what might
happen? Did you feel distressed?
Anxiety occurs when you think something bad is going to happen but you
are uncertain that it will. For example, in preparing to give a speech, you may
begin to feel anxious as you wonder whether it will go over well with the audi-
ence. Or, while taking a short cut through an unfamiliar neighborhood, you
might begin to worry about whether some shady character is going to pull you
into a back lane and mug you. The anticipation of harm, combined with uncer-
tainty about how threatening the situation will actually be, creates feelings of
uneasiness and apprehension—those vague feelings that something may be
wrong or that something terrible might happen.
But anxiety is not simply a feeling of uneasiness or apprehension. It also
involves changes in our physiology and behavior. When we’re anxious, our body
responds in ways designed to prepare us to take action against potential threats:
heart rate quickens, muscles tense, breathing becomes labored, and we might
sweat, feel nauseated, and experience other bodily changes. Because the source
of the threat isn’t clear, the best action to take usually isn’t obvious. In other
words, it’s difficult to know what to do or how best to respond in the anxiety-
provoking circumstance. This uncertainty also sometimes carries over into our
daily lives. In our speech example, the anxiety over doing a good job during the
speech may actually prevent good performance. Why? Because you may spend
too much time worrying about possible outcomes rather than rehearsing and
doing other things that contribute to success.
Anxiety is similar to but not the same as fear. Fear is an emotional response
that occurs when you’re confronted with a specific threatening situation or
object. If a shady character did pull you into a back lane while holding a knife to
your throat, you would be feeling fear, not anxiety, because you know exactly
what is threatening you! Likewise, if you are hiking and come face-to-face with a
grizzly bear, you’re not uncertain about the danger.
Anxiety and fear can be important in helping us get by in our environment
and perform at our best. Our daily lives are filled with situations in which that
extra jolt of adrenaline helps us deal with a challenge. Without some degree of
fear, you would be very unlikely to even attempt to escape that grizzly bear! Nor
would we perform at our best during a job interview or on a test. Consider our
speech example again. A person with a moderate degree of anxiety about speak-
ing to a large audience is likely to be well prepared—knowing her material, tak-
ing along a few jokes to break the ice, and having handy a few visual props to
keep the audience’s attention—whereas a person with little or no anxiety may
go in unprepared and have to wing it. But for those in whom anxiety can be
excessive, the feelings of uncertainty and apprehension may by very intense,
may last for long periods of time, and may go way beyond being a helpful
response. A person who is too anxious about giving a speech may freeze up and
be unable to speak in front of the audience or, more likely, might not even show
up to talk at all. Unfortunately, many people experience so much anxiety that it
interferes with their ability to manage their day-to-day living—their relation-
ships suffer, they miss work, they feel depressed, and they don’t know how to
make it stop. Recent statistics indicate that anxiety disorders have surpassed
depression as the most common mental health problem experienced by North
Americans.
Health Anxiety
If we put together the individual definitions of health and anxiety, we get the fol-
lowing: Health anxiety is the feeling that your physical well-being, or disease-
free state, is threatened and you don’t know what the cause or what the outcome
will be. Like other forms of anxiety, health anxiety involves changes in
thoughts, physiology, and behavior. Also like other forms of anxiety, health anx-
iety can range from mild to severe. Mild health anxiety can be temporary and
can sometimes be a signal to follow up on some bodily change or sensation by
seeking advice from a doctor. But it can also be excessive and preoccupying, as
in the examples of Joan, Jonathan, and Bob. When health anxiety is out of pro-
portion to the risk of disease and persists even though there is no evidence of
disease, mental health professionals often refer to it as a health anxiety disorder.

Like the other anxiety disorders, it has an impact on all aspects of health. The
trick, of course, lies in figuring out what is out of proportion and inappropriately
persistent. That is, how much is too much?
Are Your Bodily Sensations Imagined or Real?
The bodily sensations or concerns you’re experiencing are real—very real. Any
sane person would worry about a headache that doesn’t go away or about waking
up with a stomachache every morning. The trouble is that these are not always
signals of disease—in fact, they rarely are—and the worry can grow out of pro-
portion to the actual threat.
Where do the bothersome bodily sensations come from? They might arise
from changes to your diet, activity levels and preferences, or sleeping habits. For
example, if burritos are not something you regularly eat, you may experience
some stomach upset after having a few of them (especially if you use extra hot
sauce). Also a number of minor physical ailments can have signs and symptoms
that may look like a more serious condition. Lumps in the breast may be benign
(harmless) fibroids rather than cancerous tumors, clumsiness may be due to
fatigue and not multiple sclerosis, and headache may be the result of a stressful
day rather than a blood clot in the brain. In many cases, the sensations are part
of the body’s anxiety response. Anxiety is associated with many bodily changes
and sensations, including shortness of breath, pounding or racing heart, chest
tightness, muscle tension, fatigue, dizziness, stomach upset (for example, nausea,
bloating), diarrhea, flushing or hot flashes, and trembling or shakiness.
These sensations, whether they come from changes in your lifestyle, minor
physical ailments, or anxiety, have one thing in common: They are harmless. But if
you notice these changes and start to worry about whether they are signaling dis-
ease, you are very likely to become more anxious, and the changes will persist and
possibly get worse. One of the main goals of this book is to show you how to identify
and effectively respond to your health anxiety before it spirals out of proportion to
the point where it actually perpetuates the very sensations that cause you concern.
The Health Anxiety Cycle
To successfully deal with excessive health anxiety, you need to learn how to
determine whether bothersome bodily sensations and symptoms are harmless.
Visiting a doctor is a good (and essential) first step. Some health-related worries
may be associated with health issues that your doctor should look at. Bodily sen-
sations such as stomach upset or a pounding heart or feelings such as being off
balance and clumsy can happen for any number of reasons. It’s important to fig-
ure out as soon as possible whether they’re related to a disease so that proper
medical care can be given. Quite often the doctor is able to figure out the cause
of the sensations and make a recommendation that leads to relief. For example,
Jeff went to see his doctor after having had a headache for five days for which
Tylenol provided no relief. The doctor determined that Jeff had a bacterial sinus
infection and prescribed an antibiotic that relieved the headaches within two
days. The positive outcome of Jeff’s visit to his doctor, though, may not repre-
sent your typical experience when visiting your physician.
If the doctor rules out physical disease, then seeking alternate explanations
is the next step. Unfortunately, many people with health anxiety get stuck at
Step 1, visiting their doctors repeatedly or seeking the opinions of many doctors
and specialists. Have you visited your doctor several times in a short period of
time about the same health concern? Have you visited several doctors in the
hope that one would give you a physical explanation for your health concern?
The habit of repeatedly visiting doctors for the same concern can provide reas-
surance that you’re okay. But that feeling of reassurance is short-lived and can
prolong rather than help resolve the health anxiety.
Sarah: “My doctor thinks I’m a crock.”

Sarah went to see her doctor again yesterday because she was very con-
cerned that a new lump in her breast was cancerous. Her doctor said,
“Sarah, there’s no indication that the lumps in your breast are cancer-
ous. I want you to stop worrying so much about your health. You’ve
been to see me at least 12 times over the past seven or eight months,
and I’ve sent you for many tests. Each time the tests have come back
negative. Sarah, there’s simply nothing seriously wrong with you.”
Sarah was apologetic about repeatedly checking with the doctor to
see if her breast lumps were cancerous. “I’m sorry for pestering you, doc-
tor, but I just can’t stop worrying that I’ve got breast cancer. It runs in
my family. My mother, one of my aunts, and my grandmother all died of
breast cancer when they were about my age.” Her doctor again reas-
sured her that nothing was wrong. Sarah left the office feeling some-
what better, but by the time she arrived home she was once again wor-
ried and upset. She liked her doctor but was beginning to feel that he
was incompetent and, for certain, wasn’t taking her concerns seriously.
What if the mammograms and blood tests had simply failed to
detect cancer? Sarah had heard on the news that this happened all the
time. “Maybe we should try to get an appointment at the Mayo Clinic,”
she said to her husband. “Jennifer was telling me that someone she
knew had gone to the Mayo and that they found that he did have can-
cer even though his own doctors said there wasn’t anything wrong with
him.” Her husband suggested she just listen to her doctor and not worry
so much. Sarah tried to sleep that night but couldn’t. Just before going
to bed, she examined her breasts, noting that they were very painful and
that several lumps seemed to have grown larger. “My God, I’m going to
die just like Mom, and nobody seems to care. My doctor thinks I’m a
crock and my husband is starting to think I’m crazy.”
Sarah’s interaction with her doctor is quite common. She repeatedly visited
her doctor over concerns about cancer. Numerous tests ordered by the doctor
failed to reveal evidence of physical disease. In an effort to comfort Sarah, and
perhaps to get her to stop visiting so often, her doctor told her nothing was
wrong with her. This reassurance was helpful only for a short period of time.
Soon after, Sarah was questioning the competence of her doctor and wondering
whether she should seek another opinion. She also became increasingly con-
cerned about the lumps in her breasts, checking them 10 to 20 times per day on
average, and felt that nobody, including her husband, understood what she was
going through. Her desire to visit the Mayo Clinic, despite not being able to
afford it, began to cause strife in her relationship with her husband. As she lost
confidence in her doctor, Sarah began visiting other doctors, one of whom was
familiar with health anxiety and referred her to us.
We assured Sarah that we understood her breast lumps were real and that
they were affecting her life. We asked her a number of questions, many of which
we will have you ask yourself toward the end of this chapter. Based on her
answers to our questions, combined with information from her medical history,
we concluded that Sarah had one of the several health anxiety disorders experi-
enced by millions of North Americans.
We began our work with Sarah by having her consider how her specific type
of health anxiety might be contributing to swollen and painful breast lumps. She
was, as expected, skeptical at first. But as we had her consider alternatives—such
as whether she believed it was possible that the swelling and pain might be due
to palpating her breasts every hour on the hour all day long—her interest in
learning more about the health anxiety disorders and about how she might test
whether some of our strategies would alleviate some of her symptoms increased.
Sarah turned the corner toward recovery once she grasped that the underlying
nature of her condition could be explained by something other than physical
disease. Let’s see whether the problems that brought you to this book resemble
any of the health anxiety disorders described in the next section.
Common Health Anxiety Disorders
Health anxiety can range from very mild to very severe. Severe forms of health
anxiety differ from milder forms in the amount of emotional upset and the dis-
ruption they create in the activities of day-to-day living and relationships with
others. More severe forms cause greater distress and more difficulties at work and
home. After a specialist ruled out any problems with his eyes, Barry wondered
whether recent episodes of blurred vision might be related to a brain tumor.
Aside from mentioning his concerns to his girlfriend and spending a few minutes
each day thinking about it, his life remained pretty much unaffected. Sarah, on
the other hand, was feeling more and more abandoned by her husband and
friends as she became increasingly convinced she had breast cancer. Stan, con-
cerned that he might have contracted a serious skin disease, spent so much time
picking at every little blemish he could find on his body that he was unable to
get any of his work done and is now failing his night course. He knows he spends
too much time picking at and prodding his body, but he just can’t stop, and his
skin is now a mess, with scabs all over. These examples represent the most com-
mon health anxiety disorders, which fall under the categories of hypochondria-
sis, disease phobia, and somatic delusions.
Hypochondriasis
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, now in its revised fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), classifies hypochondri-
asis as a somatoform disorder. This is a group of disorders characterized by physical
symptoms that suggest some sort of general medical condition (or disease) but that
aren’t completely expained by the disease. Hypochondriasis is defined as “the pre-
occupation with the fear of having, or the idea that one has, a serious disease based
on the person’s misinterpretation of bodily symptoms or bodily functions” (p. 485).
Although DSM-IV-TR classifies it differently, we find it useful to consider hypo-
chondriasis a health anxiety disorder because anxiety and worry are such predomi-
nant features. Hypochondriasis also shares a number of characteristics with other
anxiety disorders, in particular panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and
obsessive-compulsive disorders, discussed further in Chapter 3.
In determining whether you have hypochondriasis, a cognitive-behavioral
therapist may ask questions about disease-related worry, as well as questions
about the way you perceive and interpret bodily sensations and symptoms. For
example, we asked Sarah questions such as “Is your health on your mind a lot?”
“Do you worry a lot about getting sick or being ill?” and “What symptoms do you
have and why do you think they indicate that you have a disease?” You might
also be asked about:
• Your medical history and history of medical tests,

• The degree to which you’re convinced that your symptoms are physical,
• The amount of distress you experience when thinking about your bodily
sensations,
• Limitations in your social, occupational, and leisure activities,
• The duration of your symptoms, and
• Emotional difficulties you may be experiencing.
Sarah’s mind was constantly buzzing with thoughts about the lumps in her
breasts being cancerous, about the fact that she was being a pest to her doctor,
that she might die, and that her doctor and loved ones thought she was going
crazy. Physically she felt “keyed up” much of the time and most recently was
having trouble sleeping. Although she could still function reasonably well at her
job, she was spending increasing amounts of time examining her breasts for
changes and new lumps, and her relationship with her husband was deteriorat-
ing. She also was seeking reassurance from her doctor, her husband, and, most
recently, her children with increasing frequency. Sarah was diagnosed with
hypochondriasis.
Disease Phobia
Disease phobia is a type of specific phobia (fears that focus on one or a very few
things, such as spiders or heights), an anxiety disorder associated with fear of
contracting or ultimately dying of one or more specific diseases. For example, a
person may fear developing multiple sclerosis or contracting some form of conta-
gious disease. Bob, who goes to great lengths to avoid germs, has disease phobia.
Those with disease phobia don’t typically believe they already have the disease,
and, as a consequence, they don’t exhibit the bodily sensations and symptoms
associated with the disease they fear. They do, however, have considerable anxi-
ety, and they may experience muscle tension, lightheadedness, difficulty breath-
ing, and racing heart. Also, they may avoid places or situations associated with
the disease they fear. Not only did Bob start wearing latex gloves to avoid direct
contact with germs, but soon after he also refused to use public washrooms, even
in the most urgent circumstances. His willingness to have bladder and bowel
movements only in his bathroom at home resulted in unexpected absences from
work and unexplained early departures from leisure and social activities.
Mike: “I don’t want to catch SARS.”

Although he lived in a small rural town and had not traveled for the
past two or three years, Mike was afraid he was going to contract SARS.
His fear continued to escalate, and for four weeks he left his home infre-
quently. When he did go out, he wore a surgical mask and latex gloves
and did whatever he could to avoid people. Whenever he was in close
proximity to another person, his heart began to race, he became sweaty,
and he felt that he had to “get out of there.” When a friend from
Toronto called to say that he was in town to see his family, Mike made
several excuses to ensure that a visit was not possible. Although he rec-
ognized that these sorts of measures were extreme, he wanted to do
everything possible to avoid contracting SARS.
In determining whether you have disease phobia, a cognitive-behavioral

therapist may ask questions regarding your fears about contracting a serious dis-
ease, such as “Are you concerned that you might catch a serious disease?” and
“Do you get panicky whenever you see things like sick people or hospitals, or
hear news about viruses?” They might also ask questions about:
• Your degree of fear relative to other people,

• Things you avoid because of your fear,
• Limitations in your social, occupational, and leisure activities, and
• Your level of distress.
Somatic Delusions
Some people’s beliefs about having a serious disease are so strong and unshakable
that they are considered delusional. Generally speaking, delusions are erroneous
beliefs, based on some sort of misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences,
that are held with conviction and near absolute certainty. The most common
forms of delusions regarding the idea that the body is diseased, sickly, or not
functioning properly are that:
• One is emitting a foul odor from the skin or opening into the body, such
as the mouth or rectum,
• One is infested with insects or parasites,
• Parts of the body are misshapen or ugly, despite objective evidence to the
contrary, and
• Parts of the body, such as the circulatory system or bowels, are not work-
ing properly.
Vicky: “People don’t like me because I smell bad.”

For the past five years Vicky has held a strong belief that she emits a
foul odor during menstruation. She describes the odor as a “mixture of
blood, urine, and rotting flesh.” She had her first period early, at age 10,
and was teased by her schoolmates. Vicky attributes the teasing to
“smelling bad.” Now 15 years old, she rarely leaves the house except to
attend classes, has never had a boyfriend, and has no girlfriends. She is
certain that her extraordinary efforts to stay clean and mask body odor
during her menstrual periods—showering at least six times a day and
using a can of body spray daily—are entirely ineffective.
A mental health professional may ask a variety of questions regarding the

nature of disease-related beliefs and convictions, such as “Are parts of your body
malfunctioning?” and “Is your body occupied by parasites?” when determining
whether you have somatic delusions. In many respects, people with somatic
delusions are similar to those with hypochondriasis. The primary difference is in
the degree to which people with these conditions understand that their con-
cerns over having a disease or bodily malfunction are excessive or unreasonable.
Those with hypochondriasis, like Sarah, understand this to some degree; those
with somatic delusions, like Vicky, understand it less if at all.
The Challenge
You still may not want to think that anxiety or aspects of your lifestyle, not phys-
ical disease, are responsible for your physical concerns. But, as we discussed ear-
lier, it’s a possibility. Remember that health anxiety can range from very mild to
very severe; every person is unique. One of the primary challenges we face when
assessing a person in our research and clinical work is determining where the
person falls on the continuum. Does a person have too much health anxiety?
Experience with a lot of people with health anxiety disorders helps us make this
judgment. You have more experience with your own symptoms than anybody
else, and so you can do the same.
How Much Is Too Much?
To answer the question, How much health anxiety is too much? you must answer
a number of other questions that have to do with specific aspects of your worry
and the ways in which it affects your ability to carry out your day-to-day routine.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1. How much time do I spend worrying that I have or might contract a dis-
ease?
2. How often have I visited my doctor about the same symptoms despite her
reassurances that there’s nothing physically wrong?
3. How much time am I spending checking the Internet and other sources
of disease information, and in what ways is that interfering with my abil-
ity to get other things done?
4. Have I stopped doing anything that I enjoy because of my beliefs that I’m
sick or might catch a disease?
5. To what extent are my worries interfering with my ability to work?
If your answer to question 1 was, in so many words, pretty often; if you’ve

consulted your doctor several times about the same thing despite no evidence of
anything wrong; and if you can see that you’re spending so much time and emo-
tional energy on worrying about your health that your house is a mess, your rela-
tionships languishing, your hobbies abandoned, and your work suffering, health
anxiety is probably a significant negative factor in your life. Let’s take a closer
look, using a well-established test of health anxiety.
Over the years a number of tests have been developed to assist researchers
and doctors in evaluating patients for health anxiety. We’ve found that the
Whiteley Index, printed on the next page, is particularly useful for self-
assessment, and we suggest you complete it now.
Give yourself a point for every yes response to all questions except number
9, for which you get a point if you circled no. This should produce a score
between 0 and 14. Higher scores indicate higher levels of health anxiety. A score
of 8 or more usually indicates a high probability of a health anxiety disorder.
If you scored near 8 or higher, and if this high score is consistent with your
responses to the previous list of five questions, try finishing this book and using
the techniques offered as self-help. If you haven’t done so already, we also
strongly recommend that you raise and discuss the issue of health anxiety with
your doctor. If you feel you need help approaching your doctor about this, you’ll
find useful guidelines for doing so in the last section of this book. Please keep in
mind that if your problem seems to be on the more severe end of the continuum,
only an evaluation by an experienced clinician can confirm that you have a
health anxiety disorder and rule out the possibility that your high score is not
due to depression or another emotional disorder (discussed later in this book).
How This Book Can Help
If you believe your health anxiety is excessive and causing you harm at some
level, you can move on to Chapter 2 for a more in-depth explanation of how
people come to explain (or form certain beliefs about) the bodily sensations they
experience and, importantly, how anxiety can influence both the explanations
and the sensations experienced. Here we provide you with the building blocks
for learning strategies that will help you change the way you think about and
respond to the bodily sensations that you are now interpreting as disease related.
Chapters 3 and 4 focus on other mental health conditions, including the anxiety
disorders and depression, which often co-occur with excessive health anxiety.
You’ll learn the relationship between health anxiety and these other conditions,
as well as methods you can use to self-assess anxiety and mood disorders. You
need to be frank about how much problems with other types of anxiety or
depressed mood are affecting you because, ultimately, these will affect the way
you’ll approach helping yourself overcome your health worries.
You may be so focused on your body that it’s hard to believe the key to
better health may be in your thoughts and actions. In the second section of this
book, “Breaking the Health Anxiety Cycle,” we outline strategies that you can
use to get on with living life. Stress is a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t
learn to relax. Chapter 5 teaches you exercises you can use to relax in any situa-
The Whiteley Index
Here are some questions about your health. Circle either YES or NO to indicate your answer to each
question.
1. Do you often worry about the possibility that you have got a serious YES NO
illness?
2. Are you bothered by many pains and aches? YES NO
3. Do you find that you are often aware of various things happening in YES NO
your body?
4. Do you worry a lot about your health? YES NO
5. Do you often have the symptoms of very serious illness? YES NO
6. If a disease is brought to your attention (through the radio, television, YES NO

newspapers, or someone you know) do you worry about getting it
yourself?
7. If you feel ill and someone tells you that you are looking better, do you YES NO
become annoyed?
8. Do you find that you are bothered by many different symptoms? YES NO
9. Is it easy for you to forget about yourself, and think about all sorts of YES NO
other things?
10. Is it hard for you to believe the doctor when he or she tells you there YES NO
is nothing for you to worry about?
11. Do you get the feeling that people are not taking your illness seriously YES NO
enough?
12. Do you think that you worry about your health more than most people? YES NO
13. Do you think there is something seriously wrong with your body? YES NO
14. Are you afraid of illness? YES NO
Note. Score 1 point for every YES circled, except for question 9 where 1 point is scored for circling NO. Reprinted with kind per-
mission from Professor Issy Pilowsky, Department of Psychiatry, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia.
16
tion. People who are so focused on their health worries often overlook many
other things that contribute to their stress. So you will also learn effective relax-
ation techniques for alleviating stress that arises from daily hassles and the gen-
erally hectic world we live in. In Chapter 6 you’ll learn to change those patterns
of thought that are feeding your health anxiety, replacing them with ones that
feed good health. No, it’s not “all in your head,” but we all have unhelpful pat-
terns of thinking that influence the way we feel and behave. Chapter 7 will
equip you with ways for changing behaviors that feed your health anxiety and
keep it alive.
By the time you get to the final section of the book, “Maintaining Your
Gains,” you should be well on your way to getting your worries about health
under control. But what about other people? The final chapters of this book are
meant to help you provide others—your doctor, your family, your friends—with
practical advice on the most effective ways of helping you deal with and over-
come your health anxiety. People with health anxiety are often told by their
doctors that they’re simply “worrying too much over nothing.” This isn’t helpful.
In Chapter 8 we outline the steps you can take to improve interactions with
your doctor and to help your doctor help you. We also provide practical decision
rules to help you determine when you should visit your doctor. This is critical.
We want you to get to the point at which you seek out medical advice only
when it’s absolutely essential. Chapter 9 is designed to help you help your family
and friends understand what you’re going through and how they can best help
you manage and recover. Finally, in Chapter 10 we outline additional things you
can do to get on with enjoying life, strategies for dealing with flare-ups of health
anxiety, and, if needed, the types of specialized treatments that are available to
you and guidelines for deciding when and how to go about getting this type of
help. We’ve provided a number of worksheets for you to work through. You can
complete them in the book or make copies from the ones at the back of the
book. Now let’s get started!
Two
Body and Brain

It’s Not All in Your Head
Have you been told at some point, perhaps by your doctor, a friend, or a relative,
that the bodily sensations that are causing you worry are “all in your head”? The
implication of this message is that the things you experience in your body are
imagined rather than real. This message is false. We all experience bodily sensa-
tions on a daily basis, and sometimes we wonder why they’re occurring. A
pounding or racing heart. Shakiness. Throbbing temples. Tingling in the
ribcage. Chills. Dizziness. Stomach pain and discomfort. Heavy, aching limbs.
These sensations are real—all too real—and can occur for any number of rea-
sons. Sometimes they’re the harmless expressions of a properly functioning and
healthy body, sometimes they’re symptoms of common minor ailments, and less
often they’re symptoms of a serious medical condition. Quite often, though, peo-
ple with health anxiety misinterpret bodily sensations; that is, they believe these
sensations are signals of disease when they aren’t.
In this chapter we consider the causes of bodily sensations. We also look at
ways that you may have tried to understand these sensations—the personal the-
ories you’ve developed to explain them—and the path you took to arrive at the
belief that the sensations you experience are symptomatic of disease. By under-
standing the ways you came to the conclusion that harmless sensations indicate
that your health is in jeopardy, you’ll be able to uncover paths to other explana-
tions.
Why Do Bodily Sensations Occur?
The human body, much like a refrigerator or automobile, can be noisy at times.
And it can be noisy even when working properly. But where does the noise—
18
Body and Brain 19
these unwanted bodily sensations—come from, and why does it occur? There are
many different sources and reasons. For example, noise can arise from disrup-
tions to the typical day-to-day functioning of your body, such as might occur
from changes in your diet, activity levels, or sleeping habits. It can also arise as a
consequence of:
• Prolonged inactivity,
• Symptoms of minor ailments, or
• Arousal associated with fear, anxiety, and other emotions.
Let’s take a closer look at these sources of bodily sensations.
Changes in Routine
Many of us have a typical daily pattern of activity that we follow without much
deviation. We go to bed at the same time every night, get up at the same time
every morning, go through the same series of steps in getting ourselves or loved
ones ready for the day, take the same route to work, and so on. However, in
today’s world, it’s not uncommon for our routines to be disrupted at times. This
can happen intentionally, such as when we decide to become more active and
start exercising on a regular basis. It can also occur unexpectedly. For example,
you may get stuck in a traffic jam that delays your getting home, or you might
have a night when despite your best efforts you simply can’t sleep well. Whether
intentional or unexpected, changes to routine can trigger a number of bodily
changes, even in people who are healthy.
Think about the last time you slept poorly. How did you feel the next day?
In addition to being tired, did you feel shaky, have achy, painful, and tense mus-
cles, and eyes that seemed dry and blurry? Perhaps you felt a number of other
bodily sensations as well. Headachy? Sluggish? Detached from things? It’s not
unusual to feel these things following poor sleep. Similarly, changes in activity,
such as exercise or overexertion, can promote immediately noticeable increases
in heart rate and breathing rate during activity, hunger pangs and stomach activ-
ity shortly after, and muscle tenderness, aching, and shakiness in the hours and
days that follow.
There are, in fact, an almost endless number of changes in routine that can
promote noise in your body. Short-term changes to your diet can induce mild
hypoglycemia (low blood sugar levels) that, in turn, can produce faintness,
sweating, and increased heart rate. Going quickly from a sitting to standing posi-
tion can lead to temporary dizziness as the result of rapid changes in blood pres-
sure. Exposure to cold can lead to shivering and numbness, whereas too much
heat can induce sweating, thirst, lightheadedness, and headache. Consuming
alcohol or marijuana can induce a variety of sensations, as can spinning in cir-
cles or riding on a roller coaster. The critical issue is whether the bodily noise
resulting from changes to your typical routine is indicative of an impending

threat to your well-being. If you don’t recognize that there are many possible
harmless causes of these bodily sensations, you might mistakenly conclude that
the sensations are signs of some serious disease.
Inactivity
Being inactive over a period of months, or sometimes even just a few days, is
associated with poor cardiovascular fitness, muscle weakness, and fatigue. Some
of the most common sensations experienced by somebody who is out of shape
are:
• Shortness of breath,
• Pounding or racing heart,
• Muscle aches and pains, and
• General feelings of fatigue and tiredness.
When an inactive person resumes a more active lifestyle, he or she will, as

described earlier, experience a number or immediate and short-lived bodily sen-
sations as a result of these altered routines.
Inactivity can also influence bodily sensations in other ways. Transient (or
temporary) inactivity in an otherwise active person can produce a number of
sensations. Most of us have, for example, experienced “numb bum” after sitting
for lengthy periods during a long movie or lengthy road trip. Likewise, prolonged
and continuing inactivity in an inactive person can lead to bodily noise. Forty-
one-year-old Bill, a computer programmer, typically spent eight hours a day at
his computer, rushed home to help prepare dinner and put the children to bed,
and relaxed for several hours in front of the TV before going to bed. As a result
of his inactivity at work and during leisure time, Bill experienced persistent low
back and neck pain, as well as a general feeling of fatigue. Bill’s concern was that
the sensations of pain in his back and neck muscles were the result of Lou Geh-
rig’s disease and that he would soon become immobile and, shortly thereafter,
die. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that his general inactivity could
have something to do with these worrisome sensations.
Minor Ailments
Many minor ailments can produce unpleasant bodily sensations. For example,
stomach upset can lead to bowel cramping, constipation, bloating, and pressure.
In some cases, stomach upset can also cause sensations of chest tightness or pain.
So can minor straining of the intercostal muscles (the muscles between the ribs).
Likewise, dyspepsia, or heartburn, can lead to chest pain, burning sensations in
the upper gastrointestinal tract, and feelings of nausea. Allergies can make one’s
Body and Brain 21
inner chest and ribs feel “scratchy” or “tingly” and produce considerable conges-
tion and pressure in the head (making it feel like it could explode) and shortness
of breath, and they often cause episodes of coughing or sneezing. Diarrhea can
produce discomfort and sensations of burning in the anal region. In Table 1
we’ve listed some of the more common minor ailments that people experience
and the bodily sensations that they produce. This list is by no means complete,
but it illustrates the many sensations that are associated with these conditions.
Keep in mind that, although these sensations are bothersome, they are generally
harmless. That is, they don’t generally produce serious adverse effects on physical
health or death.
Anxiety and Other Emotions

The human body is designed to maintain homeostasis, or balance, in its many
functions. This balance is achieved, in part, through the operation of a specific
part of the human nervous system called the autonomic nervous system, which is
divided into the parasympathetic division and the sympathetic division. Each
division has a different effect on the functions of many organs and muscles of the
body. (A third part of the autonomic nervous system, called the enteric nervous
system, meaning “gut brain,” supplies the nerves to the gastrointestinal tract,
pancreas, and gall bladder.) Generally speaking, the operation of the autonomic
nervous system is beyond our control. It is involuntary and reflexive and is not
something that we notice during a typical day. Table 2 shows the two main divi-
sions of the autonomic nervous system and their effects on various body systems.
The parasympathetic division operates during periods of what we might call
“business as usual,” keeping the body functioning in a relaxed and balanced
TABLE 1. Common Ailments and the Bodily Sensations They Produce

Ailment Typical sensation(s)
Headache Head pain, throbbing, blurry vision

Cough/cold Sore threat, chest tightness
Diarrhea Stomach and intestinal pain, cramping, burning
Skin problems Itching
Muscle soreness Aching, heaviness, stabbing or shooting pains
Sinus congestion Head pain, pressure, throbbing, difficulty breathing
Heartburn Chest pain, burning in gastrointestinal tract, nausea
Menstrual cramps Abdominal pain, low back pain, bloating
Allergies Swelling, itching, head pressure, shortness of breath
TABLE 2. Body Systems and Structures Affected by the Parasympathetic

and Sympathetic Divisions of the Autonomic Nervous System
Body system Parasympathetic effect Sympathetic effect
Pupil Constriction Dilation

Salivary glands Increased saliva production Decreased saliva production
(moist mouth) (dry mouth)
Mucosa (oral Increased mucus production Decreased mucus production
and nasal) (moist mouth and nasal cavity) (dry mouth and nasal cavity)
Heart Decreased rate and contractile Increased rate and contractile
force force
Larynx, trachea, Contracted (slow breathing) Relaxed (rapid breathing)
bronchi, and lungs
Stomach and small Increased digestive processes Decreased digestive processes
intestine
Adrenal gland Secretion of epinephrine and
norepinephrine
Large intestine Increased movement Decreased movement
Kidney Increased urine secretion Decreased urine secretion
Bladder Contracted and sphincter Relaxed and sphincter closed
relaxed
Liver Increased conversion of
glycogen to glucose (increased
energy supply)
state. The heart beats at an average rate, breathing is steady and unlabored, and
digestive processes are active. The sympathetic division, on the other hand, is
activated during times of excitement and stress. The classic example of the oper-
ation of the sympathetic division is the “fight or flight” response. Recall the
example in Chapter 1 of being pulled into an alley by a mugger. In this situation,
your sympathetic nervous system is called into action in order to support your
efforts to survive, whether that involves running away or fighting back. What
happens?
• Your blood pressure increases.

• Your heart pumps more rapidly.
• Blood is restricted from flowing to your arms and legs.
• Your breathing rate increases.
• Digestive processes are put on hold.
• You feel keyed up and are prepared to defend yourself or flee from the
mugger.
Body and Brain 23
This type of bodily activation occurs not only in response to fear-provoking situ-
ations, such as facing a mugger, but also to such things as changes in room tem-
perature, anxiety, surprise, and pain. Note the number of different bodily systems
that are affected by changes in autonomic nervous system functioning. Most of
these systems produce certain “noises” in the body when influenced by one of
the autonomic nervous system divisions. These noises, although part and parcel
of a properly functioning body, are often misinterpreted by people with health
anxiety as being part of a serious disease. Stan, for example, felt his heart pound
and became short of breath every time he played baseball. Although he had
been an active person his whole life, and despite having passed a treadmill test
that his doctor used to evaluate his heart, he worried that his heart was weak and
that he would have a heart attack. He hadn’t considered that his body was react-
ing to the excitement he felt when playing ball.
Trying to Understand Bodily Sensations:

Symptom of Disease or Not?
Bodily sensations trigger thoughts that help us determine whether the feeling
signals a threat to our well-being and whether we need to respond to it in order
to minimize harm to our health and disruption to our daily activities (for exam-
ple, by seeking our doctor’s opinion). What’s causing this sensation? we ask our-
selves, consciously or unconsciously. Is it a result of an injury or disease? Should I
report the sensation to my doctor and have it checked out?
On Signs and Symptoms

A bodily sensation that’s perceived as being unpleasant and assumed to be a con-
sequence of a disease is referred to as a symptom. This means that all the sensa-
tions we discussed as possible products of a healthy and properly functioning
body can be referred to as symptoms under certain circumstances. Sensations are
considered symptoms when they:
• Are perceived as being troublesome and cause disruption to your daily

activities,
• Are believed to have some link to disease, and
• Lead to self-care (for example, resting, taking over-the-counter medica-
tions) or seeking advice from a health care professional.
The symptoms you experience can’t be seen or felt by others. They’re subjective,
and thus the only way they can be understood by another person, such as your
doctor, is through your description of what you are feeling in your body. Think
about the last time you experienced pain. How did you let others know about it?
You couldn’t show them your pain, so you probably tried to describe it to them.
“It hurts so bad. It feels like someone has split my head open with an axe and
pierced my eyes with ice picks.” Contrast this to a sign. A sign is an easily
observed marker of possible injury or pathology. For example, swelling around
the ankle after one has fallen is a sign that some part of the ankle, perhaps liga-
ments or tendons, may be damaged. An increase in the number of a particular
type of white blood cell is a sign that cancer may be present. Despite differences
between symptoms and signs—symptoms being subjective and signs directly
observable—both are real experiences.
You may be concerned with both signs and symptoms. It’s the symptoms,
however, that most people with health anxiety find most bothersome and con-
cerning. Why? Symptoms are a reflection of (1) your perception of what is going
on in your body and (2) your interpretation of the importance of this to your
health and well-being. Symptoms, by definition, occur when the body produces
sensations that we believe to be out of place. So any noise in your body is a
symptom of disease if you believe it is caused by disease. But the presence of
symptoms doesn’t equal the presence of disease. Similarly, signs of disease don’t
equal the presence of disease. Recall Sarah, introduced in Chapter 1. The lumps
in her breasts were signs that cancer might be present. It wasn’t. The lumps were
benign (harmless) fibrous tissue that many women develop as they grow older.
This type of misinterpretation—thinking that bodily sensations and observable
signs of possible disease are disease—is very common. This is true for all of us,
but particularly so for people with a lot of health anxiety.
(Mis)Interpreting Signs and Symptoms

In trying to understand the signs and symptoms we experience, we go through a
process similar to that of any trained medical doctor diagnosing a patient. We
first collect information about the symptom:
• When did it begin?

• How much discomfort is there?
• Does it get better or worse under certain conditions or at certain times?
These data are then used to make a tentative diagnosis. Most of us go

through this process before arriving at the doctor’s office and, as a result, have
our own idea of what might be wrong. We might consult family and friends for
their opinions (“What do you think it is?” “Based on what I have told you, do
you think I might have a brain tumor?”) and seek advice on actions to be
taken.
Our tentative diagnosis is typically placed in the context of what we know
and have learned about disease. This means that our past history with disease,
Body and Brain 25
our understanding of disease processes, and societal influences on what symp-

toms mean and on how we report them all have an impact on the way we inter-
pret our signs and symptoms. For example, growing up we learn that certain sen-
sations are associated with certain conditions and that these conditions have
consequences and methods of treatment. Consider throbbing in the right tem-
ple. What does this symptom typically indicate? What are its consequences and
how might the symptom be relieved? Most people associate this particular symp-
tom with a diagnosis of headache. We’ve learned through personal experience, or
from observing a parent or sibling, that headaches place limits on the things we
do when we have one. What we’ve learned will also influence whether we rest,
take an over-the-counter painkiller, or visit the doctor to get relief from the
headache. However, if your father told you he was having throbbing in the right
temple just prior to having a stroke, you may respond to throbbing in your head
quite differently. You may think, “Oh my, it’s happening to me too!” The bottom
line is that our experiences shape the way we interpret and, in some cases, misin-
terpret noise in our bodies.
Let’s look at the possible outcomes that exist between symptom interpre-
tation and disease. As shown in Figure 1, there are four possibilities. These
include (1) hits, (2) misses, (3) correct rejections, and (4) false alarms. Hits
occur when a person reports a symptom that is related to an identifiable dis-
ease process. For example, a hit occurred when Farley reported symptoms of
faintness and radiating chest pain that were determined by his doctor to result
from coronary artery disease. In this case, the symptoms indicated disease. A
miss would have occurred had he not reported his symptoms, preferring to wait
until the next week to do so or believing them to be due to passing indiges-
tion despite actually having a disease. Correct rejections occur when a person
chooses to manage his or her own symptoms of a minor ailment (such as chest
pain and gastrointestinal irritation associated with heartburn) or when he or
Bodily “noise” caused by minor

Bodily “noise” caused by ailment or regular body
serious disease functioning
Symptom reported Hit (serious situation correctly False alarm (minor symptoms or
identified) harmless sensations prompt
worry and medical attention)
Symptom not reported Miss (serious situation not Correct rejection (minor
attended to) symptoms or harmless
sensations self-managed or
ignored)
FIGURE 1. Four possible scenarios between symptoms and disease.

she ignores (does not attribute to disease) harmless bodily noise. False alarms
occur when medical advice is sought for symptoms of minor ailments or bodily
noise associated with the functioning of a healthy body. Had Farley’s symp-
toms been the result of heartburn, rather than coronary artery disease, his visit
to the doctor would have been a false alarm. These four possible scenarios
apply to signs, as well.
Hits and correct rejections represent accurate interpretations of bodily sen-
sations and symptoms and lead to appropriately targeted use of the health care
system. Misses and false alarms, on the other hand, represent misinterpretations
of bodily signs and sensations. The consequences of a miss can be severe. Had
Farley chosen to ignore or put off seeking a doctor’s advice regarding his symp-
toms of lightheadedness and chest pain, he might have suffered a heart attack.
The consequences of false alarms, especially when the interpretive process that
leads to them occurs repeatedly and over long periods of time, can also be serious
because health anxiety is maintained at high levels and because it leads to
uncalled-for use of a doctor’s time. False alarms are very common in people with
health anxiety.
List the signs and symptoms you’ve experienced in the past week or two on
Worksheet 1. Try to list as many as you can. If you’ve had the same sign or symp-
tom more than once during this time, list it as many times as you recall having
had it. Beside each sign or symptom, indicate what you thought was wrong, how
much anxiety you had, how you responded, and, if you visited a doctor about the
symptom, what medical diagnosis you received. Finally, based on all the infor-
mation you have at this point, make a decision as to whether each of the signs
and symptoms listed represents a hit, a miss, a correct rejection, or a false alarm.
You can refer back to this worksheet as we explore explanations other than disease
for the situations in which you experienced false alarms.
Although misses and false alarms both have potentially serious conse-
quences, the false alarms are most relevant in the context of health anxiety. Dr.
Howard Leventhal, a noted authority on the psychology of symptom perception,
suggests that false alarms are more likely to occur when a person is fearful or anx-
ious about the meaning of a symptom. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that
although all people are prone to having false alarms, those with health anxiety
tend to have more of them. But why this is the case?
Selective Attention
People with health anxiety usually consider themselves to be especially sensitive

to bodily sensations and report experiencing more pain and other unpleasant
bodily sensations than people who are not anxious about their health. This has
led some experts to wonder whether people with health anxiety are better than
others at detecting even the slightest noises in their bodies. The research,
Worksheet 1. Symptom Interpretation Form
Intensity of
Day and date Symptom Initial thoughts anxiety (0–100) Response Medical opinion Scenario
Example Heart racing Believed I was 90 Rushed to Nothing wrong. False alarm
and shortness having a heart emergency Likely an
of breath attack room anxiety attack
Example Headache and Thought it 25 Went to doctor Sinus infection Hit (for the
sore eyes might be a the next day cold)
brain tumor
but more likely
a cold
Example Lumps in right Thought I had 99 Visited several Harmless False alarm
breast breast cancer doctors and fibroids
specialists
27
although still inconclusive, doesn’t provide convincing evidence for this. It

could be that people with health anxiety have really noisy bodies rather than
that they are more sensitive about detecting what’s going on in their bodies. In
other words, if you’re anxious about your health, you may experience more
bodily sensations—pain, aches, itching, heart palpitation, upset stomach, head
pressure—than do other people.
Extra bodily noise could be related to biological factors. Very little research
has been done in this area. Although differences in certain brain structures and
neurotransmitters that influence bodily sensations may be important, we really
don’t know enough at this point to be sure of this. Another explanation that we
know more about has to do with the way people with health anxiety pay atten-
tion to things.
Growing evidence shows that people with health anxiety spend too much
time paying attention to their bodies. And when attention is so focused on
something, we tend to notice it more. Consider, for example, the mother and
father of a new baby who has just been put to sleep. Wanting to be prepared
to respond when needed, they listen carefully for any noises the baby might
make. They even use a baby monitor that allows them to better hear whatever
happens in the baby’s room. While going about other household activities
they are very attentive, not only to sounds made by the baby but to all noises
in the house. Listening for the baby, it seems, alerts them to sounds they once
didn’t notice—creaks in the floor, the refrigerator motor running, a flyer being
dropped in the mailbox. The same thing occurs when your attention is
directed inward to the functioning of your body. Look back at the symptoms
you reported in Worksheet 1. Are there instances when you focused most of
your attention on the symptom? Did this make the symptoms worse? Did it
increase your anxiety?
The research tends to support this idea. People who report having current
symptoms, as well as those who do not, report more symptoms when a researcher
asks them to deliberately focus attention on their bodies. This phenomenon is
rather easy to demonstrate. To do so, you can try the following: Say to a friend “I
just saw a small spider crawling on my pant leg. I’m not sure where it went. I’m
feeling kind of scratchy and crawly.” Now watch your friend for a few minutes to
see if he or she checks or scratches his or her body any more than usual. Your
friend may even tell you he or she is now feeling the same way. Similarly, in our
own research we’ve found that people with high levels of health anxiety, but not
those without, selectively pay attention to words that depict disease states or
outcomes—words such as tumor, stroke, palpitations, and death. These examples
suggest that focusing attention on the internal functions of the body, as well as
on things in the environment (such as media reports about the causes and con-
sequences of disease), can create noise in the body that is misinterpreted as
being related to disease.
Body and Brain 29
Several things increase the likelihood that you’ll pay close attention to your
body. These include:
• The degree to which you’re focused on other things,

• Other people attending to and discussing the type of sensation you’re
experiencing,
• A general tendency to amplify (or overstate) the discomfort associated
with sensations resulting from typical body functions, and
• Your beliefs about health and sickness.
Body versus External Focus

Our ability to attend to things is limited. That is, attention is a resource that can
“run out.” You’ve likely experienced situations in which you’ve run out of atten-
tion, such as sitting through a very long and boring meeting or trying to listen
and respond to several people who are all talking to you at the same time. If your
attention is focused on a task outside of your body, you’re far less likely to notice
bodily sensations. We’re less likely to notice “numb bum” when completely
engaged by a movie. Athletes who experience injury during competition and
soldiers wounded in battle often don’t notice their condition until later on.
Why? Because their attention is focused on things occurring outside of their
bodies. On the other hand, when nothing else is grabbing your attention, you’re
more likely to notice bodily sensations.
Influence of Others
If other people are paying attention to bodily sensations and symptoms, you’re
more likely to do so as well. If you tried the “spider demonstration,” you would
have observed this effect. When others scratch, yawn, or cough, we’re more
likely to do so, particularly when there is little else going on around us. Also,
news reports can draw our attention to the body and the sensations it produces.
In 2003 there was a rash of media reports on bioterrorism and SARS, indicating,
for example, that coughing and fever may be a sign of infection. Although these
types of reports make us all vigilant toward our own coughing (and that of oth-
ers) and body temperature, people with health anxiety are more likely to attrib-
ute the cough to infection from anthrax or the SARS virus. This, of course, is
only one of many examples of how the media can influence your paying atten-
tion to your body and the sensations it produces. Is it possible that some of the
signs and symptoms you reported in Worksheet 1 were influenced by others? For
example, seeing a news piece on breast cancer or talking about a relative who
recently was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis can increase the bodily sensations
and symptoms you experience.
Somatic Amplification
Some people have what Dr. Arthur Barsky, a noted authority on health anxiety,
has called an amplifying somatic style. This style is characterized by the tendency
to attend to and be bothered by a wide range of bodily sensations that aren’t
generally related to disease. This amplifying somatic style is believed to be a trait
that may be biologically based or a product of learning during the early years of
childhood. Research suggests that people who have a somatic amplifying style
are prone to attend to noise in their body and to be bothered by it. If you scored
high on the self-test of health anxiety presented in Chapter 1 (the Whiteley
Index) you may well have an amplifying somatic style.
Beliefs about Health and Sickness

This topic is so important that we’ll focus on it in detail in Chapter 6. Your
beliefs about the meaning of bodily sensations as they relate to health and sick-
ness influence both the amount of attention you pay to sensations and the way
you interpret them. How? As we’ve already pointed out, everybody experiences
noise in the body, even when the body is healthy and properly functioning. But
people with too much health anxiety tend to equate bodily noise with disease
(“When I feel sensations is my body, it must be because I’m sick”) and, con-
versely, the absence of bodily noise with good health (“I haven’t had any bodily
sensations recently, so my health must be pretty good”; “John says he’s never
bothered by sensations in his body; he must be super healthy”). These beliefs are
helpful to some degree because they alert us that something may be wrong and
that we should visit the doctor (the hits discussed earlier). However, when you
believe that many or, in some cases, all bodily sensations are caused by disease,
you will be focusing attention inward on these sensations, and you will have
more false alarms and general anxiety about health and well-being.
The Vicious Cycle: Anxiety Revisited
We’ve made several important points so far:
• All people, including those who are healthy, experience noise in their
bodies.
• There are many sources of bodily noise. The noise is real.
• When the noise is bothersome and prompts a desire to seek care from a
health professional, it’s called a symptom. Symptoms, although subjective
and personal in nature, are real.
• People with health anxiety tend to focus their attention on their bodies
Body and Brain 31
and seem to experience more symptoms. They continuously monitor and

check their signs and symptoms.
• The signs and symptoms reported by those with health anxiety are most
often not related to a disease; that is, they are false alarms.
Considering these points, it seems logical that if your doctor assures you that
a sign or symptom is not related to a disease, then your concern should be
resolved. For example, once the doctor determines that the persistent throbbing
you reported experiencing in your right temple isn’t related to stroke or a brain
tumor, your worry about the throbbing should end. As you know, this isn’t the
case. Although your worry may decrease for a while, you soon begin checking for
sensations, notice them, and, once again, interpret them as indicating that
something is seriously wrong. Other sensations you notice may also cause you
concern and additional worry.
Why does this persistent worry occur? We’ll help you find the answer to this
question. You already have some of the pieces of the puzzle. In Chapter 1 we
described anxiety as an emotional reaction that occurs when you anticipate
something bad happening but are uncertain that it will. In the case of health
anxiety, you believe your health and well-being are threatened. The tricky thing
about anxiety, particularly as it relates to perceptions of your own health, is that
the anxiety itself causes numerous bodily sensations (and weakens your body to
some degree, making you somewhat more susceptible to minor ailments). You
might interpret these sensations of anxiety themselves as being disease related
rather than as a normal body response to a situation of worry. Recall that anxiety
affects the way we behave. It may increase the likelihood that we’ll check our
bodies for signs or symptoms of disease or that we’ll avoid things that make us
uncomfortable. It also affects the way we think about and interpret things
(“Something terrible is going to happen”). In turn, our behaviors and thoughts
can influence the physical responses within our bodies.
We often think of persistent anxiety as a vicious and nasty cycle that’s self-
perpetuating. A simple illustration of this cycle as it relates to health anxiety is
provided in Figure 2. Your challenge, and ours, is to break this cycle. You can do
this by changing the way you attend to and interpret bodily noise and by learn-
ing how to go about your daily activities in a way that promotes a sense of well-
being. Look back at Worksheet 1 to the false-alarm scenario that you rated as
creating the most anxiety. The sign or symptom you listed was real; it caused you
concern and you sought a medical opinion. But the doctor told you that nothing
was wrong. Assuming that your doctor did a thorough assessment and that dis-
ease is not responsible for your signs or symptoms, something else must be caus-
ing them. The purpose of this chapter has been to point out several alternative
explanations for the signs and symptoms that lead to false alarms. Could they be
a result of your being concerned about and making an honest misinterpretation
FIGURE 2. The vicious cycle of health anxiety.
of the noises that occur in an otherwise healthy body? Could you be stuck in the
health anxiety cycle? On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being not at all likely and 10
being very likely, rate how likely you believe this to be possible.
If your rating was 1 or higher, then we’re ready to move forward. We’ll
tackle the strategies for breaking the anxiety cycle in detail in the chapters of
Part II. But—and this is an important but, so don’t skip forward just yet—before
learning these strategies it’s important to learn about other factors that may be at
play in your situation, as these may affect the way in which you’ll go about
breaking the anxiety cycle. Health anxiety is commonly associated with other
anxiety disorders and with depressed mood. The ways in which you can assess
yourself for other types of anxiety and depression and the impact they have on
health anxiety are covered in detail in the following two chapters.
Three
Do I Have Some Other

Anxiety Disorder?
Anxiety can be an adaptive response to situations in which the outcome is

uncertain. However, when it occurs in excess, anxiety can be emotionally devas-
tating. This type of anxiety is usually very intense, and it can last for exceedingly
long periods of time (months or even years). It also creates difficulties in your
relationships with friends and family and your ability to do your job. Anxiety
responses that occur over and above what is needed for effective functioning
(and for surviving in a world filled with uncertainty) are commonly called anxi-
ety disorders.
Diagnostic criteria have been established for a number of specific anxiety
disorders. We and many other therapists like to consider excessive health anxi-
ety an anxiety disorder because it shares many characteristics with the other
anxiety disorders. Technically speaking, though, it’s classified as a somatoform
disorder. (Recall from Chapter 1 that this is a set of disorders characterized by
physical symptoms for which there is no clear medical explanation.) The major
anxiety disorders described by the American Psychiatric Association in their
widely used DSM-IV-TR include:
• Agoraphobia,
• Panic disorder,
• Specific phobia,
• Social phobia (or social anxiety disorder),
• Obsessive–compulsive disorder,
• Posttraumatic stress disorder,
33
• Acute stress disorder,

• Generalized anxiety disorder,
• Anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition, and
• Substance-induced anxiety disorder.
It’s common for people with health anxiety to also have one or more of
these anxiety disorders. Likewise, people who have one of these anxiety disor-
ders often have significant health-related worries. Research has shown that
panic disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder
have the most in common with health anxiety.
You may have one or more of these anxiety disorders, or you may not have
any other anxiety disorder aside from your health anxiety. In this chapter we’ll
introduce you to several things that are important to understanding and dealing
with anxiety disorders. First, we briefly describe the essential features of the
three major anxiety disorders that often occur along with health anxiety. We
also provide some screening questions that will allow you to determine whether
you might have one of the anxiety disorders described. Second, we talk about
some of the reasons that these anxiety disorders might occur at the same time as
health anxiety. Finally, we wrap up the chapter with an overview of some treat-
ment options available for panic disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and
generalized anxiety disorder.
Common Overlapping Anxiety Disorders
Panic Disorder
Barry: “It hit me out of the blue, like a speeding truck.”

Barry, a 26-year-old photographer, went to the university health clinic
after repeatedly experiencing a wildly pounding and rapidly beating
heart, difficulty breathing, and light-headedness. His first attack had
occurred about a year before while he was at home relaxing on the sofa:
“I was feeling quite relaxed. Then, suddenly, I began feeling my heart
pounding and I became very anxious. Panicky in fact. It hit me out of
the blue, like a speeding truck. I had no idea what was going on, but the
thought crossed my mind that I might be having a heart attack. I could-
n’t breathe and I felt lightheaded. It was very weird, and I felt as if I
might lose control of myself.” He rushed to the emergency room. Fol-
lowing a brief medical evaluation, he was sent home with assurances
that nothing was wrong with his heart and he was just having an attack
of anxiety. Over the next few weeks Barry continued having attacks
Do I Have Some Other Disorder? 35
spontaneously. Most of these attacks occurred during the day and, with
one exception, didn’t occur during sleep. The sensations were often so
intense that he worried that his heart might “explode.” He began avoid-
ing many of his work assignments and had great difficulty leaving his
studio for fear that he’d have another attack and lose control. When a
coworker commented on the noticeable change in his work habits,
Barry decided he should seek help.
A psychologist at the university health clinic assessed Barry and determined

that he had panic disorder. This is an anxiety disorder characterized by abrupt
and recurrent episodes of intense apprehension and fear—or panic attacks—that
often occur without apparent provocation. These so-called panic attacks are
very uncomfortable. They usually last for short periods and reach their peak
intensity within 10 minutes. A panic attack is said to have occurred if a person
experiences four or more of the 13 symptoms shown in Table 3. The term limited
symptom attack is used to refer to panic-like episodes that have fewer than four
symptoms.
To be diagnosed with panic disorder, you must have recurrent and unex-
pected panic attacks. That is, the attacks must occur out of the blue (or in the
absence of any apparent danger). At least one of the unexpected panic attacks
must be associated with one or more of the following:
TABLE 3. Possible Symptoms of a Panic Attack

1. Palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate
2. Sweating
3. Trembling or shaking
4. Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
5. Feelings of choking
6. Chest pain or discomfort
7. Nausea or abdominal distress
8. Feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed, or faint
9. Derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization
(being detached from yourself)
10. Fear of losing control or going crazy
11. Fear of dying
12. Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations)
13. Chills or hot flashes
• Persistent concern about having more attacks,

• Worry about the implications and consequences of the attacks,
• Changes in typical patterns of behavior as a result of the attacks (for
example, avoidance of work or school activities).
If you panicked only when faced with a real or potentially real threat,
such as coming face-to-face with a grizzly bear or thinking about taking an
exam, you wouldn’t be diagnosed with panic disorder. Furthermore, a doctor
has to determine that your attacks aren’t the result of a drug or medication or
a general medical condition. For example, drinking excessive amounts of cof-
fee or other caffeinated drinks can cause symptoms that resemble panic. So
can low blood-sugar levels or an overactive thyroid gland. These need to be
ruled out.
Like Barry, many people experience panic attacks for no apparent reason. In
fact, somewhere between 4 and 11 percent of the population will experience an
unexpected panic attack at some time in their lives. Somewhere between 1 and
2 percent will be diagnosed with panic disorder and, of these people, one-third
to one-half will also develop agoraphobia. Agoraphobia refers to fear and avoid-
ance of specific places or situations in which escape might be difficult (or embar-
rassing) if a panic attack happened. Going to a shopping mall, being in open
spaces, and standing in line are commonly avoided. The onset of symptoms for
many people will begin between the ages of 25 and 30, as was the case for Barry.
Late adolescence is another common period for symptoms to begin (15 to 19
years). Panic disorder is diagnosed in women slightly more than twice as often as
in men. If left untreated, it’s usually troublesome for long periods of time (that is,
it can be a chronic condition).
Several questions might help determine whether you currently have panic
disorder. Ask yourself the following questions:
• Have you ever had a panic attack? (Remember that this means having an
abrupt episode of intense fear or apprehension, with at least 4 of the symp-
toms listed in Table 3, which last for about 10 minutes.)
• Have you ever had a panic attack that has occurred unexpectedly for no
apparent reason? The attack would not have been provoked by a situation
or an event that caused you to be fearful (such as being mugged or wit-
nessing a terrible accident).
• Have you had more than one unexpected panic attack?
• Do you worry a lot about having more panic attacks or that having a
panic attack may harm you mentally or physically?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, there is a strong possibility that
you have panic disorder. As we pointed out in Chapter 1, only an evaluation by
an experienced doctor or mental health professional can determine whether you
have an anxiety disorder. If you think you might have panic disorder, we recom-
mend you get it checked out professionally. The symptoms of panic can cause
heightened concerns about physical health and, in many cases, addressing the
tendency to panic also reduces the health concerns. We describe several treat-
ment options for panic disorder at the end of this chapter.
Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder
Martha: “The thought of them being contaminated just wouldn’t go

away.”
Martha, a 29-year-old homemaker and mother of two toddlers, was
referred by her doctor to a mental health clinic for help with feelings of
depression. A psychologist completed a thorough assessment of Martha.
During the assessment it came to light that she had had thoughts of sui-
cide. But she also was having recurrent and unstoppable thoughts that
she might spread germs to her children. These thoughts had become
particularly noticeable since the birth of her first child, almost two years
ago, and were related to Martha’s belief that she was prone to bacterial
infection. Her main concerns revolved around her and her children
becoming infected by bacteria from contaminated food and from feces.
She spent hours each day scrubbing her hands, cleaning the kitchen
countertop and appliances, and disinfecting the children’s eating uten-
sils and cups. She also spent a lot of time each day washing the children
after they used the washroom. “The thought of them being contami-
nated just wouldn’t go away. So I washed everything over and over
again. In the past few weeks I’ve spent so much time making sure that
everything is germ-free that sometimes the kids have missed being fed.
And their hands and faces, not to mention other parts, are starting to
become dry and cracked from me scrubbing so much. Now I’m afraid
that I may be as much of a threat to my kids as are the germs.” Martha
hadn’t previously told anybody about these concerns, and she’d man-
aged to hide her worries from her husband. She feared that he wouldn’t
understand.
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder that’s characterized by

two distinct things—obsessions and compulsions—that can occur alone or
together. Obsessions are recurring ideas, thoughts, or impulses that intrude on
the mind, are disturbing in nature, and can’t be easily dismissed. Common obses-
sions are thoughts of being contaminated by germs, recurring doubts that you
haven’t locked the door, and thoughts of causing harm to loved ones. These
obsessions are not simply excessive worries about real problems that a person is
having. They are worries that don’t make much sense. For example, there wasn’t
any compelling reason for Martha to believe that she was more likely than any-
one else to carry around bacteria. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that a
person feels a need to perform in response to an obsession. The most common
compulsions are washing, checking, and counting. These behaviors can be
observable, such as repeated hand washing. They can also be mental, such as
thinking a “good” thought so as to undo a “bad” thought. They’re performed as a
way to provide temporary relief from the feelings of anxiety. Martha’s anxiety
was reduced at first by scrubbing everything from countertops to her children’s
skin. The vast majority of people with obsessive–compulsive disorder have both
obsessions and compulsions.
To be diagnosed with obsessive–compulsive disorder, you must have an
obsession, a compulsion, or both. The obsession or compulsion has to create sig-
nificant emotional distress, take up considerable amounts of time (an hour or
more daily), or disrupt your ability to work or function properly in social situa-
tions. At some point during the disorder, you have to realize that the obsession
or compulsion is excessive or unreasonable. When Martha noticed that washing
was making her children’s skin dry and cracking and causing them discomfort,
she turned the corner to recognizing that her worries about bacteria were a bit
much. Finally, as with panic disorder, a doctor needs to determine that the
obsessions or compulsions aren’t due to a drug or medication that you’re using or
to a general medical condition that you may have.
Martha is one of the approximate 2 to 3 percent of the population who will
experience significant obsessions or compulsions during their lives. The symp-
toms can get worse during times of stress. Depression also commonly occurs with
the disorder, as it did in Martha’s case, and is associated with worsening of symp-
toms. For most people, obsessive–compulsive disorder is diagnosed during late
adolescence and early adulthood, but people typically report that some of their
symptoms began to show during childhood. Although men may have an ear-
lier age of onset, women are just slightly more likely to develop obsessive–
compulsive disorder. The disorder is chronic if untreated.
To determine whether you might have obsessive–compulsive disorder,
answer the following questions:
• Do you have recurring and unwanted ideas, thoughts, or impulses that you
can’t get out of your head despite your best efforts? These might include
things such as thinking about harming a friend or relative, being overly
concerned about germs and dirt, or fearing that you’ve forgotten to lock
the door.
• Do you feel a need to perform certain actions repeatedly, finding them
hard to resist? This might include things such as washing your hands
repeatedly, checking over and over that you have locked the door or
turned off the stove, counting before doing something, or thinking a
“good” thought for every “bad” thought you have.
If you answered yes to either of these questions, there is a chance that you
may have obsessive–compulsive disorder. If you like, you can conduct a more
detailed self-test of your symptoms. You can do so easily by visiting the websites
of the National Institute of Mental Health, the Obsessive–Compulsive Founda-
tion, or the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and completing their
online screening tests. Scoring procedures are provided on the websites. These
tests, like other self-assessment tests described in this book, are usually used by
doctors and researchers. They do have limitations. You can use them to help
determine your specific symptoms and to discuss them with your doctor or men-
tal health professional. As with panic disorder, treating obsessions and compul-
sions can often reduce health-related worries. So they’re often the first targets
for treatment. Some treatment options for obsessive–compulsive disorder are
discussed at the end of this chapter.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive and uncontrollable worry about
everyday things that occurs more days than not for a period of at least six
months. People with this disorder usually anticipate the worst possible outcome
for whatever it is that they are worried about, although there usually aren’t any
signs of real trouble. They also find it very difficult not to worry. The focus of the
worry can range from the important to the ordinary. For example, the worry may
be about work-related or school-related matters, relationships, getting the bills
paid, the health and well-being of oneself or loved ones, being late for an
appointment, getting a chore done, and so on. Common symptoms include:
• Restlessness,
• Fatigue,
• Concentration difficulties,
• Irritability,
• Muscle tension, and
• Difficulties falling or staying asleep.
Because we all worry at times, it’s difficult to identify a point at which nor-
mal worry becomes excessive. DSM-IV-TR suggests that this point occurs when
the worry begins to cause a lot of distress or difficulties in important areas of day-
to-day functioning.
Jenn: “I’m going to get kicked out of the graduate program.”

Jenn, a 26-year-old graduate student, went to her doctor complaining
that she was having difficulty falling and staying asleep. She was
also having headaches almost every day that interfered with her
ability to focus and concentrate. Jenn was currently worried about
several things. First, she worried that her headaches might be related
to the onset of some serious and life-threatening disease. She re-
quested an MRI to see if this was the case. Second, because of her
recent lack of sleep and poor concentration, she worried that her
professor might not find her research to be of high enough quality.
She reported frequently waking during the night and feeling very
anxious about her many school-related responsibilities. “I worry that
I’m going to get kicked out of the graduate program.” She also
reported being extremely irritable and tense. During the evaluation
the doctor determined that Jenn’s headaches were less frequent during
a recent vacation and that she consistently received positive feedback
from her professor. In fact, she had the best marks in her class. Her
physical examination and lab tests all indicated her health to be
good.
To be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, you must have excessive

anxiety and worry. This anxiety and worry must occur more days than not over a
six-month period, must be about a number of events or activities, and can’t be
limited to anxiety and worry that’s related to other mental health conditions.
For example, your anxiety and worry can’t just be about having another panic
attack, as is the case in panic disorder. Nor can it just be about having a serious
disease, as is the case in hypochondriasis. As we mentioned before, the anxiety
and worry need to cause distress or impairment in day-to-day activities. As with
the other anxiety disorders, a doctor needs to establish that the anxiety and
worry aren’t due to the effects of a drug or medication or a general medical
condition such as hyperthyroidism or respiratory conditions. Jenn met all of
these conditions and, as a result, was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disor-
der.
About 5 percent of the population will experience generalized anxiety disor-
der at some point during their lives. It can develop at any age but appears to be
less prevalent in children than adults. In children and teens the focus of worry is
often related to doing well in school and sports. Women are just slightly more
likely than men to develop generalized anxiety disorder. Other conditions asso-
ciated with stress—insomnia, headache, and irritable bowel syndrome—com-
monly happen at the same time as this disorder. So do depression and some of
the other anxiety disorders.
Determining whether you might have generalized anxiety disorder involves
figuring out (1) how often you worry, (2) how many things you worry about, and
(3) how your worry influences your life. Take a moment to answer the following
questions:
• Have you been worrying about things, more days than not, during the past
six months?
• Do you worry about many different things despite there being no real
signs of trouble? This might include worrying about failing a class despite
having good grades or about not being able to pay the bills despite having
a stable and well-paying job, worrying about your marriage despite having
a great relationship with your spouse, and worrying that something terri-
ble will happen to a loved one despite knowing that their health is good.
• Do you have a hard time controlling your worry?
• Does your worry cause you distress or interfere with your ability to func-
tion during the day?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, there’s a strong possibility that
you have generalized anxiety disorder. We recommend that you discuss these
symptoms with your doctor or mental health professional. If you do have gener-
alized anxiety disorder, it’ll be easier to break the heath anxiety cycle after you
get your general worry under control. And, as with panic and obsessive–compul-
sive disorders, treating generalized anxiety disorder often leads to a big reduction
in health anxiety. Possible treatment options for generalized anxiety disorder are
outlined in the last section of this chapter.
Helpful Hint
People with health anxiety often have another anxiety disorder at the same
time. The anxiety disorders that have the most in common with health anxiety
are panic disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disor-
der. If the self-assessment exercises you did earlier indicate that you might have
one or more of these disorders, we strongly recommend that you discuss your
symptoms with your doctor or mental health professional. You can also discuss
the various treatment options described later and determine whether one might
be appropriate for you.
The Other Anxiety Disorders
We won’t discuss other anxiety disorders—specific phobias, social phobia, post-

traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, anxiety disorder due to a general
medical condition, or substance-induced anxiety disorder—in detail. A person
may have any of these disorders along with health anxiety. But because they
have less in common with health anxiety than panic disorder, obsessive–
compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, they’re less likely to com-
plicate health-related worries. If you feel that you might have one of these other
anxiety disorders, you can refer to the listing of additional reading materials and
related websites in the resource section at the end of this book.
Health Anxiety and the Overlapping Anxiety Disorders
Why do some of the anxiety disorders share characteristics with health anxiety?
Some researchers believe it’s because they have similar causes. These causes
might be biological in nature. They might also be related to the ways in which
people pay attention to and interpret things that they experience (as we dis-
cussed in Chapter 2). Most likely it’s some combination of these possibilities. At
this point we really don’t know. What we do know, however, is that all forms of
anxiety produce sensations in the body and that people with health anxiety
believe that these sensations mean that they are physically ill.
It’s important to know whether you also have one of the anxiety disorders
discussed here, because, if you do, it will be more difficult for you to manage your
health anxiety. This is especially true for panic disorder because the symptoms
often cause bodily sensations, such as a rapidly pounding heart, that can be per-
ceived as being dangerous to your health. It’s also true in cases of obsessive–
compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, such as those of Martha
and Jenn presented earlier, in which you may be concerned about catching or
having a serious disease. We can’t overstate the importance of your looking into
these conditions if you suspect you have one of them. Sometimes learning to
cope with these anxiety disorders can be the most effective way of reducing your
health-related worries.
Treatment Options for Anxiety Disorders
People with one of the anxiety disorders described here have a number of treat-
ment options. Choosing a particular method of treatment is often a matter of
preference. Some people prefer taking medications, whereas others opt for one
of the various forms of psychotherapy. Here we briefly describe some of the more
popular options (and ones for which there is evidence of effectiveness).
Medication
Several medications are effective in reducing the anxiety associated with panic
disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. For
panic disorder these include medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant medications Paxil, Zoloft, Serzone, and Celexa.
The benzodiazepine medications Xanax, Ativan, and Klonopin also work well
for people who panic (but their effects may not last as long as those of the SSRI
antidepressants). Obsessive–compulsive disorder is often effectively treated with

Anafranil and the SSRI medications Prozac, Luvox, Paxil, and Zoloft. Buspar
and the SSRI medications Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, and Serzone are effective in
relieving symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. Common side effects for
these SSRIs are shown in Table 4 in Chapter 4.
Advantages of medications are that they’re usually covered by health insur-
ance and that they are available to almost everybody who can get to a doctor.
Cost and where one lives aren’t obstacles to this treatment option. A disadvan-
tage is that medications work only if your doctor has prescribed the right medi-
cation for you and your symptoms and only if you take them as directed by your
doctor. Possible side effects can occur that you should consider. Discuss these
side effects with your doctor and ask for information pamphlets on the medica-
tions you consider taking. In Chapter 10, we discuss medication options for
treating health anxiety.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a form of treatment offered primarily by mental
health professionals—psychiatrists and psychologists. It involves a number of
different strategies, including psychoeducation, cognitive restructuring, relax-
ation exercises, and various forms of exposure and response prevention.
• Psychoeducation involves giving people information about a particular dis-

order so that they can understand it better.
• Cognitive restructuring focuses on getting people to rethink mistaken
beliefs that they hold and to replace these with alternative (and more
realistic) ways of thinking about their concerns.
• Relaxation and anxiety are opposing responses that do not occur together.
Therefore, relaxation exercises designed to reduce muscle tension and pro-
mote deep breathing are taught as a way to reduce the effects of anxiety.
These exercises can be used as part of a therapy program or, as described
later, on their own as a general way of coping with stress.
• Exposure and response prevention is a combined strategy that involves
exposing people to situations that worsen their anxiety and then prevent-
ing them from doing the behaviors that they perform as a way of dealing
with their anxiety. This teaches the person that these behaviors are
unnecessary. Exposure to bodily sensations can also be used alone when
the goal of the therapist is to show that the sensations are harmless.
The specific focus of these strategies depends on the anxiety disorder being
treated. For example, in treating panic disorder, the therapist might use an expo-
sure exercise such as running up a flight of stairs to demonstrate that a pounding
heart does not necessarily signal a heart attack. In treating obsessive–compulsive
disorder, the therapist would most likely combine exposure to situations that
aggravate obsessions, such as having Martha change a dirty diaper, with prevent-
ing her from washing her child’s rear and her hands more than once.
An advantage of cognitive-behavioral therapy is that it teaches ways of
dealing with anxiety—usually over a period of 12 weeks or so—that have lasting
effects and that can be used again in the future if anxiety resurfaces. Disadvan-
tages are that it’s not covered by all health plans and that it requires access over
a long period of time to a trained therapist. This can be difficult for people who
don’t live in a large urban area and have to travel to see the therapist. In Chap-
ter 10 we describe how cognitive-behavioral therapy is used to treat health anxi-
ety.
Other Forms of Psychotherapy

Other forms of psychotherapy, including hypnosis and approaches based more
on the teachings and style of Sigmund Freud, have been used in the treatment of
the anxiety disorders. The research provides little support for the effectiveness of
these approaches. For this reason we don’t discuss them further. Nor do we rec-
ommend them.
Self-Help
Many self-help treatments are available for anxiety disorders. These range from
learning how to relax and learning ways to manage stress to exercising and eat-
ing properly. Step-by-step programs designed for each of the anxiety disorders
are also available. Self-help strategies provide the distinct advantage of not
requiring direct involvement from a physician or mental health professional,
and, in many cases, they cost very little. They also allow you to assume responsi-
bility for managing your road to recovery. A disadvantage is that they require
considerable (and often unassisted) effort on your part. You can get further infor-
mation on self-help programs for many of the anxiety disorders by referring to
the Resources section at the end of this book. Strategies to assist you in dealing
with your health anxiety are described in detail in Parts II and III of this book.
Combined and Sequential Treatments

Is there a benefit to combining treatments or to receiving them one after the
other? There’s little evidence to suggest that combining treatments for an anxi-
ety disorder is a more effective strategy than receiving one treatment alone.
Many people are able to effectively manage their anxiety using self-help, cogni-
tive-behavioral therapy, or medication alone. When one treatment is giving you
good results, it would seem wasteful to add another. If, however, you find that
you hit a roadblock with a particular treatment, then you might consider adding
another. This is referred to as a sequential approach. For example, you might

start by trying a self-help program but, after having some success, realize that
help from a therapist or medication may be needed to make further gains. Or, if
your symptoms are severe, you might want to begin with medication for fast
relief and gradually taper off while doing a self-help or therapy program.
Things to Remember
Several of the anxiety disorders can occur at the same time as health anxiety.
You need to know whether you have one of these other anxiety disorders—par-
ticularly panic disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, or generalized anxiety
disorder—because they can make it more difficult for you to get your health anx-
iety under control. Use the questions that we provided to determine whether
you have symptoms of one of these anxiety disorders. If so, discuss these symp-
toms further with your doctor or a mental health professional. Also, with the
understanding that treatment can come in several different forms, you can dis-
cuss treatment options and determine which is right for you. In some cases, get-
ting treatment for an anxiety disorder that overlaps with health anxiety will
greatly reduce your health-related worries.
Four
Sick and Sad

Am I Depressed, Too?
Sadness and depression often occur at the same time as health anxiety problems.
This makes perfect sense: When you worry a lot about something, you tend not
to feel particularly cheerful. Worrying takes a lot of energy and can be tiring. It
can affect your ability to sleep. It can consume your attention to the point at
which you have little interest in anything else. And it can make you irritable
and cranky. Also people who are depressed frequently become preoccupied with
the functioning of their bodies and worry about having a serious disease. These
things add up to create an overall miserable state. They also, unfortunately, com-
plicate a person’s life by increasing unwanted somatic sensations and taxing
already limited coping resources. The degree of complication depends directly
on how depressed a person feels and whether the depression started before or
after the health anxiety.
In this chapter we’ll introduce you to the types of depression commonly
experienced by people with health anxiety—major depressive disorder and
dysthymic disorder—and provide you with some tools that will allow you to
determine how depressed you are. We’ll also explain the primary reasons depres-
sion and health anxiety can occur at the same time. Why is this important?
Depression can reduce the likelihood that you’ll be successful in overcoming
your health-related worries. So our goal in this chapter is to help you determine
whether you should be seeking help for depression before you begin our program
for taking control of your health worries.
46
Am I Depressed, Too? 47
Common Mood Disorders
Marilyn: “I have no interest in anything.”

Marilyn is a 38-year-old woman who has been married for 15 years and
has two school-age children. Since her teenage years she’s experienced
recurring episodes of depression, lasting five or six months at a time.
Individual and family psychotherapy, along with antidepressant medica-
tion, has reduced her depression in the past. Although she was free from
depression for three years, her symptoms returned with a vengeance
about four months ago. At first she was feeling irritable and cranky, but
within a week or two she became discouraged about anything and
everything. She now describes herself as feeling “sad, tearful, and com-
pletely worthless” and reports having lost interest in pretty much every-
thing she once enjoyed. She feels this way most of the time and can’t
think of more than one occasion in the past few months when she’s
laughed or smiled. Marilyn hasn’t been at work for the past six weeks
and prior to that had been calling in sick a lot. She simply has no
energy and wants to do nothing but sleep. Since being at home, she’s
been unable to enjoy spending time with her kids and, in fact, has
noticed a growing lack of interest in being around them at all. “They
bug me. They get on my nerves. I just want them to leave me alone and
stop waking me up.” She finds this very disheartening, and it makes her
feel very guilty. So does her growing lack of interest in her husband.
“We were getting along great until this started again. Now I don’t want
to listen to what he’s got to say. I don’t want to be around him. And I’ve
got absolutely no interest in making love. I’m sure he thinks I’m a good-
for-nothing lazy blob anyway.” In the past few weeks she’s become con-
cerned about the possible causes of aches and pains in her joints and
muscles and this, combined with her growing feelings of guilt, prompted
her to think about visiting her doctor.
Depression is a word that our society uses to refer to feelings of intense sad-
ness or despair. Major depressive disorder is the name used by the American Psy-
chiatric Association in DSM-IV-TR to describe a common form of depression.
The differences between Marilyn’s depression and the feelings of sadness or
unhappiness that we all experience from time to time are the severity and dura-
tion of symptoms. Major depression is characterized by a deep sense of sadness or
a lack of interest in or enjoyment of just about everything. Some people experi-
ence both deep sadness and lack of interest or enjoyment. Several other symp-
toms might also be present. These include:
• Increases or decreases in weight (when not dieting),

• Changes in appetite,
• Too much or too little sleep,
• Restlessness,
• Lack of energy,
• Feelings of worthlessness, shame, or guilt,
• Inability to concentrate or make decisions, and
• Thoughts of dying or committing suicide.
If these symptoms occur most of the day, nearly every day over a two-week
period or longer, major depression may be diagnosed. This was the case for Mari-
lyn. The symptoms also have to represent a change from the way the person was
previously (Marilyn had been happy and active for three years prior to the return
of her depression), they have to cause distress or affect home and work activities
(Marilyn had withdrawn from her family and had stopped working), and they
can’t simply be part of grieving after the loss of a loved one. The severity of
major depression, although greater than temporary states of day-to-day sadness,
can itself range from mild to severe. People with more severe cases of major
depression usually have greater difficulty functioning at home and work and are
likely to be suicidal. Adults who are depressed tend to pay a lot of attention to
their bodies and worry a lot that bodily sensations may be signals for disease.
Major depression is fairly common. About 3 percent of men and up to 9 per-
cent of women meet the criteria for diagnosis of a current episode of major depres-
sion. That means that 1 in every 20 people have major depression right now! And
anywhere from 5 to 12 percent of men and 10 to 25 percent of women will experi-
ence major depression at some point during their lifetimes. Depression can begin
in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, and it tends to be recurring (that is, it
comes and goes). Symptoms worsen over a period of days to weeks before reaching
the level that warrants a diagnosis of major depression. In most cases, if left
untreated, they last for months. Most people with major depression experience full
or partial remission of symptoms (particularly when treated) but, for an unfortu-
nate few, the symptoms can last for years without relief.
Dysthymic disorder, or dysthymia, is another common form of depression.
It occurs in about 6 percent of the population at some point during their lives.
Dysthymia involves feelings of sadness that last most of the day for nearly
every day over a period of two years or more. People with this type of depres-
sion usually report that they’re “down in the dumps” and that they’ve felt this
way for as long as they can remember. Dysthymia is diagnosed when:
• The person has a depressed mood and several other symptoms (such as changes
in appetite or sleep patterns, low self-esteem) lasting longer than two years,
• The symptoms don’t qualify for a diagnosis of major depression, and
• He or she hasn’t had a symptom-free period for more than two months at a time.
There are subtle yet important differences between dysthymia and major
depression. First, symptoms of dysthymia are moderate in severity but can be so
long lasting that they’re seen as a usual part of the person; he or she has always
been that way. Major depression, on the other hand, involves episodes of severe
changes in mood that are unlike the way the person usually acts. Second, people
with dysthymia have fewer changes in their sleep patterns, appetite, or weight
and less restlessness than do those with major depression. The two conditions
are otherwise quite similar. Not surprisingly, dysthymia is a risk factor for major
depression. That is, if you have it you’re more likely to develop major depression
than if you don’t have it.
You can ask yourself several questions to help decide whether you have one
of these types of clinical depression.
• Do you feel cranky, sad, or “down in the dumps”?

• Have you lost interest or been displeased in the things you once enjoyed?
• Has your weight increased or decreased a lot?
• Have you noticed changes in your sleep patterns, for example, sleeping
much more or much less than usual?
• Have you been restless?
• Do you feel tired or as though you don’t have any energy?
• Do you feel worthless, ashamed, or guilty about things?
• Have you had trouble concentrating or making decisions?
• Do you feel hopeless?
• Have you though a lot about death or about killing yourself?
• Have you tried to take your own life?
If you answered yes to at least one of the first two questions, as well as four of the
others, there is a pretty good possibility that you have major depression. If you’ve
been feeling sad or “down” for most of the past two years or more but have only a
couple of other symptoms, you may have dysthymia. If you think you may be
depressed, we want you to have your symptoms checked out professionally. Re-
member, just like the anxiety disorders discussed in Chapter 3, only an evaluation
by a doctor or mental health professional can determine whether you actually have
one of these disorders. And, if you do, helpful treatments are available.
Links between Health Anxiety and Depression
Whether you have one of the more severe and long-lasting types of depression or
are just feeling a little “down in the dumps,” understanding the relationship
between depression and health anxiety is an important step in taking back con-
trol of your life. Let’s have a closer look at how they’re related and what you can
do to renew your zest for living.
Our experience has consistently shown us that health anxiety and depres-
sion are closely linked—many of our patients have both. There are several
explanations for this. Some researchers believe health-related worries are always
a by-product of other conditions, including some of the anxiety disorders dis-
cussed in Chapter 3, but especially depression. They argue that depressed people
become concerned with bodily sensations and that, as a result of their negative
outlook on life, they become preoccupied with the idea that they are physically
ill. Think about some of the symptoms of depression. Poor sleep, changes in rou-
tine and diet, inactivity. What do these things do? As we pointed out in Chapter
2, they all cause unwanted noise in the body. (“I’m feeling a lot of pain in my
stomach and bowels. Maybe I have some sort of gastric problem. An ulcer?
Maybe it’s something worse, like cancer.”) Other symptoms of depression, such
as sluggishness or inability to concentrate, can also be misinterpreted as symp-
toms of disease. “Wow, am I ever short on energy. Clumsy too! I really hope it’s
not multiple sclerosis.” Coupling these sorts of beliefs with feelings of sadness
and despair—that nothing’s right in the world—makes it more likely that you’ll
believe that something’s seriously wrong with your body.
Other researchers suggest that constantly worrying about your health and
well-being can lead to negative changes in mood; that is, the process of worrying
about your health, checking for signs of worsening, and seeking reassurance that
everything is okay (despite not really believing it is) can leave you feeling that
life is hopeless. This seems logical. It’s discouraging when doctors repeatedly tell
you that there’s nothing physically wrong with you when you believe something
is wrong. It’s disheartening to think that you’re sick and dying from some disease
that nobody seems to have any interesting in finding or helping you overcome.
It’s difficult to realize you should be spending time with your loved ones when
you really have no interest in anything but finding out what’s going on in your
body. In some people the feelings of despair and hopelessness that result from
constant worry can actually persist or worsen to the point at which a diagnosis of
dysthymia or major depression is warranted.
We believe both of these explanations are correct: Some people are
depressed first and then develop health anxiety about depression-related bodily
sensations, whereas others have health-related worries that later affect their
mood. Determining which group you fit into has important implications for the
path we recommend you take to overcoming your health worries. Here’s what we
recommend:
• If your mood changes developed after you began worrying a lot about your
health, then you can proceed with the strategies outlined in the remain-
der of this book. They will help you take back control of your life.
• If your depression was present before your health anxiety, then the path to
recovery is a little different. We, like many therapists, believe that if
depression came first, then it’s the first issue that needs to be tackled and
overcome. Some of the treatment options you should consider are out-
lined next. Treating your depression may completely alleviate your health
anxiety, particularly if your concerns are about bodily sensations that are
directly related to depression. Or it might provide partial relief, in which
case you can return to the book and start using our strategies to overcome
your remaining health worries.
Treatment Options for Depression
Many treatment options are available for people who have major depression or
dysthymia. People with severe cases of depression, especially those who are sui-
cidal or have recently attempted suicide, may need to be hospitalized. For most
others, the options include one of various types of antidepressant medications, as
well as several forms of psychotherapy. Medication and psychotherapy are often
combined. As with the anxiety disorders, picking a particular method of treat-
ment is a matter of personal preference. In the following sections, we’ve pro-
vided a brief summary of some of the more popular options (and, in keeping with
the scientists within us, ones that have proven evidence of effectiveness).
Medication
Medication is the most common treatment for depression. It’s often started with
a visit to the family doctor. Your doctor may ask such questions as “Have you
been feeling sad and depressed? For how long? Have you been sleeping more
than usual?” in order to determine whether or not to prescribe an antidepressant
medication. Unfortunately, many people who are prescribed antidepressants by
their family doctors don’t get the medication for long enough periods of time or
in adequate doses for it to be effective. The result is that a potentially helpful
medication may have little effect on depression because the prescription runs
out before it’s had a chance to work. It can take five or six weeks to find out
whether an antidepressant is working properly and without unpleasant side
effects. After that, it can take several more months for the medication to have
its full effect on your symptoms.
Some family doctors have a habit of paying little attention to the impact
of depression on your ability to get along well and function in day-to-day liv-
ing at home and work. This is understandable: They see many patients each
day who have many different kinds of health problems, and they can’t be
expected to have expert knowledge of each one. Because of this, we think it’s
a good idea to ask your doctor for a referral to a psychiatrist so that all aspects
of your depression are considered in planning your treatment. In addition to
providing a complete assessment of your condition, the psychiatrist has a more
thorough knowledge about antidepressant medications and how they work.
They’re also trained to recognize when psychotherapy may be beneficial, and

they can prescribe and provide a treatment approach that combines medica-
tion and psychotherapy.
Antidepressant medications come in several varieties. They all work a little
differently on the chemical systems in the body that are thought to be involved
in depression. The monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) such as Marplan,
Manerix, and Parnate, have been available for over half a century. As their
name suggests, they reduce levels of monoamine oxidase—a protein in the brain
responsible for cleaning up other brain chemicals—and thereby allow other
brain chemicals that make us feel good, such as norepinephrine and serotonin,
to be active. Tricyclic antidepressants, such as Elavil and Tofranil, have also
been around for many years. But because they cause considerable drowsiness and
can have other serious or unwanted side effects, they aren’t typically the first
choice for many. Newer tricyclic antidepressants, such as Norpramin and
Pamelor, seem to have fewer effects on alertness and thus are more common
choices. Some newer medicines, such as Wellbutrin (a tricyclic that has a stimu-
lating rather than a sedating effect) and Effexor (a drug that prevents the body
from reabsorbing norepinephrine and serotonin), have become commonly used
in recent years. The SSRIs have been and remain the most commonly prescribed
antidepressants over the past 10 years. They appear to be less likely to cause
drowsiness and to have fewer serious side effects than do many of the other anti-
depressants. The SSRIs, especially Prozac, have been shown to be effective in
reducing health anxiety. Table 4 shows the SSRIs approved for use in the United
States, as well as their common side effects.
The advantages and disadvantages of taking medication to control depres-
sion are the same as those for anxiety—they’re usually covered by insurance, but
they work only if the right one is prescribed (for the right amount of time) and if
they’re taken as directed by your doctor or psychiatrist. Your doctor or psychia-
trist may base his or her decision of which medication is best for you, in part, on
the following:
• Whether a particular antidepressant has worked for you or a close relative

in the past,
• The specific symptoms you are experiencing, and
• Your physical health and lifestyle.
You need to be sure that your doctor or psychiatrist understands the extent
of your health anxiety. This may affect the medication you’re prescribed.
Remember that Prozac and some of the other SSRIs can reduce symptoms of
both depression and health anxiety. If your doctor seems to be unaware of this,
don’t be afraid to take an active role in planning your treatment by having a dis-
cussion with him or her about whether an SSRI is the best medication option for
you.
TABLE 4. Profiles of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Approved

in the United States for Treating Depression
Typical dose
Common name (milligrams) Most common side effects
Celexa 20–50 • Anxiety • Headache

• Sleepiness • Trouble sleeping
• Nausea
Luvox 150–400 • Sleepiness • Loss of appetite
• Trouble sleeping • Vomiting
• Anxiety • Sweating
• Tremor • Delayed orgasm
• Nausea • Diarrhea
Paxil 20–50 • Nausea • Sweating
• Sleepiness • Tremor
• Fatigue • Loss of appetite
• Dizziness • Anxiety
• Trouble sleeping • Delayed orgasm
Prozac 20–100 • Agitation • Nausea
• Anxiety • Diarrhea
• Trouble sleeping • Headache
• Sleepiness • Dizziness
• Tremor • Delayed orgasm
• Loss of appetite
Zoloft 50–300 • Nausea • Sleepiness
• Diarrhea • Sweating
• Tremor • Dry mouth
• Dizziness • Delayed orgasm
• Trouble sleeping
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is another effective way of treating symptoms of
depression. It can be at least as effective as medication for current symptoms.
Also, the skills learned in therapy are very helpful in reducing the chances of
depression returning with full force again in the future (as happened with Mari-
lyn). This is an important thing to consider when selecting a treatment, because
most people who are depressed now will experience a return of their symptoms
to some degree at some time in the future.
Treating depression with cognitive-behavioral therapy usually takes about
five or six months. Although treatment can be set up in many different ways, a
typical treatment plan would involve 15 to 25 one-hour sessions that are
attended once weekly. Booster sessions can be scheduled as needed so that
important skills aren’t forgotten.
This treatment works by changing the cognitive distortions—or what we
call negative ways of thinking—that go hand in hand with depression. People with
depression can have cognitive distortions about many different things in their
lives, including the way they think about themselves (“I’m worthless.”), their
world as a whole (“I can’t handle all of the demands people are making. Work.
The kids. Keeping the house in order. Augh!”), and their future (“Things are
hopeless. Nothing I do seems to make a difference.”)
Marilyn had many of these kinds of thoughts. She was feeling so worthless
that she eventually started thinking that everybody disliked her. “I’ve pushed my
kids away. My best friend hasn’t called or stopped by lately. Oh well, it doesn’t
really matter anyway.” A cognitive-behavioral therapist would work with Mari-
lyn to come up with other explanations for her beliefs about why her husband,
kids, and friends weren’t around as much lately. Perhaps her friend has been very
busy with other things or even away during the past few weeks. Her family may
be trying to respect her wishes to be left alone. Marilyn’s therapist used psycho-
education and cognitive restructuring (techniques we described in Chapter 3) to
help her change her negative way of thinking about things. She also had Mari-
lyn stick to a regular schedule of activities that she had once enjoyed (for exam-
ple, spending 20 minutes each evening doing puzzles with her kids and going to
the gym for a light workout every second day).
When depressed people change distortions and inaccuracies in their think-
ing about themselves, the world around them, and their future, positive changes
occur in their moods and their behavior. They regain a more positive outlook on
life and begin enjoying the things they liked to do before becoming depressed.
Other Forms of Psychotherapy

Interpersonal therapy focuses on the role that relationships play in depression.
The idea is that all depressed people have difficulties in their relationships with
other people and that these difficulties make depression worse. Fixing the inter-
personal trouble spots should, therefore, reduce the severity of depression. Grief
about the end of an important relationship, a new role at home or work, ongoing
conflicts with another person, and shortcomings in social or communication
skills are usually the focus of this type of therapy. A typical treatment plan might
consist of weekly sessions that last for about 16 weeks in total. As with cogni-
tive-behavioral therapy, booster sessions can be scheduled as needed. Research
has shown that interpersonal therapy is effective in reducing depression. It has
been shown to work as well as medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
A variety of other psychotherapies—for example, marital and family ther-
apy, as well as brief dynamic psychotherapy (an approach based on the teachings
of Sigmund Freud)—have also been used to treat depression. The idea behind
marital and family therapy is that unhealthy family relationships go hand in
hand with depression. This sounds similar to interpersonal therapy, but marital
and family therapy isn’t specifically targeted at reducing symptoms of depression.
It can be helpful in cases in which strained family relationships are contributing
to a person’s depression. Unfortunately, not enough research has been done to
compare it against medication or more proven forms of psychotherapy. Psycho-

dynamic psychotherapy was not designed specifically for treating depression,
either. Like marital and family therapy, it hasn’t been compared against other
proven forms of depression treatment.
Combined Treatments
A few weeks after Marilyn had visited her doctor about her increasing depres-
sion, a psychiatrist evaluated her. The psychiatrist discussed possible treatment
options with her. It was decided that a combination of antidepressants and cog-
nitive-behavioral therapy would be best for her. The psychiatrist explained that
this approach had the benefits of both worlds: The antidepressants have a more
immediate impact on symptoms, and the cognitive-behavioral therapy provides
a skill set that can be used to modify negative thinking and thereby reduce the
chances of relapse. Some research supports this approach to treatment, suggest-
ing that the amount of change in symptoms is greater when these treatment
approaches are combined. People who receive a combination of antidepressants
and cognitive-behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy may have longer
depression-free periods than those who receive only one type of treatment.
If your depression is severe and you want the more immediate relief of symptoms
that antidepressants can bring, then starting with medication and following with
one of the psychotherapies may be the best option for you. Again, don’t be afraid to
discuss this possibility with the person responsible for planning your treatment.
Things to Remember
Many people have depression. For some people it’s severe enough to get in the
way of their enjoying life and being able to do the things we all need to do to get
by at home and work. Both minor sadness and more severe forms of depression
can happen at the same time as health anxiety. Because major depression and
dysthymia can get in the way of your taking control of your health anxiety, it’s
important for you to know whether you have one of these types of depression
and to deal with it. If you think you have major depression or dysthymia, ask
your doctor about your symptoms and some of the treatment options outlined
here. Be sure your doctor understands the nature of your health anxiety (we dis-
cuss how to talk with your doctor about health anxiety in more detail in Chapter
8). We recommend that you ask your doctor for a referral to a psychiatrist or
other mental health professional to get a more thorough assessment and special-
ized treatment planning. With the right treatment plan, you’ll be able to con-
quer your depression while also reducing your health anxiety. Once your depres-
sion is under control, come back to the remaining chapters of this book. They’ll
give you the skills needed to further reduce your health anxiety, to keep it in
check, and to stop it from interfering with your enjoyment of life.
Part II
BREAKING THE HEALTH

ANXIETY CYCLE
Five
Understanding
and Managing Stress
By now you have a pretty good idea about how much health anxiety you have.
You also have a basic understanding of where your bodily sensations come from,
how they can be misinterpreted as signs and symptoms of disease, and how the
vicious cycle of health anxiety feeds itself. This is an excellent start. Over the
years a large number of patients have told us that having a better understanding
of what’s going on in their bodies, combined with knowing that many other peo-
ple are going through the same thing, has helped them break the anxiety cycle.
This is precisely why cognitive-behavioral therapists include psychoeducation in
their treatment programs. In this chapter we’re going to move beyond teaching
you about health anxiety and help you lay the foundation to start using our strat-
egies to get your health anxiety under control.
As we mentioned in Chapter 1, you’ll need to let yourself at least consider
the possibility that the bodily sensations that cause you concern aren’t disease
related but instead are happening because of such things as stress and fatigue.
We understand that you may still be skeptical about viewing your bodily sensa-
tions as part of anything other than disease. In Chapter 2 we asked you to rate
how much you believe it’s possible that your symptoms are the result of being
stuck in the health anxiety cycle. Your rating may not have changed much yet,
but if it’s 1 or higher, we’re still set to move forward. You’ve probably spent a lot
of time consulting doctors, trying to figure out whether you have a serious dis-
ease. Don’t you owe it to yourself to check out all the possible causes of your
bodily concerns, such as stress and fatigue?
The key to better health might be in changing your ways of thinking and
behaving rather than pinpointing a specific disease. It’s okay if you’re still a little
uncomfortable with this idea. It’s a change in the way you’ve been thinking
59
60 II. BREAKING THE HEALTH ANXIETY CYCLE
about these things and in the way you’ve understood the functioning of your
body. But it’s a very important step. Are you willing to try giving up relying on
others, such as doctors, to improve your health? Are you willing to take personal
control of your situation? The fact that you’re still reading this book is a good
sign that you’ve already decided to think about doing this. Now, on a scale of 1
to 10, with 10 being the highest, rate how motivated or interested you are in try-
ing out some of our strategies to help you overcome your health concerns.
Ideally, we’d like your rating to be between 8 and 10. But, as before, if your rat-
ing was anything other than 0, we’re ready to get started. Perhaps your motiva-
tion for trying our strategies will increase as we build on the information we’ve
presented you with so far by showing you how to reduce your feelings of anxiety.
Your next step is to learn some basic skills for managing and coping with
stress. We live in a world that can be hectic at the best of times. Stress is a fact of
life. Stress management skills are tools that can come in handy when faced with
stressful and difficult life circumstances. Also, we want you to have some basic
strategies that can be used whenever you feel your health anxiety coming on or
getting to a point that isn’t manageable. Finally, to be frank, some of the exer-
cises we’ll have you practice in Chapters 6 and 7 will create thoughts and bodily
sensations that will make you feel a little anxious. It may seem strange that we’re
going to make you anxious in order to help you with your anxiety, but there’s a
good reason for doing this: To triumph over anxiety, we need to confront the
things that make us anxious. For example, people who are afraid of flying in air-
planes eventually have to fly in an airplane to overcome their fear. This is a nec-
essary part of breaking any anxiety cycle, including the health anxiety cycle.
By the end of this chapter you’ll be prepared to counteract any anxiety you
feel by relaxing your mind and body. You’ll also be able to organize your life in a
less stressful way. To accomplish these things, we’re going to teach you several
stress management strategies. The steps you’ll work through look like this:
1. Identifying your stressors.

2. Understanding the stress reaction.
3. Learning relaxation strategies.
4. Learning how to breathe for relaxation.
5. Learning how to be an effective problem solver.
6. Learning good time management.
Identifying and Understanding the Things

That Stress You Out
On a typical weekday, most people spend 10 or 11 hours working and getting to

and from work, 4 hours doing various household chores and child-care activities,
and 7 or 8 hours sleeping. That’s about 22 hours of the day! Not much time for
Understanding and Managing Stress 61
anything else, let alone personal interests and leisure. It’s no wonder that stress is
something everyone experiences on a day-to-day basis. We believe strongly that
the ability to successfully manage stress is a skill that forms the foundation of any
program that aims to reduce anxiety. Our primary objective for this chapter is to
have you learn how to be a good manager of your own stress.
People tend to think of stress as something in their surroundings. We often
hear someone say that they’re stressed out by the demands of work, not having
enough time in the day to get things done, or not having enough money to pay
the bills. The sources of stress are often referred to as stressors. Other common
stressors include strained relationships, illnesses in the family, child rearing, legal
problems, and things that seem to needlessly use up time (such as waiting in
slow-moving lines or being stuck in traffic). Add to this the burden of constant
worry about health, and the day-to-day begins to look almost insurmountable!
Take a minute to identify the stressors you’ve experienced over the past week by
completing Worksheet 2. We’d be surprised if there weren’t at least three or four
circles on your worksheet. The good news is that you can learn to manage your
stress and the things that cause it.
Rather than viewing stress as something that happens outside of a person
(in his or her surroundings), we like to think of it as a process of dealing with
those things that place demands on a person and his or her time and abilities.
When the demands placed on a person exceed his or her resources for dealing
with the demands, stress reactions occur. Stress reactions include emotional dis-
tress, such as feeling all wound up or overwhelmed, as well as some combination
of one or more of the harmless but uncomfortable bodily sensations listed in
Worksheet 3.
It might not be obvious, but there are links between your stressors and at
least some of the bodily sensations you experience. To determine which bodily
sensations are stress related, try the following. Keep a diary of stressors that occur
during each day over the next week. Record the bodily sensations that accom-
pany your response to each stressor you identify. When you examine the diary at
the end of the week, you’ll find that you characteristically experience certain
bodily sensations as part of your stress reaction. For example, when Joan (see
Chapter 1) worked through this exercise, she was surprised to find how consis-
tently her nausea and stomach upset occurred during the times she was running
late and unable to keep up with things.
Because the stress reaction includes harmless bodily sensations that you mis-
interpret as signs or symptoms of disease, strategies that reduce the stress reac-
tion can also reduce health anxiety. How does this work? These strategies teach
you to:
• Recognize bodily sensations as a harmless part of the stress reaction rather

than as signs or symptoms of disease, and
• Reduce the strength of your stress reaction and how often it occurs.
Worksheet 2. Common Stressors
Stress is a fact of life, although people commonly fail to recognize how it affects them. This is
because stressors are often minor irritants or hassles. When hassles do occur, people often experi-
ence stress-related bodily sensations. This is especially likely when many stressors occur at the
same time or in succession. The following are some common stressors. Circle the ones that you
experienced in the past week.
Household Work
Difficulty arranging child care Difficult duties
Too many household chores Inadequate training
Shopping problems Lack of a clear job description
Crowded living space Lack of appreciation
Difficulties with home maintenance No avenue to voice concerns
Misplacing or losing things Insufficient resources
Conflicts with partner or children Boring job
Divorce or separation Doing job below level of competence
Car trouble Concerns about shift work
Insufficient backup
Social Long work hours
Too few friends A lot of responsibility with little or no
Feeling isolated authority
Friends or relatives living too far away Unrealistic deadlines or expectations
Arguments with friends Conflict with coworkers
Dating problems Incompetent colleagues
Unwanted social obligations Hassles from boss
Problems with supervisees
Neighborhood and environment Staff shortages
Difficult clients
Weather (for example, too hot, too cold, too
Computer problems (hardware or software)
humid)
Difficulty keeping up with technological
Things that you are allergic to
developments
Pollution
Poor promotional prospects
Crime
Unpleasant working conditions (for example,
Traffic
noisy, dirty, no privacy, cramped)
Commuting
Too much travel (for example, to meetings)
Noise
Lack of work boundaries (that is, being
Waiting lines
contacted after hours by e-mail, phone, or
Neighborhood crowding
pager)
Troublesome neighbors
Corporate downsizing, restructuring, or job
Inconsiderate smokers
relocation
Parking problems
Workplace violence
Problems with other drivers
Lack of job security
Discrimination or harassment
Unemployment
Disturbing news stories
(cont.)
62
Worksheet 2 (cont.)
School or university Health

Conflicts with roommates Physical illness
Conflicts with other students or instructors Physical disability
Academic deadlines Concerns with medical treatment
Difficult or boring courses Treatment side effects
Too much schoolwork Concerns about physical appearance
Concerns about career path Overweight
Financial problems (for example, problems Underweight
with student loans) Sexual problems
Budgeting problems
Inner concerns
Finances Inability to express oneself
Debts Conflicts about life choices (for example,
Credit problems career, choice of dating partner)
Lack of money to pay bills Too much time on one’s hands
Insufficient money for recreational activities Concerns about the meaning of life
(for example, movies) Too little sleep
Problems with taxes
Retirement concerns Legal
Auto payments Parking tickets
Speeding fines
Time pressures Other legal problems
Too much to do
Too little to do
Too many interruptions
Insufficient time for recreation
Too many meetings
Too many responsibilities
Other stressors in your life (please list)
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York:
Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission.
63
Worksheet 3. Common Stress-Related Bodily Reactions
Stressors, big and small, can produce bodily reactions. Sometimes these reactions happen while
you are experiencing a stressful event, and sometimes they occur later on. The following is a list of
some of the common stress-related bodily reactions. Not all of these sensations occur together;
people typically experience one or two (or sometimes more) of these sensations during times of
stress. Circle the ones that you have experienced in the past week. For each bodily sensation you
circled, rate how much it bothered you over the past week by placing a number from 1 (not very
bothersome) to 10 (extremely bothersome) on the line beside the sensation.
Muscle spasms Stomach cramps
Chest pain Nausea
Feeling restless or fidgety Indigestion
Fatigue Stomach churning
Headache Diarrhea
Neck pain Frequent need to urinate
Chest tightness Difficulty swallowing
Leg cramps Weight gain
Backache Weight loss
Aches and pains Heart thumping
Trembling Heart racing
Difficulty taking a deep breath Heart skipping a beat
Tingling in the feet or hands Dry mouth
Muscle twitches Dizziness
Hot flashes Feeling light-headed
Sweating Insomnia
Source: Adapted from S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New
York: Guilford Press. Adapted by permission.
64
Our approach to stress management involves several strategies that promote

relaxation (applied relaxation training and breathing retraining), as well as
training in problem solving and time management, in order to better equip you
to deal with workload demands and other time pressures related to living your
life. Because each of the exercises presented in this chapter can have positive
influences on your success with the other exercises, we strongly recommend that
you practice and become proficient with each one in the order presented before
moving on to the next one.
Learning to Relax: Weeks 1 to 3
Applied relaxation is more than kicking back and unwinding after a busy day.
It’s a series of exercises that were originally designed by Swedish psychologist
Lars Goran Öst to counteract the stress reaction. Öst and others have shown
that applied relaxation can:
• Stop the build-up of substances released by the body as part of the stress
reaction, allowing your body to recover from the potentially damaging
effects they can have on your cardiovascular system;
• Prevent the troubling (but harmless) bodily sensations, such as those
listed in Worksheet 3, that are part of the stress reaction;
• Help you let go of your worries;
• Increase your energy level;
• Increase your ability to focus on tasks;
• Improve the soundness of your sleep; and
• Increase your self-confidence and feelings of personal control.
The basic principle on which applied relaxation is based is that our bodies aren’t
capable of being both stressed (a sympathetic nervous system “fight-or-flight”
response) and relaxed (a parasympathetic nervous system “business as usual”
response) at the same time. Learning to relax on demand will, therefore, reduce
your stress and associated bodily sensations. Although it will take a couple of
weeks of consistent practice to master our applied relaxation technique, you will
become much better able to get through a stressful day and actually kick back for
a bit at its conclusion. The payoff is worth the effort!
Our approach to applied relaxation involves three exercises. Each one takes
about one week to become proficient at. The exercises are called tense–release
relaxation (week 1), release-only relaxation (week 2), and rapid relaxation
(week 3). With practice you’ll learn to relax within 20 to 30 seconds in almost
any situation—whether you’re dealing with a difficult work situation, are caught
in traffic, are starting to worry about your health, or are just unwinding in the
middle of a hectic day. You’ll also learn firsthand that the bodily sensations that
you currently associate with disease are nothing but annoying by-products of the
stress reaction and that you have the power to control them. Here we provide a
description and detailed instructions for each of the three exercises. Practice
each exercise for one week, in the order presented.
Week 1
The focus of the first week of practice is on what we call tense–release relax-
ation. You’re going to need a quiet room, a comfortable chair, and 15 to 30 min-
utes of uninterrupted time during which you can do this once each day for the
week. It’s a good idea to try to set aside a regular time each day for practice, such
as first thing in the morning, before supper, or at the end of the day. This helps
make relaxation a part of your routine. It’s also a good idea to reduce the chances
of being interrupted. Turn off the ringer on the phone. Turn off your cell phone.
Reduce background noise from other people by shutting the door and running a
fan.
The purpose of tense–release relaxation is to train yourself to be more in
tune with your body—to notice the difference between being tensed up and
being relaxed. Muscle tension is a signal that your body is experiencing a stress
reaction. The better you are at noticing tension, the better able you’ll be to stop
the stress reaction by using relaxation. You’ll start by sitting in your chair and
closing your eyes. Take off your shoes and loosen any tight clothing. Spend the
first minute breathing deeply. Count to 6 while breathing in, and to 6 again
while breathing out. Do this five or six times. While deep breathing, focus on
your body and scan it for areas where you feel tension. Try to let the tension go.
You’ll notice that finding and letting go of muscle tension will get easier with
practice. Now work through each of the muscle groups listed in Instruction
Sheet 1. You need to tense the muscle for a count of 5, and then relax it for a
count of 10. You’ll do this two times for each muscle group. We don’t want you
to tense so hard that your muscles hurt or get cramped. If this happens, ease up a
little. When relaxing the muscle, pay attention to the feelings in your body. It’ll
feel like the tension is draining off of your body. Once you’ve worked through all
of the muscle groups, sit for another minute of deep breathing before you get up.
Many people find it helpful to make themselves a tape recording of the instruc-
tions provided in Instruction Sheet 1 and to play it during practice. We recom-
mend that you do this.
Week 2
After finishing week 1, you’ll have become very good at noticing tension in your
muscles. The next challenge is to learn how to relax without first having to
tense your muscles. We call this release-only relaxation. You’ll start this exercise
just like week 1—sitting in a comfortable chair in a quiet room. Practice each
Instruction Sheet 1.
Tense–Release Relaxation Instructions
Today you’re going to practice finding tension in your body. We’ll start with some deep breathing, do
some tensing and relaxing of muscle groups, and then finish with some more deep breathing.
Please sit and adjust yourself so that you’re comfortable. Now close your eyes. For the next minute
or so you’re going to do some deep breathing. When I say “inhale,” breathe in for a count of 6.
When I say “exhale,”breathe out for a count of 6. Breathe calm, regular breaths and feel how you
relax more and more with each breath. While deep breathing, pay attention to your body and the
way it feels. See if you can detect tension in any areas. Okay, ready?
Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Inhale . . . . Exhale . . . .
Good. Now I’m going to have you practice tensing some groups of muscles for a count of 5, followed
by relaxing the muscles for a count of 10. You’ll do this two times for each muscle. I want you to
breathe in when tensing your muscles and breathe out when relaxing. While relaxing your muscles
also pay close attention to the feelings in your body. People describe the feelings differently and use
different words. Most often, the feelings are described as a “draining off” or “emptying” of body
tension. Let’s begin.
Remember to breathe in while tensing. Breathe out while relaxing. Ready.
Clench your right hand into a fist. Hold it tight for a count of 5. Hold, 3, 4, 5. Now release and
breathe out. Let your fingers relax. Can you feel tension draining off? Clench the same hand again.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Release. The tension should be flowing out of your hand.
Clench your left hand into a fist. Hold it tight for a count of 5. Hold, 3, 4, 5. Now release and breathe
out. Let your fingers relax. Notice the tension draining off. Clench the same hand again. 1, 2, 3, 4,
5. Release. The tension should be flowing out of your hand.
Bend your right wrist in toward your forearm. Hold tight for a count of 5. Hold, 3, 4, 5. Now release
and breathe out. Let your wrist relax. Feel the tension draining off. Now clench the same wrist
again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Release. The tension is now flowing off of your right wrist.
Bend your left wrist in toward your forearm. Hold tight for a count of 5. Hold, 3, 4, 5. Now release
and breathe out. Let your wrist relax. Feel the tension draining off. Now clench the same wrist
again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Release. The tension is now flowing off of your left wrist.
(cont.)
67
Instruction Sheet 1. Tense–Release Relaxation Instructions (cont.)
Raise your right forearm and tense your bicep like a muscle man. Hold tight . . . and release . . .
hold it tight again . . . and release. Feel the tension drain away.
Raise your left forearm and tense your bicep. Hold tight . . . and release . . . hold it tight again . . .
and release. Feel the tension drain away.
Work through the following muscle groups in this same manner, holding tight while breathing in for
a count of 5 and relaxing while exhaling slowly. If you’re making a tape recording be sure to leave
enough time for tensing and relaxing. It’s not necessary at this point to put reminders on the tape to
notice the tension draining but you can do so if you like. Remember to do the leg and toe exercises
for both the right and left side of your body.
Shoulders Raise shoulders toward ears.

Forehead Raise eyebrows. Repeat this exercise while lowering eyebrows.
Eyes Squint eyes (if you wear contact lenses, remove them before starting your
practice session, or omit this muscle group).
Jaw Push lower jaw outward.
Tongue Push tongue against roof of mouth.
Throat Yawn.
Neck Gently rotate neck to the left. Repeat for right rotation, forward movement
(chin to chest), and backward movement.
Chest Take a deep breath and slowly exhale.
Upper back Pull shoulders back and push chest outward.
Stomach Push stomach outward. Repeat this exercise while pulling stomach all the
way in.
Lower back Arch lower back.
Legs I Lock knee, point foot upward, and flex upper leg.
Legs II Lock knee, point foot outward, and flex upper leg.
Toes I Curl toes down.
Toes II Curl toes upward.
Excellent! Now take a minute to enjoy your relaxed state.
Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Inhale . . . . .Exhale . . . .
You’re done for today.
68
day of the week, two times per day, for about 10 minutes. Close your eyes and
breathe deeply for a minute or so at the start. This week we want you to say
“relax” under your breath each time you breathe out. Continue breathing deeply
for another five minutes while scanning your body for muscle tension. Go over
each muscle group, starting with your face and moving down through your neck,
chest, upper back, arms, hands, stomach, lower back, and legs and ending at your
feet and toes. When you find areas of tension, try to let the tension go. Release
it! If need be, you can tense the muscle briefly before releasing. Remember to
repeat the word “relax” quietly to yourself each time you breathe out. This trains
you to link the word “relax” with relaxation of each muscle group. Do this for
about 5 minutes. You can use the instructions in Instruction Sheet 2 to make a
tape recording to play during practice. If you do use a tape recording, we want
you to fade it out and do the release-only relaxation exercise without it by the
end of day 4.
Week 3
The tense–release and release-only relaxation exercises teach you how to find
tension in your body and put a stop to it. The week 3 exercises—what we call
rapid relaxation—will make your newfound relaxation skills fast acting and porta-
ble. The goal is to relax within 20 to 30 seconds, anytime, anywhere; not just
when sitting in a comfortable chair in a quiet room. There are three steps to
rapid relaxation:
1. Take three deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

2 Repeat the word “relax” to yourself while exhaling.
3. Scan your entire body quickly for tension and release it as much as possi-
ble while exhaling.
You can start practicing rapid relaxation while in your quiet room, seated in your
comfortable chair. A tape recording isn’t necessary or recommended at this
stage. Work through the three steps. This should take about 30 seconds. Repeat
the three steps about 20 times in a row for each of days 1 and 2. Once you feel
you’ve got it down, move outside of your quiet room and practice while seated in
other rooms of your home. On days 3 and 4 you can begin practicing while
standing or walking, releasing tension in all the muscles that aren’t involved in
these activities. For example, your legs and lower back will have some natural
tension to maintain your posture when you’re standing, but you should be able
to relax your face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and so forth. Run through the
three steps until you feel relaxed.
You need to do the rapid relaxation about 20 times per day for days 3
through 7. Use days 5 through 7 to practice in more challenging situations.
These might include while sitting in traffic, standing in a line, taking a stressful
Instruction Sheet 2.
Release-Only Relaxation Instructions
Today you’re going to relax without tensing your muscles first. Start with some deep
breathing, scan your body from head to toe for tension, and relax while deep breathing.
When you breathe out say the word “relax” quietly under your breath. Do this each
time you breathe out. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.
Breathe with calm, regular breaths and feel how you relax more and more with each
breath. Let go and relax. Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale. Remember to say the word
“relax” quietly under your breath as you breathe out. Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exhale, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6. Inhale . . . . . Exhale . . . . . Inhale . . . . . Exhale . . . . . Inhale . . . . . Exhale.
Continue saying the word “relax” each time you breathe out. Now relax your forehead
. . . Eyelids . . . Jaw . . . Tongue . . . Throat . . . Your entire face. Repeat the word “relax”
each time you breathe out. Relax your neck . . . Shoulders . . . Arms . . . Chest . . .
Upper back. Continue saying the word “relax” each time you breathe out. Breathe with
calm, regular breaths. Let the relaxation spread down to your stomach . . . Lower back
. . . Thighs . . . Calves . . . Out the tips of your toes. Say the word “relax” each time you
breathe out. Inhale . . . Exhale . . . Feel your relaxation deepen with every breath you
take. Take a deep breath and hold it for a couple of seconds . . . Let the air out slowly.
Notice how you relax more and more. Take another deep breath and hold it . . . .Exhale.
Now open your eyes.
Are you feeling relaxed?
70
phone call, or getting supper ready. At the completion of week 3 you’ll be able to
relax quickly and in almost any situation. You’ll have trained yourself to relax
whenever you slowly exhale and say “relax.” (Some people find it helpful to
leave themselves reminders to practice rapid relaxation. You might try putting a
note on your computer monitor or a colored sticky dot on your watch, cell
phone, or rearview mirror.)
Things to Remember
These exercises will teach you that the stress reaction is something you can con-
trol. By taking a minute to relax when things start getting hectic, you’ll stop
your sympathetic nervous system from preparing for “fight or flight.” If you prac-
tice consistently over the next three weeks, we guarantee you’ll feel a difference.
If you want to “see” the difference, do the following. Using Worksheet 3, rate
the stress-related bodily sensations you’ve experienced and how bothersome
they’ve been over the week just before starting the relaxation exercises. Repeat
these ratings at the end of weeks 1, 2, and 3. At the end of week 3 you can
review your ratings, looking at the number of bodily sensations you experienced
over each week, as well as how bothersome they were. An example is shown in
Figure 3. Notice that although neither of Garth’s bodily sensations went away
completely, the amount of discomfort they caused him decreased quite a bit.
These exercises will also teach you that many of the bodily sensations you
experience are annoying by-products of being stressed out. Like a light controlled
FIGURE 3. Garth’s ratings of distress from stomach cramps (diamonds) and aches
and pains (triangles) before and during applied relaxation training.
by a switch, you can turn them off at will. They’re not signs or symptoms of disease.
These are important lessons that may dramatically affect you by reducing your
health anxiety. The message we want you to get out of these exercises is
“The sensations I once feared as being part of some disease process are,
in fact, nothing but harmless by-products of the stress reaction that are
under my control,”
not
“I’m afraid these sensations are telling me something’s wrong with my

body. They’re not harmless. But I can avoid experiencing them if I use
relaxation.”
It’s okay if, at the end of week 3, you find that your feelings are more in line with
this second message. This isn’t uncommon. The exercises in Chapter 6 are
designed to move you toward feeling in line with the first message.
Retraining Your Breathing Patterns: Weeks 4 and 5
Some people, particularly those with anxiety disorders and health anxiety,
breathe too much. Without knowing it, they’re almost always hyperventilating.
That is, they breathe by taking short, shallow breaths, usually with their chests.
This happens naturally when faced with stressors and, as you might have
guessed, is part of the sympathetic nervous system preparations for “fight or
flight.” It becomes a problem when you breathe like this all the time. Why?
Although harmless, this type of breathing keeps us on edge and isn’t conducive
to relaxation. That’s why we started our relaxation exercises with deep breath-
ing. This type of breathing also reduces the amount of oxygen circulating in the
bloodstream, causing dizziness and light-headedness, and strains the chest mus-
cles, causing chest pain. These may be some of the sensations that cause you
concern. By retraining yourself to breathe more deeply and with your diaphragm
(the muscle that lies between your stomach and base of your lungs), you can
achieve a more relaxed state and gain control over those annoying, harmless
bodily sensations.
How are you breathing right now? Are your breaths rapid and shallow?
Do they seem to be centered in your chest? Is your chest moving more than
your stomach area? Do you often feel short of breath? Do you yawn or sigh a
lot? If you answered yes to several of these questions, you’ll likely benefit from
our breathing retraining exercise. With consistent practice, you’ll eventually
breathe more deeply and with your diaphragm without even thinking about it.
Breathing retraining takes about two weeks and should be done during the
fourth and fifth week of your practice.
Week 4
Breathing retraining is rather simple. First, you need to see the difference
between chest breathing and diaphragm breathing. To do so, place one hand on
your chest and the other on your stomach. Now take a breath in through your
nose, moving the air to the top of your lungs. Keep your stomach still. You’ll feel
your ribcage move upward and outward. You’ll also feel tension in your upper
chest. Breathe out through your mouth, letting your rib-cage move inward and
downward. Do this a few times. This is what chest breathing feels like. Now
breathe through your nose, moving the air to the bottom of your lungs. Keep
your chest still. Your stomach will move outward. Breathe out slowly through
your mouth. You’ll notice the feeling of a slight downward movement in your
stomach area while exhaling. Do this a few times. This is diaphragm breathing.
Practice alternating between chest breathing and diaphragm breathing until
you can tell the difference. Next you’ll practice the diaphragm breathing for
about 10 minutes. Make yourself comfortable, either lying or sitting in a quiet
space. Breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of 2, pause for a count of
1 or 2, and let the air flow out slowly as you exhale for a count of 2. Be certain to
feel your stomach rising and falling with each breath. Don’t move your chest.
Your breathing should be intentional and comfortable. Using these instructions,
you’ll be breathing at a rate of 10 to 12 breaths per minute. You can slow things
down by adding an extra second to the inhalations and exhalations. We want
you to practice this twice a day for a week. You can make a tape recording to
help pace your breathing during practice, saying “in” for two seconds, pausing for
one or two seconds, and saying “out” for two seconds. If you make a tape record-
ing, use it for the first five minutes of practice and complete the final five min-
utes without it.
Week 5
With consistent practice during week 4, you’ll quickly become proficient at dia-
phragm breathing. During week 5 we want you to practice diaphragm breathing
in everyday situations. You can practice while reading (in fact, do it while read-
ing the next few chapters), watching TV, waiting in line, sitting in traffic, and so
on. You can gradually start practicing in more hectic situations, much like with
the relaxation exercises.
Things to Remember
Retraining yourself to breathe with your diaphragm will have several positive
effects. It’ll activate the parasympathetic nervous system and thereby put your
body in a relaxed “business-as-usual” state. You’ll feel less keyed up. When you
notice your breathing becoming shallower and focused in your chest, signaling
the onset of a stress reaction, you’ll be able to gain control by practicing dia-
phragm breathing. Combining diaphragm breathing with rapid relaxation will

give you considerable control over the way you (and your body) respond to
stressors.
Problem-Solving Skills: Week 6
Every day we’re faced with problems that require solutions: deciding how to fin-
ish a work or school assignment on time; fixing a problem with the computer;
finding a partner; whether to go away for the weekend with the family or stay
home and get caught up on work; finding money to pay this month’s bills; set-
tling a disagreement with a family member. The list goes on and on.
Solving life’s problems can be challenging and, yes, stressful. Our relaxation
and breathing retraining exercises teach you to control the stress reaction. But
you can also learn skills that will improve your success in solving problems. We
recommend a 12-step program for problem solving. The main objectives of the
program are to:
• Pick specific problems to focus on,

• Identify and set your goals,
• Tackle the steps needed to attain the set goals, and
• Review your progress.
The 12 steps are outlined on Worksheet 4. You can work through these steps
for any problem you face, whether it’s simple or very complicated. As with the
relaxation and breathing retraining exercises, regular daily practice makes per-
fect! We recommend that you identify a simple problem and spend week 6 prac-
ticing ways of solving it. For example, you might try to solve the problem of
which of two TV programs that are on at the same time to watch. Work toward
more complicated or urgent problems, such as resolving conflicts with loved
ones or finding a dating partner. Devote week 6 to problem-solving practice. Use
the skills you learn to deal with and overcome the day-to-day problems you
encounter.
If you’re finding it hard to find time to spend on working through the exer-
cises in this book, you might try working through the steps to overcome the
things that are getting in your way. Maureen was finding it hard to practice
because she had to work all day, rush home to get supper ready for everybody, run
the kids to their activities, and then get them ready for bed. She worked through
the steps with her husband and came up with a “divide and conquer” solution—
they would alternate nights cooking and chauffeuring the kids around in order
to free up a few of Maureen’s evenings. Paul was able to gain an hour every eve-
ning by cutting back the time he spent surfing the Internet. He spent half of this
time practicing and the other half playing with his six-year-old daughter. Reward
Worksheet 4. A 12-Step Approach to Problem Solving
There are solutions to most of life’s problems. The chances of effectively solving your problems
depend on the approach you take. The following steps increase the chances of solving important
problems in your life.
1. Pick a problem that you would like to work on. It could be a big, urgent problem that may take
some effort to solve, or it might be a little one. Successfully tackling small problems can
increase your confidence of solving bigger problems. List your problem as specifically as possi-
ble:
2. State your goal. Please be as specific as possible. What is the outcome that you are hoping to
attain? For example, if you are an unemployed accountant, your goal might be to find a full-time
accounting position.
3. Is your goal realistic? If not, list another, more attainable goal.
4. What are your resources for attaining your goal? This would include material resources (for
example, money, transportation) and social resources (for example, people who could help you
or offer support).
5. Brainstorm! List all the possible ways of attaining your goal that you can think of. List these
possibilities regardless of whether they’re plausible or not. Use an extra sheet if necessary.
6. Refine your solutions. Look through your list of solutions and see if you can think of ways of
improving your solutions. If you think of extra solutions while doing this, then write them down
as well.
(cont.)
75
Worksheet 4. A 12-Step Approach to Problem Solving (cont.)
7. Evaluate. List the pros and cons of each solution. Which one looks the best?
8. Baby steps. Can you break your goal up into subgoals? For example, if your goal was to find a
dating partner, your subgoals might be the following: (a) Put yourself in situations in which you
will meet people whom you might like to date (for example, join a sporting club or enroll in a
course at a community center). (b) Get to know people. Make friends. Even if you don’t find a
dating partner, at least you’ll have friends. (c) If you find someone attractive, arrange to have
coffee with him or her . . . and so on.
9. Identify obstacles. What are the things that might get in the way of solving your problems?
These might be behavioral obstacles (for example, lack of job skills) or thinking obstacles (for
example, negative thoughts such as “Nobody would ever hire me.”). List your obstacles here.
10. Overcome your roadblocks. List ways of overcoming the obstacles. This might involve
improving your skills or challenging your negative thoughts.
11. Make a commitment to solving your problems. Plan to do something each day.
12. Track your progress toward achieving your goals. Are you making steady progress? If so,
good. If not, then identify the roadblocks and try to come up with solutions. Sometimes it helps
to reward yourself for your efforts in overcoming problems, especially big problems. Treat
yourself to something nice.
76
yourself for consistent efforts at working through the 12 steps of successful prob-
lem solving. It takes work, but it feels great to overcome life’s obstacles.
Time Management: Week 7
We’re firm believers in leading a balanced life. This means finding time for
work, family, leisure, and yourself. It also means keeping that sympathetic ner-
vous system in check and allowing the business-as-usual functions of the para-
sympathetic nervous system to operate. A tall order in today’s hectic world!
Make it a priority in your life to find balance.
A helpful strategy to finding balance that builds on relaxation, breathing, and
problem solving is time management. Poor time management usually leads a per-
son to feel overwhelmed and stressed out. Ask yourself the following questions:
• Am I often rushing from one activity to another?

• Am I frequently running late?
• Is my productivity low?
• Do I have trouble finishing important tasks?
If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then you likely have poor
time-management skills. There are many excellent resources that can assist you
in becoming proficient with organizing and getting the most from the hours in
your day. We’ve listed several resources in the Resources section at the back of
this book. Working through the steps of successful problem solving can also help
with managing your time. A simplified approach to time management involves
the following steps and can be practiced during week 7.
• Create a weekly “to-do” list. Decide what you want to accomplish for the
week and write it down. Look forward. Make a long-range list that covers the
next month.
• Set priorities. Rate the priority of the things on your “to do” list. Which are
high priority and need to be done now? Which are medium priority? Which can
wait or be given up? In today’s world it’s almost impossible to get everything
done. It’s okay to give some things up.
• Estimate time requirements and set a regular schedule. Be frank in determin-
ing how long it will take to complete tasks. Use a day planner to set aside regular
“appointments” to work on a specific task and work on that task during the
appointment. Also, if possible, don’t allow your appointment to be interrupted.
Turn off your e-mail, don’t answer the phone, and put a “do not disturb” sign on
your door before closing it. When possible, try to finish one task rather than
jumping back and forth between several tasks. These strategies will increase the
likelihood that you’ll get done.
• Match the task to your energy level. If you’re a morning person, schedule
your appointments for working on tasks in the morning when your energy is
highest. Do likewise if you’re an afternoon or evening person. Don’t schedule
appointments for times when you know you’re usually tired.
• Be honest about what you can handle. Most people have more tasks at work
and at home than they can handle. If you’re overcommitted, don’t be afraid to
say no to a request (sometimes this isn’t possible, but in many cases it is). Are
there things you can get someone else to do? For example, your spouse or a friend
could take your daughter to swimming lessons, and your office mate might take
on part of an assignment. Are there ways of doing things more efficiently?
Things rarely need to be perfect.
• Are you a procrastinator? Procrastinators realize that things need to be
done, but they keep putting them off. People often put off doing things because
they overestimate the difficulty of a task and underestimate their ability to suc-
cessfully complete the task. If you’re doing this, try using your day planner to set
an appointment, and work on the task whether you feel like it or not. Chances
are that once you get started, you’ll want to continue. Motivate yourself by treat-
ing yourself to something you like once a task is completed.
Good time-management skills are particularly important for people with

health anxiety. First, these skills build on those of relaxation, diaphragm breath-
ing, and successful problem solving by promoting a generally less stressful life.
Second, they help prioritize important work, family, and personal leisure activi-
ties—things that when given proper attention make us feel good about our-
selves—and downgrade the importance of spending a lot of time checking vari-
ous information sources about bodily sensations or seeking reassurance from
others. Checking and reassurance seeking have low priority relative to your fam-
ily, work, and personal leisure and, in fact, are counterproductive to breaking the
anxiety cycle.
Practice Is Important
Acknowledging the possibility that the things you currently view as signs and
symptom of disease are harmless by-products of your body’s stress reaction is the
starting point to conquering your health anxiety. Setting aside scheduled
appointments with yourself to work on our strategies will allow you ample
opportunity to take back your life and live it. Practicing relaxation, retraining
your breathing, improving your problem-solving skills, and becoming a good
manager of your time will have a generally positive effect on your life. Over the
next seven weeks it will become much less hectic. You’ll feel more in control.
These skills may also have a significant impact on your health anxiety. By work-
ing hard at controlling the stress reaction, you’ll learn for yourself that many of
the bodily sensations that you once associated with disease are, in fact, under
your control.
Where to Now?
We’ve mentioned several times already that our strategies can help you over-
come your health anxiety and get back to living life to its fullest. How motivated
and interested were you in trying out our strategies at the beginning of the chap-
ter? How about now that you’ve tried our approach to stress management? Were
we successful in showing you that you can control the stress responses of your
body and, in doing so, provide some relief from the unwanted and anxiety-
provoking bodily sensations that you experience? Are you willing to give our
strategies a chance to make a significant change in your life? If your answer is yes
to these questions, you’re ready to move on to some strategies that specifically
target some of the thoughts and behaviors that feed your health anxiety.
Gunnar was very skeptical when first introduced to our program. In fact, his
initial thought was that it was a bunch of rubbish: “Pain is my problem, not anx-
iety!” His son encouraged him to read through the material and give it a shot,
reminding him that nothing else seemed to be working. Gunnar noticed how
much less severe his pain was when he used relaxation and time-management
strategies. Within a few weeks he’d developed a new perspective about his pain:
“I learned a whole new approach for dealing with a seven-year, twenty-

four-hour-a-day curse that hadn’t occurred to me before. Suddenly my
universe shifted.”
He was able to take back some of the control over his life that he’d lost to pain.
Six
Thoughts That Influence

Your Anxiety
and How to Change Them
The way you think about noise in your body plays a big role in the way you view
your health and the way you feel. That’s the reason we’re going to spend some
time on your thoughts. Just as you’ve learned to identify tension in your body
and take control of it through relaxation, you’ll learn to make changes to your
anxiety-inducing thinking patterns, which will help break the health anxiety
cycle. In fact, the relaxation practice you’ve been doing may have already
affected the way you think about some bodily sensations you experience. Did the
stress management exercises you’ve been practicing help you see firsthand that
some of your bodily sensations are related to the stress reaction? Are you now
better able to control them? Do you feel less anxious about them? If you
answered yes to these questions, you’re making excellent progress. If you
answered no, don’t despair! All the people we see in therapy progress at different
rates. Self-help strategies are no different. While reading through this chapter,
keep practicing the stress management exercises outlined in Chapter 5. Further
exploration of how you think about your health may be what’s needed to break
your health anxiety cycle.
We’re not suggesting that what you’re experiencing is “all in your head.”
Your bodily sensations and your concerns about them are real. However, the way
you think about them—your cognitions—can make them seem more harmful to
your physical well-being than they really are. The word cognition refers to many
of the concepts we introduced in Chapter 2—beliefs, assumptions, perception,
80
Thoughts That Influence Anxiety 81
attention, and interpretation (or misinterpretation)—as well as other mental

processes related to thinking. Cognitive-behavioral therapists are interested
in helping people reduce their anxiety by changing their anxiety-provoking
thoughts. The goal for people with too much health anxiety is to change beliefs,
assumptions, and interpretations (or what we’ll call specific thoughts for short)
that keep alive the idea that bodily sensations can be explained only by disease.
In the case of people with disease phobia, the goal is to challenge the notion
that they’re destined to catch some horrific disease. In this chapter we’ll help
you work toward breaking your anxiety cycle by teaching you:
• To be more aware of any specific thoughts about bodily sensations and

vulnerability to disease that cause you to worry too much about your
health, and
• How to replace these with alternative (and possibly more accurate) ways
of thinking about your concerns that aren’t so anxiety provoking.
We’ll do this by helping you figure out how you think about your health and what
you think about your health (week 8). Then we’ll teach you a number of strate-
gies for changing the specific thoughts that make you anxious about your health
(weeks 9 and 10).
How You Think about Your Health: Week 8
We’ve given you several examples of the kinds of specific thoughts that people
with health anxiety have. Jonathan (see Chapter 1) was pretty sure that recent
sluggishness and pain in his legs was the result of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis
or a brain tumor. Sarah (see Chapter 1) concluded that her breast lumps must be
cancerous because the Mayo Clinic doctors found cancer in an acquaintance of
hers who’d been told by other doctors that nothing was wrong. Bob (see Chapter
1) believed that wearing latex gloves would protect him from the germs lurking
on door handles and in public washrooms. All of these people have in common
the fact that they think about the changes and sensations they experience in
their bodies in unhelpful ways. One of the unhelpful beliefs you might have held
before working through Chapter 5 is that noise in your body is almost always a
sign or symptom of disease. You’ve already learned that some bodily sensations
are part of the stress reaction, and as a result your ways of thinking about your
health may have already changed a bit. But it’s likely that you have some more
specific ways of thinking about your health that you might not even be aware of
that feed your health anxiety.
People don’t usually give much thought to how they think about things. We
often have to learn how to think this way. You’ll need to learn to spot the ways
of thinking that make your health anxiety worse. Believing that a single occur-
rence of a symptom is proof of having a disease (called overgeneralized thinking)

and thinking that something is physically wrong because you feel “down in the
dumps” (called emotional reasoning) are very common. Most people over-
generalize and use emotional reasoning when thinking about changes and sensa-
tions in their bodies that they believe to be symptoms of disease. These ways of
thinking are often (but not always) easy to identify and are usually easier to
overcome than some of the other ways of thinking that we describe here. This
makes them an excellent starting point for teaching you to understand how the
way you think about your health can make your health anxiety worse.
Here are some examples of the overgeneralizations that people make. Some
are fairly general, not being related to any particular disease, and others are very
specific. The last few are more characteristic of people with disease phobia.
• “It hurts so bad, there must be something seriously wrong with me.”
• “I’ve been so tired lately, I must be really sick.”
• “I can’t stop peeing. I must have diabetes.”
• “What’s this pain in my head? I must have a brain tumor.”
• “My groin won’t stop hurting. I bet I have an ectopic pregnancy.”
• “I’ve been so sluggish this week. It must be multiple sclerosis.”
• “I’ve never felt light-headed like this before. I bet a blood vessel in my
brain is just waiting to explode.”
• “This stiffness in my knuckles must be a sign of arthritis.”
• “My bowels are going nuts. I’ve got diarrhea. Sometimes there’s blood
when I wipe and my butt’s leaking into my shorts. It must be colitis or
maybe even rectal cancer.”
• “These night sweats are weird. I’ve read that people with Hodgkin’s dis-
ease have night sweats. I must have Hodgkin’s.”
• “The skin on my foot is itchy and doesn’t look right. I think it’s flesh-
eating disease.”
• “I can’t go near sick people. I’ll catch what they’ve got and then I’ll die.”
• “Doors and doorknobs are covered in germs. If I touch them I’ll catch
something.”
Can you relate to any of these examples or something like them? Be honest with
yourself, keeping in mind that everyone makes overgeneralizations. You might
feel embarrassed or uncomfortable viewing yourself in this way. But being honest
with yourself is a necessary part of changing your ways of thinking about your
health. Take a few minutes to write down any thoughts you’ve had in the recent
past that fit this pattern in the overgeneralization column of Worksheet 5. We’ve
noticed that this exercise is easier to complete if you start by listing symptoms
(for example, racing heart or headache) or situations (for example, using a pub-
lic washroom or being around sick people) and then deciding if you’ve made
overgeneralizations about each one.
Worksheet 5.
Identifying Overgeneralizations and Emotional Reasoning
Symptom/situation Overgeneralization
Headache This headache means I must have a

brain tumor.
Touching doorknobs If I touch doorknobs, I’ll catch some

nasty infectious disease.
Your feelings Emotional reasoning
Anxious and on edge I must be sick, otherwise I wouldn’t feel

so anxious.
83
We also want you to think about times when you’ve assumed you’re sick
because you’re feeling down in the dumps or anxious. Some examples are such
thoughts as “There must be something wrong with me; otherwise I wouldn’t be
so on edge”; “I’m feeling so sad. I must be ill”; and “I wouldn’t be feeling so emo-
tional if I wasn’t sick.” Have you had thoughts like these? Write down an exam-
ple of having taken your feelings as evidence of being sick in the emotional rea-
soning column of Worksheet 5. As with the overgeneralizations, this exercise is
easier if you start with a negative emotion you’ve had and think about whether
you’ve linked it to your health in some way.
Try to write down at least one example each of overgeneralization and emo-
tional reasoning. If you have difficulty, don’t despair. We all have these kinds of
thoughts, but sometimes people can become less aware of thoughts they have on
a regular basis. You might need to monitor your past and present thoughts about
your health in order to recognize generalizations and emotional reasoning. To do
this you can simply watch for bodily sensations or strong emotions you feel over
the next few days and jot down the first few thoughts that come to mind upon
noticing the sensations or emotions. The purpose of this exercise is to help you
start becoming more aware of the thoughts you have about your health.
Being able to identify generalizations and emotional reasoning is an impor-
tant step in learning how you think about your health. It will help you identify
more specific ways of thinking that may be helping to keep your health anxiety
alive. These include all-or-none thinking, negatively biased thinking, jumping to cata-
strophic conclusions, selective attention, and superstitious thinking. The next step is
to figure out which of these ways of thinking apply to you. By giving honest
answers to the following items, you’ll be able understand your ways of thinking.
If you’re having difficulty responding to any of the items—perhaps avoiding a
yes response while not being entirely certain that the answer is no—try listing
the types of thoughts you have whenever faced with the symptoms and situa-
tions you fear. This will help you come up with answers.
All-or-None Thinking
• I’m either healthy or seriously ill. There’s no in-between.
Yes No
• Medical tests are worthless if they’re not 100 percent accurate.
Yes No
• I need to be completely certain that I’m healthy.
Yes No
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have what is called all-or-none
thinking. This is a type of thinking by which you see things as either black or
white. You don’t leave any room for the many shades of gray that can fall
between the two extremes. People who have an all-or-none way of thinking are
also usually unwilling to accept any uncertainty; things either are or they aren’t.
Negatively Biased Thinking

• I focus on negative information about my health and tend to overlook or
ignore the positive things. (Example: “I usually don’t remember much of
what I hear or read about hopeful medical advances, but I always remem-
ber the negative information.”)
Yes No
• I’m usually unwilling to believe positive information about my health.
(Example: “I usually feel uneasy when I leave my doctor’s office having
gotten nothing but good news. I feel I haven’t gotten the whole story or
that my doc has missed something.”)
Yes No
If you answered yes to either of these questions, you have what we call negatively
biased thinking. People with negatively biased thinking tend to pick out a single
negative point and ignore all the positives about their health. They also don’t
want to accept positive information about their health at face value. Jonathan’s
family doctor told him that because the specialist had ruled out neurological
conditions and cancer he probably had nothing to worry about. Rather than
viewing this as a good thing, Jonathan focused on the word probably. He inter-
preted this as meaning there was still uncertainty about his health and spent a
lot of time thinking about other deadly causes for his symptoms. In a similar
manner, Joan insisted that test findings indicating she didn’t have cancer “don’t
count” because they might be wrong.
Jumping to Catastrophic Conclusions

• I worry that any “noise” in my body means that something’s seriously
wrong with my health.
Yes No
• I always expect the worst when waiting for the results of a medical exam
or test that I’ve had.
Yes No
• I often think that I’ll never recover if I get a serious disease
Yes No
Answering yes to any of these questions indicates that you have a tendency to
jump to catastrophic conclusions when thinking about your health. We all go
through a process of self-diagnosis when we notice bodily sensations that are
thought to be signs or symptoms of disease. We ask ourselves, “What’s going on

in my body?” and “Could I be sick?” People with health anxiety tend to quickly
conclude that they’re sick without taking enough time to consider other possible
explanations for the bodily sensations or to weigh the evidence for and against
the conclusion that they’re sick. Many of our patients jump to the worst possible
or most catastrophic conclusions, such as that a headache must be a symptom of
an undiagnosed brain tumor, a breast lump must be a sign of cancer, chest pain
must indicate a serious heart problem, upset stomach must be an ulcer or even
something worse, and so on.
Selective Attention
• I’m more sensitive to bodily sensations and changes in my body than most
people.
Yes No
• I experience more pain and other unpleasant bodily sensations than most
people.
Yes No
• It’s hard for me to focus on anything but my health and whether I’m sick.
Yes No
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have what we described in
Chapter 2 as selective attention. This is a style of thinking by which attention is
focused inward on sensations and changes in your body that you believe are
related to disease. It increases your chances of false alarms and often increases
negatively biased thinking and jumping to catastrophic conclusions. For exam-
ple, John was so worried that he’d have a heart attack that he watched for any
signs that this might happen. He didn’t notice any big fluctuations in his heart
rate, but when he awoke with sore ribs he immediately concluded that he was
having a heart attack and rushed to the emergency room. Despite the doctors
telling him he had the heart of a race horse and that nothing seemed to be
wrong, he was unwilling to accept this and was convinced the doctor was wrong.
He went home and continued to watch for signs of an oncoming heart attack.
Superstitious Thinking
Some of our patients have told us things such as
“I’ve been taking garlic pills every day for years and haven’t had any
heart problems. The garlic pills protect me from getting heart disease
and having a heart attack”
and
“I stay away from hospitals. I’ve done this for years and haven’t caught
any nasty diseases. It’s because I stay away from hospitals.”
Does this sound at all like you? Do you assume that something you do prevents
bad things from happening because the bad event hasn’t happened so far? This is
called superstitious thinking. It’s akin to believing that garlic cloves ward off vam-
pires (“I carry garlic cloves with me and I’ve never seen a vampire. Therefore the
cloves must be working”). Many people with health anxiety have superstitious
thoughts that contribute to their health anxiety.
Helpful Hint
You need to know how you think about your health in order to change the way
you think about it. Giving frank answers to the preceding items will help you
discover how you think about your health. Put a check mark in the blank beside
each of the ways of thinking that apply to you.
All-or-none thinking
Negatively biased thinking
Jumping to catastrophic conclusions
Selective attention
Superstitious thinking
The way you think is closely related to what you think. You’ll be well prepared
for the next section if you’ve completed the week 8 exercises and questions
before moving on.
What You Think about Your Health
You can’t change ways of thinking that increase health anxiety without being
crystal clear about your thoughts about health and disease. You need to put your
finger on exactly what your specific thoughts are. You’ve already started this pro-
cess by writing down examples of your overgeneralizations and emotional rea-
soning about health on Worksheet 5 and by figuring out your ways of thinking
about health. Working through the following exercise will help you do this in
more depth.
Take a few minutes now to think about a recent episode of health anxiety
that you’ve had. For example, how the piercing head pain you’ve been experi-
encing over the past few days has caused you to worry that you have a brain
tumor, or how you’ve been prodding and probing a lump under your skin that
you fear is cancerous. Describe the details of the episode on Worksheet 6. Write
down the sequence of events that occurred during the episode—the sensations
or changes in your body, your thoughts, your feelings, and what you did to make
Worksheet 6.
Details of a Recent Health Anxiety Episode
One of My Recent Episodes of Health Anxiety
88
it through the episode. Put in as much detail as you can. Don’t evaluate whether
some part of what happened was good or bad, just describe it. If you’ve had epi-
sodes that are related to different worries—for example, times that you worry
you’ve got cancer and other times when you worry you’ve got multiple sclero-
sis—you might want to write down the details for each. It should take you about
10 minutes to work through this exercise.
Now answer the following questions about the example or examples you
provided.
• What was the most upsetting thing about this? What were you most wor-
ried about?
• How would you react if your main worry came true? How would you feel?
What would you do?
• What’s the worst that could happen if your worry came true? How would
this affect your life?
• What would a person who knew little about you think about this?
Your answers to these questions will give you an idea of your specific thoughts—
your beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and interpretations—that help maintain
your health anxiety. Do any of your thoughts fit into any of the ways of thinking
we described earlier? These specific thoughts will become targets for change.
Before moving on to strategies for changing your specific thoughts, we’re
going to have you track details of any episodes of health anxiety that you have
over the next few weeks. We call this prospective monitoring. The benefit of pro-
spective monitoring is that it lets you collect very specific information about
your thoughts and feelings during bouts of health anxiety that you haven’t yet
experienced. You can use Worksheet 7 to write down important details of the
episodes you have. Make copies so you have enough space for keeping track of
all episodes that happen over the next 14 days. (Use a longer time frame if
you’re not overly anxious during this time.) In particular, we want you to note
when the episode occurred, what triggered it, the specific thought you had at the
time, how convincing your thought was, and how much anxiety you were feel-
ing. Also, in preparation for some of the strategies we’ll present to you in Chap-
ter 7, we want you to make note of what you did to deal with your worry and
anxiety (without evaluating whether or not this was a good or bad thing to do).
An example of how much information to write down is provided on the
worksheet and should help you get started.
Helpful Hint
If you find you’re having difficulty filling out Worksheets 6 and 7, you can re-
review the material presented in Chapter 2 and the “How You Think about Your
Health” section in this chapter. Ask yourself, “Do any of the examples sound
Worksheet 7. Health Anxiety Thoughts and Behaviors Monitoring Form
90
Health anxiety trigger Specific thoughts

(for example, an event or (and strength of belief Intensity of anxiety What you did to deal with
Day and date bodily sensation) from 0 to 100 percent) (0–100) your anxiety.
Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. Saw a TV program on Worried that small 95 Checked my body for
breast cancer. lumps in my breasts more lumps. Checked so
were cancerous. much that my breasts
(Believed it 100 were tender and sore.
percent.)
Source. Adapted from S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York: Guilford Press. Adapted by permission.
like me?” and “Am I doing things similar to the people in the examples?”
Reflecting on your own thoughts and behaviors, especially when they’ve become
a core feature of who “you” are, is a challenging task. You can also look back
over Worksheet 1 in Chapter 2, where you made notes on some of your symp-
toms and initial thoughts about them. Another helpful strategy is to try taking
another person’s perspective. That is, try to imagine what an outside viewer of
you, your thoughts, and your behaviors would “see.” Or you might try thinking
about how you’d respond to a friend in a similar situation. This strategy works
because it’s easier to make objective evaluations when you get away from the
emotions involved with the situation. If you take a step-by-step approach, com-
pleting the worksheets in order, we’re confident in your ability to successfully
identify specific thoughts you have about your health.
Ridding Yourself of Anxiety-Inducing Thoughts:

Weeks 9 and 10
At this point you should be armed with a good understanding of (1) the ways of
thinking that characterize you when thinking about your health, (2) the specific
thoughts you have about your health, (3) how strongly you believe in these
thoughts, and (4) how much anxiety they cause. This is a very important step in
taking back control of your life. Well done! You’re now ready to begin work on
replacing your anxiety-provoking thoughts with thoughts that are less anxiety
provoking and that more accurately reflect what is known about the diseases you
fear having. Strategies for doing this include examining the evidence for and
against your disease-related thoughts, challenging the need for certainty, taking
another person’s perspective, evaluating the “cost” of your beliefs, and attention
focusing.
Here we describe each of these strategies and provide some exercises that
will allow you to try them out. We recommend that you read through all of the
strategies and follow our suggestions as you go along. However, don’t spend too
much time practicing any one strategy until you’ve finished reading about each
of them. Some of the strategies may be better suited to you than others. This will
depend, to some extent, on your patterns of thinking. It will also depend on
which strategy or strategies you like using the best. If one seems to be working
better than the others, stick with it.
Playing Medical Detective: Examining the Evidence

Throughout this chapter we’ve been suggesting that there are ways of thinking
about your signs and symptoms that are more anxiety provoking than others.
You can take our word for it if you like, or you can gather your own evidence and
test our suggestions for yourself. This can be a very effective strategy for chang-
ing ways of thinking that increase health anxiety. Our patients learn how to do
this by using Worksheet 8. The strategy involves a few basic steps:
• Collect evidence for the accuracy of a specific thought,

• Collect evidence against the accuracy of a specific thought, and
• Consider whether there are other ways of looking at the situation.
You might find this difficult at first because up until now you’ve probably been
considering only evidence that supports the idea that you’re sick. Let’s look at an
example and break it down so that you can try for yourself.
At the beginning of Chapter 1 we introduced you to Joan, a 44-year-old
director of finance in a growing company and single mother of a young son. She
had been experiencing stomach upset, nausea, bloating, and pain for about a
month. Several doctors told her that nothing was wrong physically and that the
cause was likely diet or stress. Not buying this explanation, Joan became
extremely worried that she had terminal stomach cancer. She completed all of
the exercises described here and, using Worksheet 7, noted the specific thought
that her stomach upset and related symptoms were the result of stomach cancer.
She believed this with 97 percent certainty, and she rated her anxiety intensity
at 90 percent. We asked Joan to take on the role of medical detective to (1) find
evidence for this specific thought, (2) find evidence against it, and (3) come up
with one or more alternate, noncatastrophic explanations that could also be
evaluated. Her completed Worksheet 8 is shown in Figure 4.
Joan learned several important things in working through this exercise.
First, she recognized that there was evidence against her belief that she had stom-
ach cancer. Second, she realized that she’d been so wrapped up in thinking she
had cancer that she’d never even stopped to think about other noncatastrophic
and non-disease-based explanations for her stomach discomfort. In the end she
was able to come up with an alternate explanation that she could accept—that
her stomach upset was from pushing too hard at work and being emotionally
exhausted. Although she still had some concern that her symptoms came from
undetected stomach cancer, her certainty about this had dropped from 97 per-
cent to 45 percent and her anxiety at the thought of it being cancer went from
90 percent to 30 percent.
Examining Your Evidence

Look back over your completed Worksheet 7. If you listed only one specific
thought, as was the case for Joan, transfer it to the frightening thought column of
Worksheet 8. If you listed more than one specific thought, one of them probably
occurs more frequently with greater conviction or causes you more anxiety than
the others. (Note that this specific thought might also be one that you listed as
an overgeneralization in Worksheet 5 and may appear in the example you wrote
Worksheet 8. Collecting Evidence for and against
Specific Thoughts about Health
Evidence for the specific Evidence against the specific
thought thought
Frightening thought
Example: “The spot on
my hand is skin cancer.”
Alternative explanation
my hand is simply a
freckle.”
93
Evidence for the specific Evidence against the

thought specific thought
Frightening thought Dad had colon cancer My symptoms are at

Example: “The spot on and died from it. their worst when I’m
my hand is skin cancer.” feeling overwhelmed.
His symptoms were
similar. Unexpected things, like
having to run my son to
My nausea and He wasn’t much older
the doctor in the
stomach pain are than me.
middle of the busy
from stomach cancer.
workday, bring on
stomach pains.
Drinking coffee and
Pepsi makes things
worse.
Alternative explanation My symptoms really We have a family

Example: “The spot on flared up when my boss history of cancer.
my hand is simply a dumped a bunch of big
freckle.” projects with tight
deadlines on me.
Things aren’t as bad
My nausea and when I take time out
stomach upset are for lunch and when I
from pushing myself eat something.
too hard at work and
not taking any time Some coworkers have
for myself. stomach upset and they
don’t have cancer.
When I tried drinking
less coffee and colas,
like the doctor said, my
heartburn went away
and I started sleeping a
bit better.
FIGURE 4. Joan’s completed Worksheet 8.

in Worksheet 6.) This is the specific thought you should begin working on.
Transfer it to Worksheet 8. The more specific you can be in listing your thought,
the more likely you’ll benefit from this exercise.
Now write down any evidence to support your specific thought. Write down
evidence against it. If you’re stuck on coming up with an alternate explanation,
think back to some of the information we presented in Chapter 2. For example,
consider the following:
• Has something in your routine changed? (For Joan there was a huge
increase in demands at work. Also, she’d stopped taking regular lunch
breaks, wasn’t eating properly, and was drinking more caffeine than
usual.)
• Is your life full of stress, or has it recently become more stressful? (For Joan
the added demands at work, along with minor daily hassles, were over-
whelming.)
• Have you been active? (Joan was active but not exercising regularly.)
• Could you have an annoying but minor medical ailment? (Joan explored
the possibility that her symptoms were the result of an ulcer. There was no
medical evidence to support this possibility.)
• Is the pattern of symptoms inconsistent with what is known about the dis-
ease you fear having? (Joan learned that stomach cancer is rare in people
under 50 and that it is usually associated with two symptoms—weight loss
and feelings of being “full”—that she didn’t have.)
If you listed more than one specific thought on Worksheet 7, you can work
through this exercise for each one. The ultimate goal is to come up with an
alternative explanation for your specific thoughts—a noncatastrophic, non-
disease-related alternative that you believe may be possible. Write these alter-
nate explanations on cards and carry them with you as a reminder to be read
whenever you feel your health anxiety coming on. This is a very effective strat-
egy for controlling your anxiety and keeping it from spiraling out of control.
Common Challenges
We sometimes see people come up with alternatives that explain their symptoms
as part of a minor ailment. Joan explored this possibility in thinking that her
symptoms might not be from cancer but instead from an ulcer. This is acceptable
but not ideal. If you do this and if your doctor hasn’t already ruled out the ail-
ment you’re considering, then have the possibility explored by your doctor.
Importantly, though, try focusing on other explanations for your symptoms that
aren’t rooted in either major or minor sicknesses.
We’ve also had people ask questions such as “How can I be certain that I
don’t have cancer?” or comment that “Just because the tests look normal doesn’t
mean that I don’t have multiple sclerosis. Tests can be wrong.” You may have
similar questions, especially if you answered yes to one or more of our items
about all-or-none thinking. That’s okay. You may find it easier to come up with
non-disease-related explanations of your symptoms after working through the
following simple strategy for dealing with uncertainty.
Building Emotional Muscle: Challenging Your Need for Certainty

Two things in life are certain, death and taxes. Nothing else in our lives is guar-
anteed. When we think about this fact, we quickly realize two things: that
because we cannot avoid all risks in our lives, life is filled with uncertainty; and
that all of us learn to tolerate some of the uncertainties in our lives. If you
answered yes to one or more of the all-or-none items, you’re probably having
trouble accepting uncertainty about your health. If so, the following exercise
will help. Using Worksheet 9, write down all of the uncertainties (about poten-
tial harm that could befall you) that you’re willing to tolerate in your daily life.
Spend about 10 minutes on this exercise. Be frank and honest. To help you get
started, we’ve listed some examples of the uncertainties that we accept in our
daily lives. (If some of your acceptable uncertainties are similar to ours, write
them down on the worksheet.)
This exercise has several important lessons. It nicely demonstrates that
you’re prepared to accept all kinds of uncertainties in your life. There’s no guar-
antee that you’ll be protected from bad stuff, and yet you’re prepared to accept
this fact in some areas of your life. Accepting uncertainty is the only logical
thing we can do and the only way we can get on with and enjoy our lives. But
here’s the main point of this exercise: People with health anxiety are prepared to
engage in all sorts of potentially risky behaviors (for example, driving to work,
eating burgers, smoking), and yet they often demand certainty when it comes to
the possibility of disease. For example, Ellen, one of our patients, told us that she
needed to be absolutely certain that she didn’t have breast cancer. She went for
test after test at the local hospital and performed breast self-exams every day, to
the point that she felt sore and bruised. Although the tests were all negative,
Ellen worried. “Maybe the tests have missed something.” Ellen was unprepared
to tolerate the possibility that there was a 0.00000001 percent chance the tests
and self-exams had failed to detect cancer. As a result of her intolerance of
uncertainty about breast cancer, her life was ruined; she was miserable and wor-
ried all the time.
The solution for Ellen was, first, to realize that she could accept the uncer-
tainty (after all, she accepted all kinds of uncertainties in her life), and, second,
to vigorously remind herself that she wasn’t going to have her life ruined by the
fact that she couldn’t be absolutely certain about the medical tests. We had
Ellen consider what was so bad about a little uncertainty in this area of her life
and whether her need for certainty about medical tests was helping or hindering
Worksheet 9. Acceptable Uncertainties in My Life
Uncertainties that the authors of this book are prepared to accept:
• Commuting to work, even though there’s a small chance we could be killed in a car
accident.
• Eating chicken wings, even though there’s a tiny chance we could choke to death on a
bone.
• Smoking the occasional cigar, even though nobody can guarantee that it’s safe.
• Flying on a plane, even though it could conceivably crash.
• Working the occasional day at home, even though nobody can guarantee that a satellite
or piece of space junk won’t fall from the sky and crash through one of our roofs.
• Shopping in the mall, even though there’s no guarantee that a crazed gunman won’t kill
us all.
• Talking on a cell phone, even though no one can give a 110 percent assurance that the
electromagnetic waves from the phones are safe.
Which uncertainties are you prepared to accept? Write them here:
97
her in meeting her goals in life, both at home and at work. After thinking about
the matter, Ellen finally declared:
“I owe it to myself and my family to spend my life in happy, productive

ways. I’m wasting my time and ruining my quality of life by obsessing
about the remote chance that I may have breast cancer. The best thing
for me to do is to get the routine tests and then get on with my life.”
Review your acceptable uncertainties of life as listed in Worksheet 9. If you can

accept these uncertainties, don’t you owe it to yourself to work on accepting
some of the uncertainties that go along with medical tests and doctor visits and
get on with living?
Putting Yourself in the Doctor’s Shoes: Taking Another’s Perspective

You might recall our suggestion that figuring out specific thoughts and worries
about health and disease would be easier if you imagined how another person
would view your situation or how you’d respond to a friend with the same con-
cerns. This strategy can also be useful in changing ways of thinking that increase
your health anxiety.
Has there ever been a doctor that you’ve admired? Perhaps your family doctor
when you were a kid, or even one of the doctors on TV shows such as ER. Spend a
few moments imagining what it would be like to be this person. Now imagine that
you’re the doctor and your patient is a person who has exactly the same health wor-
ries that you have. What would you, as the doctor, say to the person? Lillian, for
example, awoke in the middle of the night feeling light-headed and shaky. Fearing
something was seriously wrong, she woke her husband and had him drive her to the
emergency room. Tests were run, and she was sent home with assurances that the
symptoms were most likely due to having had a stressful day; there were no indica-
tions of physical disease on any tests. She continued waking with these symptoms
on occasion, but rather than rushing to the ER, she tried thinking what the ER
doctor would say to her. Taking the doctor’s position, she thought:
“You’ve had these symptoms before. The tests come back negative and
there are no outward signs of infection or disease. We’ve determined
that these episodes seem to occur when you push yourself too hard at
work. You had a few hard days this week. Try taking it a little easier for a
few days and see if this improves your sleep. It should. But, if you con-
tinue experiencing these symptoms over the next week or two, make an
appointment to visit your family doctor.”
This strategy worked for Lillian and helped her see that her episodes were stress
related.
Try practicing this exercise using Worksheet 10. We’ve included a couple of
examples to get you started. The purpose is to help you see your specific thoughts
as assumptions that can be challenged (as in the medical detective exercise)
rather than as solid facts. Breaking away from the emotions of your health anxi-
ety will make it easier to come up with alternate explanations of what’s going on
in your body. It’s often easier to question someone else’s thoughts and worries
than our own. Taking on another person’s perspective allows you to do this.
Some of our patients have said that this exercise is easier if they begin with less
distressing thoughts. You can look back over the specific thoughts you listed on
Worksheet 7 and begin this exercise with those thoughts with the lowest ratings
in the “Intensity of Anxiety” column and work your way to the one with the
highest rating.
Evaluating the Costs: How Bad Is It?

Many people with health anxiety jump to catastrophic conclusions about the
bodily sensations they experience. The exercises described here can all be used
to put these types of catastrophic misinterpretations into perspective. But some
people also jump to catastrophic conclusions about the cost, or “badness,” of
changes in bodily sensations or of having the disease they fear. For example, one
of our patients, Stan, was worried that his chronic cough, wheezing, and chest
tightness meant he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an
incurable, noninfectious lung disease that is the fourth leading cause of death in
the United States. At first he noticed the coughing and wheezing periodically
throughout the day, usually early in the morning and after eating. When the
wheezing became much more frequent, Stan believed that it meant two things:
that the doctors were wrong and he did have COPD, and that this was going to
ruin his life by rendering him completely disabled.
Several useful exercises can be used to deal with a tendency to overestimate
the meaning of changes in the sensations you experience or the personal costs of
disease. We had Stan answer the following questions:
• “Am I overestimating how frequent my wheezing is?”

• “Am I exaggerating how much discomfort the wheezing and coughing are
causing me?”
• “Can I put up with some wheezing during the day?”
• “How bad would it be if I did have COPD or some other serious respira-
tory problem? Am I overestimating how bad things would be?”
After working through the questions and monitoring the frequency of symptoms
(using Worksheet 1 from Chapter 2), Stan realized several things. First, his
wheezing hadn’t actually become more frequent. In fact, if anything, it was a lit-
tle less frequent. From this he determined that he was overestimating his dis-
Worksheet 10. Putting You in the Doctor’s Shoes
You as the patient You as the doctor, responding to the patient
Write your real-life health anxieties Now, put on your white coat and write down the most likely
in this column—that is, the cause of the patient’s concerns. Remember, your mission is
things about your health that you to make sure that your patient doesn’t become needlessly
really worry about these days. worried about his or her health.
I ate beef last week. Now I ate beef, too. So did millions of people. The
I’m worried about getting chances of getting sick are over a million to one.
the human version of mad Your time on this earth is too precious for you to
cow disease. be worrying about rare diseases. I suggest that
you spend your time on the things that give you a
sense of happiness or pride; for example, pursuing
fun hobbies, working on a career, or spending
quality time with your friends or family.
Lately I’ve been feeling Remember that you’ve already had an HIV test
tired all the time. I’m and a number of other medical tests. The most
frightened that I might have likely causes of fatigue are stress, sleep
AIDS. difficulties, lack of physical fitness, boredom, and
too much coffee. When you worry about feeling
tired, then you might say this to yourself: “I’m
very good at thinking of bad causes of tiredness,
but maybe I need to think about all the harmless
things that could be making me feel this way. I’ll
wait and see how I feel in a week or so, before
consulting a doctor.”
You as the patient: You as the doctor:
100
comfort and that he could probably live with some periodic wheezing during the
day. Second, he reconsidered the idea that he’d be disabled if he really did have
COPD. Sure, he’d have to make some adjustments, but overall he’d do fine and,
by increasing physical activity, might even wind up better off. In working
through the medical-detective and building-emotional-muscle exercises, Stan
realized that there was more evidence that his symptoms were related to allergy
than to COPD. He became completely comfortable living with the symptoms
and didn’t bother going to the doctor for allergy tests.
Attention Focusing
If you answered yes to any of the questions in the selective-attention section,
you likely focus a lot of your attention on your body, looking for bodily changes
or sensations. This can lead to false alarms, wherein you believe harmless bodily
noise is signaling disease. It may also explain why you seem to experience more
symptoms than other people: It’s not because you’re sicker, it’s because you focus
so much attention on your body. Everyone, including healthy people, has noise
in their bodies. The difference is that people with health anxiety focus more on
this noise and misinterpret it as being harmful.
What do you think would happen if you focused your attention on a part of
your body that you’re not usually concerned about? Two areas that people don’t
usually focus much on include the scalp and throat. Try the following series of
exercises.
• Go to a quiet room and sit in a comfortable chair. Focus on your scalp.

Don’t pay attention to anything else. Do this for 5 minutes. What do you notice?
Do you experience any sensations that weren’t there before starting? Most peo-
ple notice sensations of itchiness, tingling, or tension.
• Now shift your focus to your throat. What do you notice? Many people
very quickly feel a lump in the throat, feel dryness and scratchiness, and have an
urge to swallow or clear their throats.
• Finally, while remaining seated, recite the alphabet in reverse order, start-
ing from Z and working your way back to A. Do this in your head and without
any movements with your hands (for example, by “writing” in the air or on the
arm of your chair). Give yourself a few minutes. How did you do? Most people
can’t complete this task without difficulty. More important, how did your body
feel during the task? Did you notice the sensations on your scalp or in your
throat? Did you notice fewer sensations than usual?
We use this series of exercises to show our patients how their focus of atten-
tion has an effect on their noticing sensations in their bodies. If you focus on an
area of your body, you’ll notice more bodily sensations. Remember the spider
demonstration from Chapter 2? Suggesting that you’ve seen a small spider crawl-
ing on your pant leg but aren’t sure where it is now will invariably get people
checking themselves and feeling itchy. People are also more likely to notice
bodily sensations when bored. On the other hand, if you’re keenly focused on
something other than your body, you’ll notice fewer bodily sensations. Joggers
often listen to their favorite music as a distraction from focusing on muscle sore-
ness. Many soldiers who are injured while absorbed in doing what they do aren’t
even aware that they’re hurt until after the battle. The same is true of athletes
engaged in their sport.
After working through this series of exercises (once or twice is usually
enough for most people), you can experiment with specific bodily sensations
that are related to your health worries, perhaps those you listed in Worksheet 5.
Understanding how attentional focus influences your awareness of bodily sensa-
tions can help you reduce your health anxiety. It’s yet another tool you have for
proving you have control over your body, the sensations it produces, and
whether or not they need to be responded to. As your sense of control increases,
your health anxiety will decrease.
Helpful Hints and Things to Remember
We’ve provided you with a number of strategies for changing how and what you
think about your health. Pick the strategy or combination of strategies that
works best for you—the one that reduces your anxiety the most and that you’re
most comfortable doing—and use it consistently as a means of coping with and
overcoming your anxious thoughts. Start practicing these strategies now, and
continue using them in the future as you work through the other exercises in
this book. You should expect to encounter a few obstacles during practice.
Depending on your particular situation, these might include:
• Feeling temporary increases in your anxiety that prevent you from think-
ing clearly,
• Coming up with too few anxiety-provoking thoughts,
• Coming up with too many anxiety-provoking thoughts, and
• Having difficulty taking another person’s perspective.
The good news is that these obstacles can be overcome. Try the following
strategies to get back on track with your practice:
• Take a break if you feel your anxiety surging during your practice sessions.
You can use the rapid relaxation or diaphragmatic breathing strategies that you
learned earlier to reduce your anxiety to a point at which you’re comfortable to
carry on.
• If you’re having difficulty coming up with anxious thoughts, try answering
questions like “When I’m talking to about my health concerns,
what do I say? How do I explain what I’m feeling?” and “What does
think about me when I’m going on about my health worries?” If this doesn’t
work for you, try to identify and write down your thoughts during a period when
you’re experiencing bodily sensation and extreme worry.
• If you come up with so many anxious thoughts you’d like to work on that
you get overwhelmed and can’t make any progress, try focusing your practice on
just a few—no more than three—anxious thoughts. Move on to others only after
you’ve rid yourself of these.
• If you’re finding it difficult to take another person’s perspective, make sure
you’re doing as we suggested: Start by practicing this exercise with mildly dis-
tressing thoughts and slowly work up to more distressing cognitions. With prac-
tice, you’ll be successful at taking another’s perspective on your most distressing
thoughts and thereby form less anxiety-provoking ways of explaining it.
Over the next two weeks, you can keep track of your thoughts and the anxi-
ety they provoke on copies of Worksheet 7. Evaluate your progress by charting
the average of your daily ratings made in the “Intensity of Anxiety” column for
each specific thought you have. For example, if on Friday you had three ratings,
of 95, 100, and 90, for the specific worry “headache must be a brain tumor,” you
would tally these up and divide by 3 to get an average rating of 95. Figure 5
shows what your chart might look like. Don’t be alarmed if you see small
increases in anxiety ratings on some days. We often see this. What you’re look-
ing for is an overall reduction in anxiety ratings over your practice period. Even
small reductions during the first two weeks of practice indicate good progress in
finding alternative, non-disease-related explanations for your bodily sensations.
FIGURE 5. Chart showing intensity of anxiety ratings for the specific thought that
headache must be a brain tumor.
Seven
Behaviors That Influence

Your Anxiety
and How to Change Them
Do you think that your health worries affect the things you do—your behav-
ior—in any way? What sorts of things do you do to deal with your health wor-
ries? Have a quick look back at the thoughts and behaviors you wrote down on
Worksheet 7 from Chapter 6 and take note of what you did to deal with your
anxiety. Notice any patterns? Did you try one or more of:
• Monitoring or checking your body for changes,

• Spending time tracking down information about your signs and symptoms
in books or on the Internet,
• Avoiding exercise, leisure activities you once enjoyed, or spending time
with your family and friends,
• Taking medications or having a medical procedure that wasn’t recom-
mended,
• Trying to get a family member or friend to tell you everything was okay, or
• Thinking about visiting your doctor?
These are a few common examples. There are, in fact, many different, well-
intentioned things that people with health anxiety do to cope with their wor-
ries. Sarah, whom you met in Chapter 1, was repeatedly visiting her doctor to
see if her breast lumps were cancerous. She was also checking her breasts for
changes with great frequency, at least once per hour every day. Bob, also from
104
Behaviors That Influence Anxiety 105
Chapter 1, was avoiding public washrooms and other public situations because
he feared catching an infectious disease. Because complete avoidance wasn’t
possible, he started wearing latex gloves and developed his “foot technique” for
opening doors, lifting toilet seats, and flushing. Matt, one of our patients dis-
cussed later in this chapter, spent hours searching the Internet for information
about the signs and symptoms of chest pain.
How you behave when you’re anxious about your health is important
because, although worries that you have a serious disease or are at risk of catch-
ing one can influence your behavior, the reverse is also true. Your behavior can
influence the amount of health anxiety you feel—some behaviors keep your
anxiety alive, whereas others reduce it. In the first part of this chapter we’ll focus
on behaviors that feed the health anxiety cycle. These fall into four main groups
as follows:
1. Repetitive checking for body changes and sensations or of health infor-

mation sources,
2. Avoiding things that increase health anxiety,
3. Seeking reassurance from doctors, family, and friends that everything is
okay, and
4. Relying on things that are emotionally comforting or believed to be
linked to the absence of disease.
You need to understand these behaviors and how they affect you if you’re going
to conquer your health anxiety. This will be the focus of week 11 of our program.
In the second part of the chapter, we’ll build on this understanding by teaching
you some simple strategies for changing your anxiety-maintaining behaviors and
replacing them with ways of doing things that will increase your sense of well-
being (weeks 12 through 14). If you’ve been practicing the exercises from Chap-
ter 5, you’ll already have a head start on this by having become better at manag-
ing the stress in your life.
Identifying Behaviors That Feed Health Anxiety: Week 11
Repetitive Checking
If you’ve ever baked cookies or roasted a chicken, you’ve probably peeked into
the oven several times to see if they were ready. A few people we know double-
check that they’ve locked their car doors or have their keys in hand before leav-
ing the parking lot. One of our wives sometimes checks her departure time and
gate a few times while waiting for a connecting flight. And each day one of us
checks his e-mail several times (actually, too many times) to make sure he does-
n’t miss any urgent messages. We’re all told by our doctors that we should be
doing regular breast or testicular self-examinations. The bottom line is that

when concerned about something, most people will check and sometimes
recheck to make sure things are going the way they should. It’s human nature to
do so.
Some checking, as in the previous examples, seems to be useful; it prevents
burnt food, leaving the car unlocked, and overlooking early signs of cancer. It
doesn’t interfere with our daily activities. But some people with obsessive–
compulsive disorder spend a great amount of time checking things. One of our
patients, for example, felt compelled to go through an elaborate ritual every
night before going to bed. He’d repeatedly check that all of the electrical appli-
ances in his house were unplugged, that the stove was correctly turned off, and
that the doors and windows were locked. Some nights it would take him over an
hour to complete his checking ritual. People with health anxiety often spend a
lot of time checking their bodies. Some also spend a lot of time checking for and
reading information on disease.
Body Checking
Because we’ve already talked about body checking in Chapter 2, we won’t spend
a lot of time on it here. But one key piece of information is important to keep in
mind: Focusing attention on something increases the chances of its being
noticed. What happens when a mother listens carefully for sounds from the
baby after putting her newborn to bed? What about a young teenager who’s
spending a whole night all alone at home for the first time? They hear
almost every single noise in the house. The same is true when we turn our atten-
tion inward on the functioning of our bodies. We notice bodily noises that
we might have otherwise overlooked; noises typical of the functioning of a
healthy body. You’re more likely to have a false alarm—to think this noise
means you’re sick—if you have beliefs (or specific thoughts) that certain bodily
sensations are symptoms of disease and if you have an amplifying somatic
style (that is, if you scored high on the Whiteley Index from Chapter 1). The
attention-focusing strategies that you learned in Chapter 6 can help with this.
We’ll teach you some other strategies for dealing with body checking later in
this chapter.
Checking Health Information

Some people with health anxiety spend a lot of time searching for information
about diseases. Books, magazines, and TV shows about disease are common
sources of this information. Some people with health anxiety repeatedly call
health information hotlines. For example, they may call hotlines set up for gen-
eral health concerns, such as fever, or more specific diseases, such as AIDS. But,
by far, the most frequently used source for learning about signs and symptoms of
disease is the Internet. It has put a wealth of medical information and misinfor-
mation at our fingertips.
What purpose do you think checking information on health and disease
serves? Our patients usually give one of two answers to this question. First, they
say they want to find information that shows that their bodily sensations or
changes are in fact harmless. They hope to learn that everything is okay. Sec-
ond, they say they want to learn ways of preventing diseases. For example, they
want to know which foods to eat and which to avoid to keep from getting cancer
or how to best kill kitchen bacteria after cooking.
These are admirable goals. Indeed, they’re very similar to some of the things
cognitive-behavioral therapists hope their patients will do. They’re also in line
with what we want you to get from working through this book—more knowl-
edge about how your body works and how to live life to its fullest. Unfortunately,
when people with health anxiety search for information, they usually turn up
“facts” that are more alarming than they are helpful. This feeds their health anx-
iety cycle and often makes things worse. There are a couple of reasons for this.
As we’ve discussed before, people with health anxiety sometimes cata-
strophically misinterpret the information they find. For example, after reading a
magazine article, Jackson became interested in learning the best way of cleaning
his kitchen to reduce germs. He found several Internet sites that suggested he’d
been improperly cleaning his kitchen after handling chicken. They also indi-
cated that the way he was now cleaning up was putting him and his family at risk
of getting food poisoning and possibly dying from it. He became so alarmed that
he stopped buying chicken (a family favorite), wouldn’t let anyone else cook,
was spending a lot of time cleaning the kitchen after every meal, and began
searching for other information about food-related bacteria and diseases. Did
Jackson overreact? His goal of killing bacteria was a good one. But his worries
about contamination and death from the bacteria were exaggerated and, unfor-
tunately, caused problems with his wife and kids (who wanted to eat chicken
and spend time with him after supper).
Whenever Matt experienced chest pain, he’d go to the Internet and search
medical websites for information. His cardiologist had told him his heart was
healthy and that his pains were caused by stress-related muscle tension. He
hoped to find information that would confirm this. Instead, he found informa-
tion indicating that chest pain like his was a symptom of several heart condi-
tions, some rare and deadly. He also saw a news report indicating that he was at
particularly high risk for these conditions, given his age, weight, and ethnicity.
He became so worried about dying from heart failure that he insisted his cardiol-
ogist perform a series of very risky tests to rule out these rare diseases. The tests
all indicated that he had a healthy heart.
Although people seek them out as a source of good information, many
newspaper articles, newsletters, magazines, and TV news reports and shows on
disease contain inaccurate information. This was the case with the news report
Matt saw. Others are purposefully exaggerated or sensationalized for impact.

Inaccurate and exaggerated claims aren’t easy to identify when they come from a
trusted source. Take, for example, the following quote from a widely read health
newsletter:
Germs that can make you sick are everywhere. According to an unpublished Uni-
versity of Arizona study, playground equipment, handrails and armrests, surfaces in
public bathrooms, and shopping cart handles are among the surfaces that are likely
to have traces of saliva or other bodily fluids that could contain germs. The places
where you’ve got to be especially careful: daycare centers, gyms, doctors’ offices,
and restaurants. . . . And cold bugs can survive on your skin for several hours. So if
you rub your eyes or scratch your nose—the main routes of entry—after touching a
contaminated surface, the germs can hitch a ride right into your body. (Nutrition
Action Healthletter, March 2002)
The suggestion that we’re all at imminent risk of being contaminated by germs if
we leave our homes, whether out of necessity (to take our kids to day care) or
pleasure (for a nice meal), is exaggerated. The effect of inaccurate and exagger-
ated information on health anxiety is similar to the effect of catastrophic misin-
terpretations: It increases health anxiety and further fuels that need to get more
information. Many of the strategies that you learned about in Chapters 5 and 6,
as well as some that we discuss later in this chapter, are helpful in reducing the
urge to check health-related information.
Avoidance
Our bodies are designed in a way that increases the likelihood that we’ll survive
threats to our well-being. The “fight or flight” response—activated by the sym-
pathetic division of our autonomic nervous system—helps us fight back or get
away from things that might be dangerous to us. Most people try to avoid things
that are uncomfortable, painful, or fear provoking. Avoidance is also a common
response of people with health anxiety when they have to deal with people,
things, or activities related in some way to their health worries. There are sev-
eral ways of avoiding things, and the specific pattern of avoidance can depend
on the type of health anxiety you have.
If you worry that you have a particular disease, you’ve probably stopped doing
things that you think will make your condition worse. Matt, for example, avoided
biking, hiking, and playing with his children—activities he had once enjoyed—
for fear that too much physical activity would increase the strain on his heart
and cause it to stop beating. Gertrude was so worried that she had lung cancer
that she avoided leaving the house whenever possible so that she didn’t come
into contact with secondhand smoke. She also stopped exercising because she
didn’t like feeling breathless and didn’t want to overstress her lungs. Matt and
Gertrude were avoiding two things—certain activities and bodily sensations

caused by the activities.
You might also have started doing things to avoid a feared outcome, such as
dying. Wanting to avoid a heart attack, Lachlan bought his own machine for
checking his blood pressure. He checked it about six times a day. The type of
avoidance characterized by not doing things is called passive avoidance; the type
in which you start doing things is called active avoidance.
People who are afraid of catching a disease usually have a passive avoidance
style. They avoid doing things that they think will increase their risk of actually
catching something. Bob did whatever he could (and was quite creative in doing
so) to avoid skin contact with any part of public washrooms used. Mike, who
feared catching SARS, wouldn’t allow his friend from Toronto to come for a
visit. He stopped having other company as well, thinking that they could have
visited Toronto or some other high-risk area without his knowing. Gina stopped
visiting her family and friends who had pets because she was afraid of getting
rabies. She’d also given up jogging in the park and volunteering at the animal
shelter, two activities she once loved.
What are the consequences of trying to cope by using avoidance? What does
the person who is doing the avoiding get out of it? Are there benefits? Are there
drawbacks? There are, in fact, both benefits and drawbacks. The benefit of
avoidance is that you don’t have to experience the bodily sensation, activity, or
thing that makes you uncomfortable or of which you’re afraid. Being able to stay
away from these things brings about a feeling of relief. It’s for this reason that
many people with health anxiety develop a habit of coping by avoiding. The
unfortunate truth is that the relief provided by avoidance is short-lived. Anxiety
soon returns. Why? As we mentioned in Chapter 5, you need to confront the
things that make you anxious to triumph over anxiety! One of us has a daughter
who loves to swim and play about in the water. She wasn’t always that way.
When she was taken to her first swimming lesson she was terrified. She
expressed worries and dislike for the water on the way to a large number of her
lessons. One week we couldn’t make it to the lesson because of a snowstorm, and
she was relieved; overjoyed, in fact! Wanting her to learn to swim, we worked on
her discomfort (by pointing out how great it’d be to be able to swim at the lake
and with friends) and persisted in taking her to lessons. It was only by taking her
to the pool over and over again and by showing her that she was safe in the
water that we helped her to overcome her anxieties. Later in this chapter, we’ll
show you how your avoidance of things that you’ve come to associate with your
health anxiety can be overcome in much the same way.
Reassurance Seeking
People with health anxiety, such as Matt, often seek out information on disease
because they hope they’ll learn that everything is okay. Like Sarah, introduced
in Chapter 1, Matt was also visiting his doctor on a monthly basis to discuss his
symptoms and make sure he wasn’t sick. Reassurance seeking is a term we use to
describe the behavior of getting information, usually from doctors, that signs and
symptoms aren’t related to disease. Reassurance can be thought of as the
repeated presentation of the simple message that there’s nothing physically
wrong and that there’s no evidence of disease.
The benefits and drawbacks of reassurance seeking are much the same as
those of avoidance. The benefit is an almost immediate feeling of relief and
reduced anxiety. Research has shown that this occurs, but it also shows that the
feelings of relief don’t last long. Health anxiety usually returns within 24 hours,
often when bodily sensations or changes are noticed again. This leads to ques-
tions such as “Why would I be experiencing more symptoms if my doctor said I
was healthy?” and “I wonder if the doctor missed something or if the tests were
faulty.” These questions increase health anxiety for those who don’t like uncer-
tainty, and the result is more information seeking—more reading, more surfing
the Internet, more doctor visits, and more medical tests. This feeds the health
anxiety cycle by keeping attention focused on bodily sensations and changes and
by increasing the chances of finding alarming information. By relying on doctors
to placate worries, the health-anxious person doesn’t get an opportunity to learn
that the feared bodily sensations are harmless. He or she doesn’t take that all-
important step of testing the waters on his or her own.
Security Blankets
The Peanuts comic strip created by Charles M. Schulz, featuring Charlie Brown
and his friends, is one of the most successful and enduring cartoons of our time.
One of Charlie Brown’s friends, Linus Van Pelt, inspired the term security blanket
with his unwillingness to go anywhere or do anything without his favorite baby-
blue comforter. Like Linus, we all have security blankets of one sort or
another—things that are emotionally comforting and that make us feel safe. For
some it’s a tub of chocolate ice cream. For others it may be a warm bath or a
favorite pair of pajamas. For people with health anxiety it’s anything that’s
believed to give protection from disease or medical emergency. The list of possi-
ble security blankets is almost endless, but here are some examples:
• Wearing a MedicAlert bracelet,

• Wearing latex gloves,
• Carrying a cellular phone,
• Carrying bottles of prescription medication,
• Keeping a doctor’s business card handy in a purse or wallet,
• Purchasing medical testing equipment, such as blood pressure monitors or
cardiac defibrillators, for personal use, and
• Living close to a hospital.
In each case, the security blanket provides the person with a sense of safety from
possible threats to his or her health.
The use of security blankets seems harmless. But relying on them for relief
from health-related worries feeds the health anxiety cycle. Why might this be?
First, although they provide some comfort, the security blankets are also remind-
ers of disease. Matt carried nitroglycerin pills around in his pocket. He found
comfort in knowing the pills would keep his heart pumping if it began beating
too slowly. The pills were also a constant reminder of the fear that his heart
would stop beating. This reminder fed his specific thoughts about the various
rare heart conditions he might have and made him worry more. Second, reliance
on security blankets as a way of coping keeps people feeling helpless and unable
to take control over their situations. They feel uncomfortable and unable to do
anything without their security blankets. To break the health anxiety cycle, it’s
necessary to give up security blankets.
Things to Remember
People with health anxiety do many different things to cope with their worries.
These things usually fit into one of four groups—repetitive checking, avoidance,
reassurance seeking, and reliance on security blankets. By looking over the
things you wrote down in the last column on Worksheet 7 from Chapter 6, you’ll
get an idea of the things you do to deal with your health anxiety. We’ll also give
you some exercises in the next section to get a better handle on this. The things
you’re doing are most likely providing you some relief from anxiety. But the
relief they provide is always going to be short-lived, and your anxiety will return.
If this weren’t the case, you wouldn’t be reading this book. A question we’re
often asked is “Why do people keep using these ways of coping if they don’t work
all that well?” The answer is that it’s the temporary relief from anxiety that keeps
people using them. Our goal for this chapter is to teach you strategies that will
give you more than temporary relief.
Getting Rid of Behaviors That Feed Health Anxiety:

Weeks 12 to 14
The next step in conquering your health anxiety is to get rid of any anxiety-
feeding behaviors you have. These will be replaced with behaviors that give you
a greater sense of control over your well-being. We’re going to show you several
different strategies for doing this. These include:
• Testing the effectiveness of checking and reassurance seeking,

• Confronting feared bodily sensations and feared situations, and
• Letting go of security blankets.
We recommend that you work through the steps provided for each of these strat-
egies before starting to practice any of them. You can then pick the ones that
seem best matched to you—the ones you think will help you get rid of the spe-
cific things you’re doing to feed your health anxiety—and practice those.
Focused practice should last at least three weeks, although in some cases it may
take a little longer. You can expect to add a few weeks of practice if you’re work-
ing on more than one strategy for replacing your health anxiety behaviors.
We’ve mentioned a few times that an important part of these exercises is coming
face-to-face with the things that you’re afraid of. Have we convinced you that
confronting the things you fear is the best way to overcome them? If not, ask
yourself the following question: “Have the things I’ve been doing to this point—
things like checking the Internet, seeing my doctor, and avoiding things I really
want to do—helped me conquer my anxiety?” The answer will probably be no.
We like to think of our exercises as an investment of a little short-term pain for a
big long-term gain. You’re already experiencing long-term pain from your health
anxiety, so what do you have to lose?
Several of the strategies in this chapter are designed to gradually expose you
to the things you fear. This gradual approach will allow you to get used to your
feelings before moving on. So, once you’ve decided to work on a particular strat-
egy, practice the exercises in the order we present them. Don’t skip ahead! Most
of what you’ll feel—increased heart rate, shortness of breath, light-headedness,
and shakiness—is related to your body’s stress reaction. Don’t fight the stress
reaction. Let it happen. Some people may also feel a bit irritable or develop a
headache. Don’t be alarmed by these feelings. They’re not dangerous, and they’ll
pass within a short time. Instead, we encourage you to think of your stress reac-
tion, increased anxiousness, and other feelings that go along with it as evidence
that you’re actually working on the right exercises for you. Although it sounds a
little silly, it’s true that the exercises that make you feel anxious are the same
ones that will help break your health anxiety cycle.
Testing the Effectiveness of Checking and Reassurance Seeking

Checking and reassurance seeking feed the health anxiety cycle in slightly dif-
ferent ways, but the exercises that will help you to give them up are almost iden-
tical. We’ll teach you to test the effectiveness of these behaviors as a way of cop-
ing using a step-by-step approach. Our goal is to have you learn for yourself that
these behaviors aren’t helpful in the long term. Ultimately, we want you to give
up checking and reassurance seeking almost completely.
Step 1: Identify Your Checking and Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors

Using Worksheet 11, list all of the checking behaviors that you remember doing.
You may have only one, or you may have several. Some of these behaviors may
Worksheet 11.
My Checking and Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors
Type What I do
Bodily checking
Searching for information
Reassurance seeking
113
be obvious to you—for example, repeatedly checking for bodily sensations or

changes, searching for medical information on the Internet, and visiting your
doctor for reassurance. Others, such as telling your family or friends about your
symptoms in hopes that they’ll tell you everything is okay, may not be as obvi-
ous. You can add to the list whenever something comes to mind. An example of
Matt’s partially completed Worksheet 11 is shown in Figure 6.
Type What I do
Bodily checking • I pay close attention to my heart and the way it

beats.
• I take my pulse at least 10 times a day. I count
beats for a few minutes and try to feel times
when the pause between them is longer than usual.
Searching for information • I spend most of my free time surfing the Internet
for information about chest pain and types of
heart disease. About 3 hours or more each day.
• When not on the Internet I try to watch programs
about heart disease and its effects. I sometimes
tape them and watch them late at night.
Reassurance seeking • I go to my family doctor at least once a month to

make sure I’m not going to drop dead. Have done
this for past year or so.
• I’ve seen a cardiologist a few times recently for
the same reason.
FIGURE 6. Matt’s checking and reassurance-seeking behaviors.

Step 2: Identify Advantages and Disadvantages
Revisiting a strategy you’ve already learned, examine the evidence for the
advantages and disadvantages of the behaviors you identified in Step 1. Make a
copy of Worksheet 12 for each of your checking and reassurance-seeking behav-
iors and write down the advantages and disadvantages of each. By having read
the earlier parts of this book, you’ve already gathered most of the information
you’ll need to do this. Also, try to come up with an alternative behavior that you
might replace your checking behavior with. Write down its advantages and dis-
advantages, as well. Consider, for example, what would happen if you stopped
doing what you’re doing; or what might happen if you started doing the behavior
more often over a period of a week or so. You may find it odd that we’d ask you to
do more of something that feeds your health anxiety. But we often ask our
patients to do this because doing more of something is a good way of showing
exactly how it affects health anxiety. Take a few minutes to work through this
step now. An example of Matt’s completed Worksheet 12 for surfing the Internet
for medical information is shown in Figure 7. Use it as a guide to get yourself
started.
Do the disadvantages you listed for your checking or reassurance-seeking
behaviors outweigh the advantages? If you answered yes, you’re ready to begin
work on giving up these behaviors and replacing them with alternative ones.
Step 3 will help you do this. If you answered no, then carefully review the first
section of this chapter, as well as Chapters 1 and 2, and see if this helps you find
some more disadvantages. If it does, move on to Step 3. If not, you can still move
on to Step 3. You may find it a little more challenging to work through, but if
you stick to it, the results will come.
Step 3: Practice Alternative Behaviors
Take a look at Table 5. It shows some examples of sample exercises and what will
be learned from each. As with the alternative behaviors you identified in Step 2,
the sample exercises fall into categories of decreasing or increasing a behavior.
How do the sample exercises compare with the alternative behaviors you wrote
down for yourself on Worksheet 12? People with health anxiety have many dif-
ferent ways of checking and seeking reassurance. Over the next week we want
you to practice the alternative behaviors you came up with. If you stick to it,
what you’ll see for yourself is that:
• Increasing your checking behavior makes things worse,

• Decreasing it doesn’t cause a health catastrophe, and
• Doing these exercises repeatedly leads to a decrease in your health anxi-
ety.
Worksheet 12.
Collecting Evidence of Advantages and Disadvantages
of My Checking and Reassurance Seeking Behaviors
Advantages Disadvantages
Behavior
Example: “I check the
mole on my arm
throughout the day,
poking and picking at it
to see if it’s changed
color or grown.”
Alternative behavior
Example: “I could stop
checking the mole” or
“I could start checking
more often, say every
two hours for the next
four days.”
116
Behavior • I’ll know whatever • I don’t have time to do

Example: “I check the there is to know about anything else and
mole on my arm the causes of chest really have no interest
throughout the day, pain. in anything else. It’s
always worrying about
poking and picking at • I’ll know everything I
my heart stopping.
it to see if it’s need to know about
changed color or heart disease and how • I’m falling behind at
grown.” to keep myself from work because I keep
dropping dead. sneaking on the
I spend most of my Internet.
• If there are any new
free time surfing
discoveries I’ll know • I feel really bad about
the Internet for
about them right away. not spending time with
information about my wife and kids. I get
chest pain and frustrated when they
heart disease. interrupt my Internet
time, and then I feel
bad about this. I think
they’re fed up with me.
Alternative behavior • Asmundson and Taylor • If I stop surfing I could

Example: “I could stop say that I’ll learn for miss some important
checking the mole” or myself that surfing is medical breakthrough
“I could start checking keeping my health that could benefit me.
anxiety alive. If I can
more often, say every • Spending more time on
kick this habit then
two hours for the next maybe I can start the Internet can’t
four days.” spending some good make things much
quality time with my worse than they
I could stop surfing family. already are. I’m on
the Internet. almost all of the time.
That’s my goal. • Maybe I’ll also be able
But first I’m going to dig out from under
to see what the mountain of work
happens if I spend I’ve let pile up.
as much time
searching for
information as I
can.
FIGURE 7. Matt’s advantages and disadvantages of checking the Internet for medical
information.
TABLE 5. Sample Exercises and Learning Objectives for Testing the Effectiveness
of Checking and Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors
Behavior Sample exercise Learning objective
Body checking—lymph Repeatedly check lymph Repeated checking is a

nodes nodes by repeated palpation cause of bodily swelling and
(versus not checking) tenderness
Body checking—lump in Checking throat by A feared sensation (lump in
throat repeatedly swallowing the throat) is caused by
(versus not swallowing) repeated swallowing
Information checking— Refrain, for one week, from Refraining from collecting
surfing the Internet looking up medical medical information has no
information on the Internet adverse impact on my
or in books health
Going to the doctor for Seeking medical Reassurance seeking feeds
medical reassurance reassurance weekly versus my preoccupation with
putting it off for a month health and disease
Talking with family Ask family to refrain from My preoccupation with
members for reassurance giving reassurance health and disease declines
when reassurance is not
given
Source: Adapted from S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral
approach. New York: Guilford Press. Adapted by permission.
This was exactly the case for Matt. He decided to try spending five days
doing almost nothing but surfing the Internet in his spare time. This was fol-
lowed by five days without surfing at all. He monitored his activities and anxiety
levels. Worksheet 13 can be used to assist you in monitoring your behavioral
exercises. Matt also kept track of his specific thoughts using Worksheet 7 from
Chapter 6. What he found was that his anxiety about his heart stopping was
high when surfing and gradually became lower during the days he wasn’t surfing.
Related to this, he noticed having fewer specific thoughts about his heart mal-
functioning when not surfing. He learned that surfing the Internet was making
his health anxiety worse rather than better.
Helpful Hints
Our purpose in asking you to test the effectiveness of checking and reassurance-
seeking behaviors is for you to learn that nothing bad will happen if you give
them up and to recognize for yourself that doing so will reduce your feelings of
anxiety. We pretty much want you to give up these behaviors completely. But
completely may be asking a lot. Some people can do this. Others can for a while
but then lapse and start checking or seeking reassurance again. If this happens to
Worksheet 13. Monitoring Form for Behavioral Exercises.
Peak anxiety
Day and date Exercise (0–100) What did you learn from the exercise?
Example 1 Spent 5 min feeling the lymph glands on neck, 50 Repeated checking and squeezing makes my
to see if they were swollen glands feel sore and swollen. Repeated
checking creates problems— it makes me think
my glands are swollen.
Example 2 Jogged around the block 70 I was worried that my body couldn’t take the
exertion. But I survived! Maybe I’m not as frail
as I thought.
Example 3 Walked past a funeral home 65 Nothing bad happened. I can’t get sick by being
near dead bodies.
119
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York: Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission.
you, don’t despair. Instead, you can turn your lapse into a learning experience.
Work through the steps of this exercise again from the beginning. Sometimes it’s
necessary to show yourself all over again that your alternatives to checking and
reassurance seeking decrease your anxiety in the long run.
Keep in mind that some checking behaviors are good for us when done in
moderation. If you’re repeatedly checking for lumps in your breasts or testicles,
we don’t want you to stop completely. Instead, set up a schedule to do a self-
exam once a month. Mark a date on your calendar and do the self-exam only
when the date arrives. If you have a strong urge to start checking your body or
looking for medical information, remember that turning your attention to some-
thing else will help. If you busy yourself with another task, the urge will pass.
Also keep in mind that seeing your family doctor for annual physical exami-
nations is important. Scheduling your annual exams ahead of time and marking
them on your calendar is a useful way of keeping track of but not overfocusing
your attention on the appointment date. If symptoms arise before your annual
exam, they may or may not need medical attention. That is, they may or may
not be due to anxiety. You may want to give in and seek reassurance from your
doctor that you’re not sick. In this case, we strongly recommend a wait-and-see
approach. If the symptoms persist for more than a week despite your working
through the other strategies you’ve learned in this book—stress management
and changing anxiety-provoking thoughts—then and only then go to the doc-
tor.
Confronting Feared Bodily Sensations and Situations

Cognitive-behavioral therapists like to use exercises called exposure to help peo-
ple get over their fears. Exposure is a strategy designed to get you to come face-
to-face with the things you fear and feel anxious about. Because many people
with health anxiety are afraid of bodily sensations and changes, we’re going to
ask you to work through exercises in which you’ll purposefully bring on these
sensations or changes in your body. These exercises, called interoceptive exposure,
are designed to give you extra evidence that your bodily sensations and changes
aren’t a sign that you’re sick and that, in fact, they are very much under your
control. The exercises for confronting feared situations, called situational expo-
sure, are very similar to those for confronting feared bodily sensations. You’ll
want to try these exercises if you avoid certain things, people, or places that you
fear will make your condition worse. The goal of situational exposure is to pro-
vide evidence that doing certain things you’ve associated with disease doesn’t
really put you at a higher risk for developing the disease.
Not everybody needs to practice both types of exposure. Some people are
more worried about bodily sensations and changes, whereas others worry more
about doing certain things. If your biggest worries are about bodily sensations or
changes, then interoceptive exposure will likely be best for you. On the other
hand, situational exposure might work best if you worry more about doing things
or even avoid doing them because they make you anxious. We’ll explain the
steps for each type of exposure and let you decide whether to do one or both.
The steps for doing interoceptive and situational exposure are similar and
include:
• Identifying the specific things that make you most anxious,

• Choosing the best exposure exercise for you, and
• Practicing your exposure exercises.
Interoceptive Exposure
Step 1: Identify the Sensations and Changes That Make You Most Anxious. Choosing the
interoceptive exposure exercises you’ll do depends on which bodily sensations
and changes make you feel most anxious. Is it a racing heart, shortness of breath,
headache, fatigue, muscle pain, stomach cramps, light-headedness, shakiness,
hot flashes, seeing “stars” floating in front of your eyes, skin rash, lumps under
the skin, moles, or something else along these lines? Reviewing your worksheets
from Chapters 2 and 6 will help you pinpoint the ones you’re most worried
about. Write them on the following lines. If you worry a lot about more than
three bodily sensations or changes, write down the three that cause you the most
worry. These are the ones you’ll work on. Using our 0-to-100 scale, with 0 being
no anxiety and 100 being extreme anxiety, make a note of how anxious these sen-
sations or changes make you feel right now.
1.
2.
3.
Step 2: Choose the Best Exposure Exercise for You. Table 6 shows examples of some
interoceptive exposure exercises that can be performed for various bodily sensa-
tions and changes. For example, if you worry that heart palpitations mean you’re
going to have a heart attack, you could try fast-paced running on the spot for
two minutes. Or you might go to a 30-minute aerobics class. The purpose of
these exercises is to show how certain activities bring on a rapid heart rate and
that this rapid heart rate is a normal bodily response. It’s important for you to
know that everyone can do exposure exercises but that not all exposure exercises
are for everyone. In other words, certain exercises shouldn’t be done in some
cases. If you have a medical condition that’s been confirmed by your doctor, cau-
tion may be needed. There are some exercises that you shouldn’t do. For in-
stance, a person with asthma shouldn’t do exercises involving hyperventilation
TABLE 6. Examples of Interoceptive Exposure Exercises

Learning objective: The following
Exercise sensations have no harmful consequences
Hyperventilate, taking a deep breath in Dizziness, dry mouth, breathlessness, racing

and out every second, for 1 minute heart, tingling, trembling or shakiness
Shake your head side to side for 30 seconds Dizziness, light-headedness
Place your head between knees for 30 Light-headedness

seconds and then rapidly sit upright
Breathe through a narrow straw for 2 Shortness of breath, smothering feelings,

minutes dizziness, light-headedness, chest tightness,
trembling or shakiness
Exhale and then hold your breath for 30 Chest tightness, shortness of breath, light-
seconds headedness, racing heart
Breathe with chest muscles rather than Chest tightness

diaphragm
Swallow and then hold your throat in Throat tightness, lump in throat
“mid-swallow” for 10 seconds
Swallow five times in a row very quickly Throat tightness, lump in throat
Clear your throat five times quickly Sore throat
Carry a heavy bag of groceries for 60 Trembling or shakiness, breathlessness,

seconds racing or pounding heart, light-headedness,
muscle tension and fatigue
Drink hot coffee Racing heart, sweating, hot flashes
Sit in a chair and then tense all of your Muscle tension, trembling or shakiness,
muscles for 1 minute light-headedness
Jog on the spot or run up and down stairs Racing heart, chest tightness,
for 2 minutes breathlessness, smothering feelings,
sweating, hot flashes, muscle tension and
fatigue
Do a 30-minute aerobics class Racing heart, chest tightness,

breathlessness, fatigue, sweating, muscle
tension and fatigue
Source: Adapted from S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral
approach. New York: Guilford Press. Adapted by permission.
to bring on dizziness, and a person with migraine headaches may be better off
not drinking caffeinated beverages to promote sweating. If you do have a con-
firmed medical condition and you are unsure whether you should do a particular
exposure exercise, discuss your concerns with your doctor. The doctor will tell
you whether the exercise is something you can do.
There are several ways to decide which exercises to do. First, you can select
exercises from Table 6 that match up with your feared bodily sensations or
changes. Second, you can try exposing yourself to behaviors that you’ve been
avoiding to keep from experiencing certain bodily sensations—for example,
walking up the stairs if you fear heart palpitations. Finally, you can use a combi-
nation of these two methods. Whatever exercises you choose to do, you should
start with ones that you’re fairly confident you’ll be able to do for the duration of
the exercise. Write down the exercises that you think will work for you on the
following lines. Now, using another 0-to-100 scale, with 0 equal to not at all con-
fident and 100 equal to completely confident, rate your confidence in fully doing
each exercise you’ve selected. Most of our patients list at least one exercise that
they’re fairly certain they can complete.
1.
2.
3.
Start by practicing the exercises that you rated close to 70. By doing this
you’ll ensure starting out with manageable exercises—something that’s challeng-
ing but not impossible—and you’ll slowly build confidence in taking on the
challenge of more distressing exercises. Matt used a combination of the first and
second methods to select his exposure exercises. He started daily jogging on the
spot for two minutes, something he had 85 percent confidence in being able to
do. He did this for a week. As his confidence grew, he added biking every second
day for 20 minutes over the next week and then daily roughhousing with his
kids. At first he didn’t have much confidence in being able to get through these
last two tasks, with initial ratings of 55 percent and 40 percent, but as he worked
his way through the jogging exercise his confidence increased to a point that he
felt okay about giving them a try.
Step 3: Practice Your Exposure Exercises. All interoceptive exposure exercises are
meant to be brief and should take only a few minutes each. We recommend that
you practice each exercise selected in Step 2 several times a day. The more you
practice these exercises, gradually exposing yourself to feared bodily sensations,
the less distressing they’ll become. Add exercises as your confidence in being
able to work through them increases to above 70. For any given exercise this
could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Situational Exposure
Step 1: Identify Things That Make You Most Anxious. Exercise and other physical activi-
ties are often avoided because they cause bodily sensations associated with an
impending health crisis of some sort, such as heart attack or ruptured aneurysm.
Gradually adding these activities to your interoceptive exposure exercises will
reduce the anxiety they cause and, if you stick with it, will also improve your
physical fitness. You can try exposing yourself to different kinds of activities and
monitor how they make you feel using the steps outlined here. Because almost
anything can be linked to a disease in some way or other, people with disease
phobia avoid an endless number of situations because of fear of catching a dis-
ease. Some examples include avoiding visiting people in hospitals, reading or
watching shows about sick people, going to parties or restaurants where smoking
is allowed, touching public doors, using public washrooms, and so on. Reviewing
the worksheets from Chapter 6 may help you pinpoint the situations you’re most
worried about. Write down the three that cause you the most worry on the fol-
lowing lines. Using our 0-to-100 scale, with 0 being no anxiety and 100 being ex-
treme anxiety, make a note of how anxious these situations would make you feel if
you were in them.
1.
2.
3.
Step 2: Choose the Best Exposure Exercise for You. Table 7 shows examples of things
that can be used in situational exposure exercises to overcome fear of catching
various diseases. You can select from these examples and use them as a guide for
making up exercises that are specific to the things you avoid. To do this you’ll
need to think about the many different things related to the diseases you’re
afraid of catching.
• Using Worksheet 14, write down everything you can think of that’s
related to your top-ranked situations. Write down as many things as you can,
without judging whether you think they’re possible to do and without rating
how anxious they’d make you feel if you did them. Try to get down at least 10
different things.
• Cross out anything you wrote down that wouldn’t be possible to do. For
example, if you wrote down “visit a cancer ward” or “walk through a ‘rough’ part
of town” but live in a place that doesn’t have these things, you’d cross them off
your list.
• Using the 0–100 scale, rate how much anxiety you’d feel if you were actu-
ally in each situation that hasn’t been crossed out. If the same or a very similar
TABLE 7. Examples of Things That Can Be Used in Situational Exposure Exercises

for Some Commonly Feared Diseases
Fear of contracting . . . Items and activities that can be used for exposure exercises
Cancer • Magazine photos of people who battled cancer

• Illustrated textbooks on cancer
• TV documentaries on cancer
• Hospital cancer wards
Airborne germs • Walking past funeral homes
• Sitting in a hospital waiting room where sick people have
been sitting
• The sight and sound of a person coughing (e.g., the
therapist)
• Talking to people who appear to be ill
HIV • Illustrated articles on HIV
• TV programs on HIV
• Walking in a “gay” part of town
• Volunteering at a hospice for HIV-positive people
Food poisoning • Eating tinned foods without washing the tins beforehand
• Eating unusual or unfamiliar foods (e.g., exotic fruits that
have been washed before consumption)
• Cooking and eating chicken that is one day past the “use
by” date
• Dining in a “cheap-looking” cafe
Rabies • Visiting a pet store and handling puppies
• Walking in a park frequented by people walking their dogs
• Looking at dogs in a local pound
• Volunteering as a dog-walker at a pound
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral
approach. New York: Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission.
rating was given to more than one activity, choose the one that you want to try
doing and cross out the others.
• Cross out any remaining activities that aren’t really related or that don’t
fit well with the others. Your goal is to get down to around four to seven activi-
ties, with anxiety ratings ranging from low to high.
• Copy your list on a separate piece of paper so that it goes from the activity
that you rated as causing the least anxiety to the one rated as causing the most
anxiety. This is your situational exposure exercise list for your top-ranked situa-
tion. A completed example of Worksheet 14 is shown in Figure 8.
Again, baby steps are important. If you start by practicing the exercises that
you rated as least anxiety provoking, you’ll slowly build confidence to work
through the ones you rated as more distressing. Francis, for example, avoided
going anywhere near hospitals because he feared contracting a serious disease
Worksheet 14.
Things Related to Situations I’m Afraid of
Situation:
126
Situation: I avoid being anywhere near sick people
Drive past a hospital 35

Walk past a hospital 53
Watch ER 40 (doesn’t fit with other activities)
Read articles about contagious diseases 45 (doesn’t fit with other
activities)
Visit a friend whose kids have a cold 90 (no friends have a cold
right now)
Walk through a hospital parking lot 64
Walk up to a hospital entrance 79
Go into the main area of a hospital 84
Go into an empty hospital waiting room 92
Sit in the waiting area at my doctor’s office 94 (doing empty
hospital instead)
Go to the drug store pharmacy area 63 (doing parking lot instead)
Sit in an emergency room waiting area 100 (doing busy hospital
instead)
Visit a trauma unit (no trauma unit in my city)
Go into a busy hospital waiting room where 100
there are many sick people
FIGURE 8. Things related to Francis’s fear of catching a disease from being near
sick people.
from sick people. This was a becoming a big problem, because he couldn’t bring
himself to visit his friends and family when they were in the hospital. He set up a
series of exercises, starting with the one he was least anxious about and ending
with the one he was most anxious about. His exercises looked like this:
1. Walk past a hospital (initial anxiety rating = 53)

2. Walk through a hospital parking lot (initial anxiety rating = 64)
3. Walk up to a hospital entrance (initial anxiety rating = 79)
4. Go into the main area of a hospital (initial anxiety rating = 84)

5. Go into an empty hospital waiting room (initial anxiety rating = 92)
6. Go into a busy hospital waiting room where there are many sick people (initial
anxiety rating = 100)
Step 3: Practice Your Exposure Exercises. As with the interoceptive exposure exer-
cises, the situational exercises should be brief and should be practiced daily. We
recommend that you move from one exercise to the next on your list only after
your anxiety ratings have dropped by at least 20 on the 1-to-100 rating scale.
Don’t rush! Stay with the activity long enough during one practice of the exercise
for the anxiety it causes to decrease. Francis took 20 minutes a day over a three-
week period to work through his series of exercises. He monitored his progress
every day. After walking past a neighborhood hospital for 10 minutes, his anxi-
ety rating dropped from 53 to 20. The next day he walked through the hospital
parking lot two times for 10 minutes each time. Again his anxiety dropped by
more than 20 points. The last four exercises were more difficult, taking between
two and five days each to work through. Despite a strong desire to avoid the last
four situations, Francis forced himself to experience the anxiety they provoked
until it started to decline. Although he was still somewhat anxious at the end of
the three weeks of practice, Francis was actually able to go visit a close friend in
the hospital. His anxiety rating during the hospital visit was 50.
In some cases you may notice that tackling and overcoming the situations
that cause you the most health anxiety will reduce your anxiety for other activi-
ties or situations as well. If your second- and third-ranked situations continue to
make you anxious, repeat Steps 2 and 3 for each one until your anxiety
decreases.
Monitor Your Exposure Progress

Use Worksheet 13 to keep track of each exposure exercise you do, when you do
it, how anxious it makes you feel, and what you learn from doing it. As with pre-
vious exercises, you might find it helpful to make a chart of your anxiety ratings.
We recommend that you make a chart to compare your pre-exercise anxiety rat-
ings for your top three feared bodily sensations or situations with the ratings you
make on Worksheet 13 after practicing each exercise. If the exposure exercises
you selected were effective, you should see an overall decrease in the amount of
anxiety each bodily sensation or situation made you feel. This may take any-
where from several days to a few weeks. You should also be able to add to your
evidence for the alternative explanations you listed on Worksheet 8 from Chap-
ter 6. For example, for the alternative explanation “the lumps in my breasts are
harmless cysts,” a person might add “repeated poking and prodding of breast tis-
sue increases pain and swelling, whereas leaving it alone reduces it.”
At times you may be tempted to turn to any security blankets you have for
comfort from feelings of fear and anxiety brought on during practice of your
interoceptive and situational exposure exercises. Try your hardest not to give in
to this temptation. Remind yourself that you want to let the stress reaction hap-
pen, that feelings of anxiety associated with the stress reaction aren’t harmful,
and that they’ll pass within a few minutes or so. If you do give in, make a note of
this on Worksheet 13 and try working through the exercises described next as a
way of letting go of your security blankets.
Letting Go of Security Blankets

Many of our patients use security blankets as a way of coping with their health
anxiety. We can’t overstate how important it is that you try to let your secu-
rity blankets go. Easier said than done? Maybe not. Many people find it next
to impossible to go “cold turkey” but have success when they have a little
help.
This help comes in the form of small modifications to the exercises you’ve
already learned for testing the effectiveness of checking and reassurance-seeking
behaviors. Matt, for example, worked through three steps very similar to those
described for overcoming checking and reassurance seeking so he could stop car-
rying around his nitroglycerin pills. First, he listed the advantages and disadvan-
tages of carrying the pills. He noted feeling safe as an advantage but now under-
stood how this behavior fed his health anxiety. Second, he came up with a few
alternatives—he could stop carrying the pills altogether, he could keep them
nearby but not in his pockets, or he could increase their presence by putting
them in his line of sight at all times. He decided to try going without carrying
the pills for three days. His anxiety didn’t drop much. In fact, he felt more anx-
ious, feeling he’d most certainly die without the pills if the “big one” happened.
Next he tried putting a bottle of pills where he could see them almost all of the
time—on his night table, beside his toothbrush, in his car, on his computer
monitor at work, and on top of the refrigerator at home. Over a three-day period
he came to realize that the pills really did cause him to worry more about his
health and, to his surprise, that this worry was what made him feel he needed
the pills handy “just in case.” Finally, when he tried again to go without carrying
the pills, his anxiety about not having them handy dropped from a rating of 90
to one of 50 in two days. Try modifying the three steps for overcoming checking
and reassurance seeking in order to identify and work toward letting go of your
security blankets.
There is no special key to deciding in what order to test your alternatives to
using your security blankets; it’s just a matter of trying different alternatives.
Eventually (and fairly quickly) you’ll be able to show yourself that your security
blankets keep your anxiety alive and that you’re safe without them.
Coping with Fear of Death
Worries about bodily sensations or catching horrific diseases are usually related
to a fear of death. Some people with health anxiety can think of almost nothing
but death and what it holds for them. They’re constantly worried about dying,
and they often wonder whether their uncomfortable bodily sensations will go on
for eternity after they die: “Death won’t bring me any relief. I’m probably going
to lie in my grave with this excruciating and incessant head pain forever.”
Worrying a lot about death is similar to some of the other health-related
worries we’ve talked about in that it feeds the health anxiety cycle. But it’s dif-
ferent in a very important way. How is it different from worrying that muscle
weakness is due to multiple sclerosis or that chest pain signals an oncoming
heart attack? How is it different from worrying that you’ll catch an infectious
disease by using public washrooms? It’s different from these worries because there
isn’t an alternative explanation to the thought that “I’m going to die.” It’s a fact
of life that we’re all going to die someday. It’s inevitable.
Many of the strategies we’ve introduced to you in this chapter are designed
to help you make life richer and more enjoyable; but they won’t work to their
fullest potential if you spend most of your time worrying about death and dying.
The good news (although it may not sound all that good) is that the fear of
death can also be overcome by facing it head on. We’ve all heard stories or seen
movies about people who’ve brushed shoulders with death and come away with
a renewed appreciation for all that life has to offer. We can’t directly expose you
to death and have you come back having learned from your experience. But you
can try the following:
• Prepare a will.
• Read the obituary section of your local newspaper.
• Visit cemeteries and read the inscriptions on the headstones.
• Visit funeral homes to enquire about the type, availability, and cost of
funeral services.
• Write a detailed description of your death. Do this by hand rather than on
a computer or typewriter and don’t worry about spelling or grammar.
Include as much information as possible about your death—how it feels,
what it sounds like, what you’re thinking at the time, what emotions you
have—and the aftermath that you’re afraid of. Read the description back
to yourself.
• Write your own obituary.
These exercises are based on the same principles as the interoceptive and situa-
tional exposure exercises you’ve already learned; that is, they’re meant to be
repeated until the anxiety they provoke becomes less and less. The goal isn’t to
make you happy about death but, rather, to help you face it without too much
worry. You can use Worksheet 13 to track the exercises you perform, your anxi-
ety at the time, and what you learn.
Things to Remember
There’s an important lesson to be learned from each of these exercises: Behav-

iors that we know keep health anxiety alive can be overcome. You can beat
them. Sometimes it does take a while to learn the lesson that will help you break
your health anxiety cycle. For this reason we recommend that you keep track of
the details of all the exercises you do—when you do them, what you do, how
much anxiety you feel, and what you learn. This will allow you to see how you’re
progressing. Make copies of Worksheet 13 and use it to keep track of these
things. You can make graphs like those from Chapters 5 and 6, if you like, to
chart your progress. With consistent practice you’ll see results in three weeks.
But it’s important to keep practicing the things you learn on a daily basis. This
will help keep your health anxiety at bay.
These exercises will challenge you. Constantly remind yourself of the good
reasons that you’re working on these exercises—breaking your health anxiety
cycle and taking back control of your life. Reward yourself for small successes:
Congratulate yourself and treat yourself to something you enjoy. Sometimes
things will be smooth sailing, and you’ll steadily become less and less frightened.
At other times things may get a little rough, and progress may be more like one
step forward and two steps back. You might become a little more comfortable
about your feared bodily sensations or situations, only to experience an increase
again. Francis was feeling much less anxious around sick people, but then one
day, while visiting a cousin in the hospital, he felt a return of his anxiety to lev-
els he hadn’t experienced in a while. He stayed to visit his cousin despite the
increasing anxiety, but he did excuse himself early. The next day he started
working through his exposure exercises again, and, within a week, he was visit-
ing his cousin without much anxiety. Flare-ups like this will occur from time to
time. Simple strategies for dealing with flare-ups are outlined in Chapter 10.
If things get tough, remember that persistence pays off. You can also remind
yourself that:
• You’re investing some short-term pain for the payoff of long-term gain—
taking back control of your life and learning to live it without too much health
anxiety.
• You need to come face to face with your fears to overcome them. If you
get anxious while doing exercises designed to change the behaviors that feed
your health anxiety, it means you’re doing the right things. Use the relaxation
and breathing retraining exercises when your anxiety increases to the point of
getting out of control.
• Some days will be better than others. You’re going to have days when
everything seems to be working and when your health anxiety seems under con-
trol. Great! You’ll also have bad days. Don’t let these get you down. Lance
Armstrong, a testicular cancer survivor and now an astounding six-time winner
of the Tour de France, put it this way:
If I had a bad day, I had a tendency to say “Well, I’ve just been through three surger-
ies, three months of chemo, and a year of hell, and that’s the reason I’m not riding
well. My body is just never going to be the same.” But what I really should have
been saying was “Hey, it’s just a bad day.” (L. Armstrong with S. Jenkins, 2002, It’s
not about the bike: My journey back to life. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, p. 188)
Part III
MAINTAINING
YOUR GAINS
Eight
Dealing with Doctors
We all visit the doctor from time to time. But people with health anxiety tend to
visit their doctors more frequently. Some have excellent relationships with their
doctors, but others don’t. How is your relationship with the doctors you visit
about your health concerns? Answering the following questions will give you a
good idea.
• Do you often have problems dealing with doctors?

• Are they rude or angry with you?
• Does it seem that they dismiss your concerns or don’t care?
• Do you sometimes think your doctors don’t take your problems seriously?
• Do you sometimes feel your doctors don’t really want to talk to you about
your problems?
• Do you find they can’t help you?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, your relationship with your doctors
apparently isn’t at its best. This chapter is for you. Our goal is to help you gain a
better understanding of the kinds of relationships that people with health anxi-
ety have with their doctors. We’ll also suggest a few strategies that you can use to
improve things between you and your doctors.
Here are some examples to illustrate the sorts of doctor–patient problems
that we’re talking about.
Joanne: “Why is the doctor ignoring me?”

Joanne goes to the hospital ER because she has a pain in her right side.
She’s worried that there’s something wrong with one of her kidneys.
135
136 III. MAINTAINING YOUR GAINS
The doctor peeks into the waiting area and sees Joanne. He rolls his
eyes, and she thinks she hears him mutter under his breath, “Not you
again.” This is Joanne’s fifth trip to the ER in the past month, each for
different health concerns. On this visit, the doctor leaves Joanne in the
waiting room for several hours. Other patients come and go while she
sits waiting. The doctor doesn’t come, even though Joanne complains a
number of times to the receptionist. Frustrated and angry, Joanne
storms out, vowing never to go to that ER again.
Weihong: “Are they all incompetent?”

Weihong wants to be absolutely certain that there’s nothing wrong with
his heart. He notices that it sometimes skips a beat and fears that there’s
something seriously wrong. Weihong’s family doctor couldn’t find any-
thing wrong with his heart. And yet the doctor couldn’t say with 100-
percent certainty that there was nothing wrong. This frightened Wei-
hong, so he went from doctor to doctor to be absolutely certain that his
heart was healthy. Although the doctors generally agreed that Wei-
hong’s heart was fine, they gave vague and sometimes conflicting infor-
mation about the causes of skipped beats. As a result, Weihong felt con-
fused and even more frightened. He believed that maybe his doctors
weren’t sufficiently competent to diagnose his sort of heart problem.
Warren: “He says it’s all in my head.”

Warren enters a small consulting room to see his family doctor. The
doctor looks tired and distracted. Warren has a long list of health con-
cerns. He knows that time is short so he describes his problems as
quickly and in as much detail as he can. It seems to Warren that he’s
only just started listing his problems when his doctor sighs and scribbles
something on a prescription pad. Interrupting Warren in mid-sentence,
the doctor tells him that he’s just suffering from “nerves.” As the doctor
leaves to see his next patient he hands Warren a prescription for a tran-
quilizer.
Jasminder: “I’ll find another doctor, then.”

Jasminder sits anxiously by her telephone, awaiting the results of her
latest medical test. For some weeks she’d been feeling tired and had a
sick feeling in her stomach. Her doctor couldn’t find anything wrong
with Jasminder. The doctor said it was probably just stress, but she’d
Dealing with Doctors 137
perform some lab tests just to be sure. A week later, the doctor called.
Jasminder jumped nervously at the shrill ring of the phone. The tests
were negative, and Jasminder was told that she had nothing to worry
about. But Jasminder continued to worry; she felt tired and sickly and
her doctor couldn’t tell her why. She picked up the phone book and
began searching for another doctor who could give her more tests.
Diagnosing Your Doctor Problems
It’s more likely than not that you’ve had an interaction with your doctor like
one of those just described. To help you nail down the source of your problems
with doctors, please read the following list and check off all that apply to you.
o Doctors don’t listen to me.

o They get mad at me.
o They make fun of my problems.
o They don’t tell me what’s causing my problems.
o They’re not available when I need to talk to them.
o They don’t believe me when I describe my symptoms.
o They tell me my problems are “all in my head.”
o They aren’t able to tell me, with 100-percent certainty, that I’m healthy.
o They don’t examine me properly.
o They don’t perform enough medical tests.
Notice that we’ve already talked about some of these things in earlier chapters.
For example, you know that what you’re feeling in your body isn’t all in your
head. The sensations and changes might not be from disease, but many of them
are caused by something very real—your body’s response to stress. Knowing this
will give you the confidence you need to challenge any doctor who suggests that
the things you’re visiting about are simply all in your head. You’ll be able to help
them better understand how the body’s stress reaction can cause bodily sensa-
tions and changes that mimic some diseases. You’ve also learned that the need
for absolute certainty is an unrealistic way of thinking that can be changed and
that medical tests aren’t needed to explain many of the things you’ve been wor-
ried about. Later in this chapter we’ll talk about some other things you can do to
deal with these problems. But, first, let’s consider why things can go wrong in the
relationship between you and your doctor.
Who’s to Blame?
Whose “fault” is it when things go wrong in the doctor–patient relationship?

This is a question we commonly hear. But, in our view, this isn’t the right ques-
tion to be asking. Blame doesn’t solve the problem; it only makes people feel
guilty, angry, or resentful. A more helpful question is “How can I better under-
stand and overcome the problems I have with my doctors?” Sure, sometimes the
problem might lie with your doctors. Just like other professions, the medical pro-
fession has its share of the good, the good enough, and the not so good. If you’ve
been unlucky enough to have an incompetent doctor, then by all means seek
another medical professional. But, if you’ve had problems with many different
doctors, then maybe the problem lies in the way you and your doctors interact.
In other words, the problem may not be the doctor but, instead, the relationship
between you and the doctor.
To make the best use of your doctors, it’s important for you to know two
things. First, you need to understand the sorts of doctor–patient relationships
that doctors do and don’t enjoy. Second, it will help to know the things you can
do to make sure that you get the most out of your interactions with doctors.
Put Yourself in the Doctor’s Shoes

No two doctors are alike, but there are some things that many doctors prefer.
They like to be able to solve problems, to fix things. Imagine how satisfying it
feels to be able to diagnose and cure a serious disease. Now imagine how frustrat-
ing it must feel to have patients that you can’t help—patients who return again
and again, complaining of symptoms you can’t cure. This is how many doctors
feel about patients with health anxiety disorders.
Family doctors, who are usually overworked and under pressure to get
through a long list of patients, often don’t have the time or expertise to treat
health anxiety. In a bid to do something helpful, they might simply try to reas-
sure their patients who have excessive health anxiety that there’s nothing physi-
cally wrong with them. Or they might order more medical tests to appease the
anxious patient (or their own fear of missing a physical problem). But, as we dis-
cussed in previous chapters, giving reassurance and ordering unnecessary medi-
cal tests can make health anxiety worse. People with health anxiety become
addicted to reassurance. And unnecessary medical tests can put people at risk of
harmful effects (for example, scarring and pain from repeated exploratory surger-
ies) or complications that sometimes happen with invasive medical procedures.
When it comes to treating health anxiety, doctors often need to do the opposite
of what they usually do, as captured in the saying “Don’t just do something,
stand there!” That is, sometimes the things they do are more harmful than help-
ful.
So, how does this information help you? It tells you that doctors are pretty
good at identifying and treating physical problems. But, for people with anxiety-
based concerns, such as health anxiety, many doctors, particularly family doc-
tors, don’t have the time or expertise to give helpful assistance or treatment.
Sometimes they refer their health anxious patients to a specialist, such as a psy-
chologist or psychiatrist. This doesn’t mean that they believe the symptoms
reported by their patients aren’t real. In fact, the doctors who refer their health-
anxious patients to mental health professionals are usually the ones who really
do understand that their symptoms are real. They’re the ones who know that
your concerns require specialized treatment along the lines of what we’ve dis-
cussed in Part 2 of this book.
The problem is that many people with health anxiety stubbornly refuse to
see a psychologist or psychiatrist. They worry that people will think they’re crazy
because they’re seeing a “shrink.” It’s quite likely that you felt this way, even if
only a little, when you started reading Chapter 1. It may be helpful to know that,
over the past decade, the stigma associated with anxiety-related health problems
has greatly lessened. Movie stars and other celebrities often appear on TV or in
magazines talking about their struggles with different anxiety disorders. It’s a sign
of wisdom to be able to see the right specialist. If you’re suffering from severe
anxiety about your health, then you owe it to yourself to seek help, regardless of
whether you have a serious disease or whether you’re perfectly healthy. (People
with life-threatening health problems, such as cancer, are often anxious, and
part of their treatment involves specific therapies for anxiety.) If you continue to
be bothered by a lot of health anxiety after working through the exercises in this
book, we strongly recommend that you see a psychologist or psychiatrist who
specializes in health-anxiety disorders to discuss your concerns. We’ll talk about
this further in Chapter 10.
Getting the Most Out of Your Doctors

Even people with health anxiety get sick occasionally. You might have heard the
joke about the hypochondriac’s gravestone, which read, “See—I told you I was
ill!” So, even if you decide to see a specialist for health anxiety, you’ll still need
to figure out how to get the most out of your interactions with your family doc-
tor. Here are some useful dos and don’ts to keep in mind.
Dos include the following:
• Ask yourself “Do I really need to see a doctor right now?” What is your
doctor likely to tell you? Many people with health anxiety already know what
their doctor will say; for example, “There’s nothing wrong with you; you’re sim-
ply experiencing anxiety symptoms.” Try delaying your medical appointment for
a week to see if you can get control of your troubling symptoms by working
through the strategies you’ve learned in this book. If the symptoms don’t go
away after a week, make an appointment with your doctor.
• If you decide to see a doctor, try to be clear about why you’re there and
what you want her or him to do for you.
• In the past, some doctors may not have given you the respect you deserve.
Unfortunately, it happens. But try to take responsibility for your contribution to
problems in the doctor–patient relationship. If you’re angry or rude to your doc-
tor, he or she might become angry or avoid you as a result. Nobody likes to be
around angry, demanding people. Instead, use the things you’ve learned from
earlier chapters in this book to have relaxed and informed discussions about your
concerns.
• Consider seeing a mental health specialist. They can help you understand
and overcome any lingering health anxiety you have. (Most doctors’ offices have
pamphlets or referral information on the agencies or individuals who can help
with mental health problems. We’ve also provided a partial list of specialists at
the back of this book.)
• Give yourself credit for thinking about how you can improve your rela-
tionship with your doctor. It’s a problem to be solved. Try to set aside any anger
or guilt as you analyze the problem. The problem-solving strategies covered in
Chapter 5 may be useful here.
• Let your doctor know you have a tendency to worry about your health and
thank him or her for the time and attention given to you. Your doctor will
appreciate this.
Don’ts include:
• Don’t overwhelm your doctor with too much information. Frustrated doc-
tors sometimes refer to the information overload as the “organ recital.” Pick your
main problem and describe that to your doctor (see Dos). If you like, write your
other problems down on a sheet of paper to give to your doctor.
• Don’t demand 100-percent certainty. No medical test is completely accu-
rate. Remember that we all have to accept that life is full of uncertainties. A
stray satellite could fall through your roof while you’re reading this book. An
earthquake could suddenly swallow you up. An out-of-control truck could sud-
denly crash into your house. These are all unlikely, but there is no 100-guarantee
that they won’t happen. Like it or not, we all have to accept that life is filled
with uncertainties.
• Don’t repeatedly seek reassurance. As you know, reassurance is addictive;
you can never get enough. By repeatedly seeking medical reassurance, you put
yourself in a position in which you feel dependent and constantly worried. And
your doctor will probably get frustrated if you repeatedly ask for reassurance.
• Don’t go “doctor shopping.” Find a doctor who is good enough and stick
with him or her. The overwhelming majority of doctors are good enough.
• The emergency room is for emergencies. Don’t go there unless you really
have to. If you’re having sudden and clearly unusual signs or symptoms (for
example, bleeding from the rectum, persistent vomiting) then a visit to the
emergency room may be in order. If the signs and symptoms are similar to things
you’ve experienced before, see if you can gain control of them with the relax-
ation and breathing exercises you’ve learned. This will help in many cases. If
not, ask yourself if you could wait to see your family doctor instead of going to
the emergency room.
Things to Remember
It’s very common for people with health anxiety to have problems in their deal-
ings with doctors. You might feel demeaned and not believed (or dismissed), and
your doctor may feel angry or frustrated. It’s important to remember that there
are many things you can do—and can refrain from doing—that will help you
make the best use of your doctors. Analyze the problem and try some of the strat-
egies suggested in this chapter. If, after working through the strategies you’ve
learned for breaking the health anxiety cycle, you continue feeling tempted to
see your doctor almost every time you notice noise in your body, one of the best
solutions may involve making an appointment to see a psychologist or psychia-
trist who specializes in the health anxiety disorders. And, finally, keep in mind
that there are times when it is important to see your doctor.
When Should I Seek Medical Attention?
“When should I go to my doctor?” This is a good question that we hear all the
time from our patients. Here we are, advising you to cut down on your doctor
visits, and you’re probably wondering when you really ought to seek medical
attention. There certainly are times when you should do so. You and your doctor
together could generate a list of reasons for seeking medical attention. This list
will depend on your physical health and medical history. If you are elderly or
have a serious illness, you might need to have regularly scheduled medical
appointments, for example, every two weeks. Because everyone is different and
has differing medical needs, we recommend that you discuss this with your doc-
tor. Worksheet 15 can be used to get this discussion going with your doctor.
Here are some examples of times when you should go ahead and see your
family doctor:
• When new, painful symptoms develop (for example, chest pain).

• When you experience bodily sensations or changes that are clearly not
normal and don’t appear to be part of the stress reaction (for example,
blood in the urine, loss of continence, inability to speak).
Worksheet 15. When to Visit the Doctor
Instructions: Answer the questions below. Make an appointment with your doctor to discuss the
things you’ve listed. Have him or her assist you in completing the list of confirmed medical ill-
nesses that you should keep an eye on. Working together, come up with a list of times when you
should visit the doctor.
Write down all anxiety-related bodily sensations or changes you have. Looking back at worksheets
from other chapters may help.
Write down any bodily sensations or symptoms you have that you haven’t been able to explain.
What confirmed medical illness do you have? Are regular check-ups for any of these necessary?
List check-up frequency for each.
(cont.)
142
Worksheet 15. When to Visit the Doctor (cont.)
List all legitimate reasons for seeing your doctor here.
I’ll visit my family doctor at these times:
• When I have a scheduled annual medical examination.
• When I need inoculations.
• If I need to renew a prescription.
• When I experience bodily sensations that are clearly not normal and don’t seem to be part
of the stress reaction (for example, blood in my urine, loss of continence, inability to
speak).
143
• When the symptoms of your chronic, medically confirmed diseases flare

up and thereby warrant medical intervention (for example, worsening of
diabetes or colitis).
• When you need an annual medical examination or inoculation (for
example, mammography, prostate exam, flu shot).
• When you need to renew a prescription medication. (In some states or
provinces, patients can’t phone in their renewals and need to make an
appointment to see their doctor in order to get this done.)
These are examples of good reasons for visiting your doctor. Evaluate your spe-
cific reasons whenever you feel the need to see your doctor. If these reasons are
not on the preceding list, try writing the reason down, putting off the visit, and
reassessing the need for going to the doctor in a week. Practice the strategies
you’ve learned for dealing with your health anxiety. In many cases, you’ll notice
that the things that prompted you to want to go to the doctor a week earlier are
no longer of current concern. That is, you’ll have demonstrated your control
over your health anxiety by reaffirming that bodily sensations and changes that
cause you to worry can actually come and go without being harmful.
Gavin: “Now I’m moving and grooving.”

Gavin was in his seventies. Although he was fairly healthy for his age,
he worried a lot about his health. He sought reassurance from his doctor
each week and often phoned in-between appointments for more reas-
surance. His doctor became resentful and annoyed at the repeated
interruptions, to the point that the doctor was not returning Gavin’s
calls. This made Gavin even more anxious, because it looked like his
doctor was not taking proper care of him. During the weekly medical
appointments, Gavin gave a long, rambling account of his many health
concerns. His doctor felt helpless and overwhelmed and came to dread
their weekly appointments.
Reluctantly, Gavin agreed to see a psychologist for his health anxi-
ety. Much to his surprise, he found the psychological therapy to be help-
ful. The therapist had plenty of time to listen to him, and she appeared
to be genuinely concerned about his suffering. Gavin was encouraged to
make better use of his medical consultations. He wrote out his health
concerns beforehand and gave the list to the doctor. Gavin also worked
at being more to the point in what he said to his doctor, focusing on his
most important health concern. He was also encouraged to delay or
refrain from seeking reassurance. This enabled him to learn that his
worrisome symptoms simply came and went, without any harmful con-
sequences. As Gavin came to be less demanding with his doctor, the
doctor–patient relationship improved. On those rare occasions that he

did phone for advice, Gavin’s calls were promptly returned. The doctor
no longer dreaded their appointments.
Gavin’s health anxiety gradually lessened, and he became physi-
cally more active. For example, he took daily walks in a nearby park. In
his own words, he was “moving and grooving” instead of staying home
worrying about his health. As the psychological therapy came to an
end, Gavin raised the important questions of when and how often he
should consult his family doctor. Gavin, his doctor, and his psychologist
drew up a set of guidelines that included the aforementioned reasons for
seeking medical attention. Gavin and his family doctor also agreed that
he would have check-ups every four weeks and that he would phone the
doctor only when absolutely necessary, and not simply for reassurance.
Gavin was satisfied with the plan and felt that his health was being
properly cared for.
Nine
Helping Friends
and Family Help You
Friends and family members of people with health anxiety commonly ask us
such questions as, “What can I do to help him overcome his health anxiety?”
and “What can I do to cope with living with someone who’s always worrying
about being sick? I know it doesn’t help, but I can’t stop myself from getting frus-
trated.” Undoubtedly, you’ve had a variety of reactions from people who know
that you worry a lot about your health. Some may have been reassuring, some
might have tried giving you advice, some may have become annoyed or angry
about your concerns, and some may have simply brushed you off as being con-
cerned over nothing. It’s not unusual for the same person to react in different
ways at different times. The truth is that your health anxiety has affected both
you and those who care about you; and, in turn, the way they treat you has influ-
enced your health anxiety. This chapter will help you understand two things:
how your health anxiety has affected the important people in your life and why
they react to you the way they do. With this understanding you’ll be in a better
position to help your family and friends learn what they can do to assist you in
breaking your health anxiety cycle.
Most people who spend a lot of time with a person who has health anxiety
experience one of two reactions: They tend to become either stressed out or overin-
volved. Think about the important people in your life. Do some of them seem to be
tense and on edge around you? Are others always trying to help? Let’s take a look at
each of these reactions in more detail. While reading through the next few sec-
tions, keep in mind that our intention is not to blame you or those who care about
you. Our goal is to help you understand these reactions and how they affect your
relationships so that you can teach family and friends how they can help you.
146
Helping Friends and Family Help You 147
The Stressed-Out Loved One
Katy: “It’s not fair that I have to listen.”

Katy was at the end of her rope. Her relationship with her sister Andrea
had become increasingly strained over the past several months. It
seemed that every time they got together Andrea would complain
incessantly about her health and would ask Katy for advice, help, or
reassurance. Katy had gone along with it for a while. In fact, she’d even
taken time off work to drive Andrea to several doctors’ appointments.
But her patience was wearing thin. This week while they were having
coffee, Andrea worried that her eyelids were twitching. “Are my eyelids
twitching?” she would repeatedly ask. “Not that I can see,” sighed Katy.
“Do you think it’s just stress?” asked Andrea. “Probably.” What Katy
thought and really wanted to say was “I wish you’d stop this preoccupa-
tion with your health—it’s not fair that I have to listen to this every
time we get together.” Katy held her tongue, but the irritation grew.
Andrea went on and on about her health concerns. Finally, Katy could-
n’t take it anymore. “I need to go,” she snapped. Getting up, Katy
stormed out of the coffee shop, leaving Andrea feeling hurt, alone, and
bewildered.
Your health anxiety can extend beyond you and be stressful to others.
Although most people are genuinely concerned for you, they do very often have
to put up with repeated pleas for reassurance: “Do I look pale?” “Feel my fore-
head. Do you think I have a temperature?” “Do you think this freckle looks
unusual?” Some find themselves drawn into a caretaking role, chauffeuring you
to and from medical appointments and taking over extra household responsibili-
ties (“I’m too weak to take out the trash. You’ll have to do it for me”).
The extra demands placed on them frequently lead those close to you to feel
frustrated and resentful. They may react by criticizing you: “Will you please stop
whining about your aches and pains. I can’t stand it anymore!” Or they may
resort to nagging to make you stop worrying about your health: “Jason, stop
griping about your stomachaches. You know it’s only stress. Get out of bed and
get ready for school, this instant!”
When stressed-out loved ones of a person with health anxiety come to see
us, we ask them about the things they try to do to help. We hear all sorts of
answers, but there are some common themes. Often they will grudgingly go
along with requests made of them (“Okay, Andrea, I’ll take you to the ER again,
even though you bloody well know the doctor will tell you—again—that there’s
nothing wrong with you”). As they go along with more and more requests,
resentment and anger build, to the point that they may have an angry outburst
(“Goddamn it, Bob, for the hundredth time I can’t see anything wrong with your
tongue!”). The angry outburst may be followed by feelings of guilt (“I’m sorry,
honey, that I blew up at you because you were worried about the color of your
tongue”). This is usually followed by more requests for reassurance by the person
with health anxiety and by resentment building yet again. Thus the stressed-out
relative or friend may be caught in his or her own vicious cycle—a cycle of
building resentment, anger outbursts, guilt, and then more resentment. In an
effort to break the cycle, he or she may avoid the person with health anxiety,
leaving that person feeling hurt and abandoned.
Some stressed-out loved ones take a different approach; they resort to con-
stant nagging in an effort to get the person with health anxiety to stop acting
like an invalid: “Mary, for the third time, will you get out of bed and feed the
kids their breakfast. I’ve got to go to work!” Nagging often doesn’t work. In fact,
it can make things worse. Nagging causes tension and stress over being nagged
and thereby increases stress-related bodily reactions (for example, headaches,
stomach upset, hot flashes), which feed health anxiety. So what’s the next
resort? Often it’s even more nagging, on the notion that if a little bit doesn’t
work, maybe a lot is needed.” Unfortunately, this escalates the problem, strain-
ing relationships and increasing everyone’s stress reaction. Nobody benefits.
The Overinvolved Loved One
Bill: “It’s my duty as a good spouse.”

Bill prided himself on being a loyal, devoted husband. Whenever Emily
complained of feeling ill, he fussed about, trying to make her as com-
fortable as possible. Sometimes he went off to the drugstore in search of
remedies; on other occasions he rushed her to the doctor. Lately, Emily
was suffering from headaches. She worried she might have a brain
tumor. Bill took her to see many doctors about the headaches. Each
time the doctors said they were due to stress. Emily wasn’t convinced, so
Bill volunteered to search the Internet for possible causes of headaches.
The information he retrieved was truly alarming. Emily and Bill learned
of all kinds of rare, lethal causes of headaches. This alarmed Emily even
more and, in fact, seemed to trigger more headaches. After that, when-
ever Emily complained of a headache, she asked Bill whether he
thought she should go to the ER. He knew that the headaches were
probably due to stress, but he thought it was his duty as a good husband
to make sure that Emily got the best possible medical attention, so he
usually took her to the ER.
Some well-meaning friends and family members may be willing to do just

about anything for you—take you to medical appointments, pick up your pre-
scriptions, offer reassurance, and assume all household responsibilities. Some-
times, as in Bill’s case, overinvolved family and friends will even scour the news-
papers and Internet for information relevant to your health concerns: “John, I
know you’re worried about toxins in the food, so I checked the Internet for
information on which foods to avoid.” “Maria, you said you’re frightened of air-
borne viruses, so I’ve picked up some information on the best sorts of face masks
to use.”
Why do some people become overinvolved with health anxiety? In our
experience there are two main reasons. First, the person may take on this role
because of a well-meaning sense of duty: “I love my husband, so I need to look
after him.” Although they may have the best of intentions, overinvolved family
and friends may be doing you more harm than good. Indeed, needless doting on
you can make your problems worse. It can:
• Reinforce the false message that you are frail and sickly, and
• Encourage you to needlessly become an invalid, lying on the couch all
day, focusing on your body, and worrying about your health, when,
instead, you should be up and about, actively engaged in living life to the
fullest.
Second, your loved one may actually enjoy looking after you. Taking care of
another person is an important task that makes us all feel needed and important.
Your loved one may not necessarily be aware of this as a reason that he or she
attends to your every need. It could be part of a lifelong habit of looking after
people. As we’ve said before, your loved one is not to blame, nor are you. People
are drawn into patterns of behavior for all sorts of reasons. The important thing
is for people to become aware of the consequences of their behavior and to try
new behaviors if need be.
What Roles Do Your Loved Ones Play?
Think about the people you usually spend time with—your spouse or partner,
your kids, a parent, a brother or sister, your best friend, other important people
in your life. Answer these questions for each person close to you. Do they:
o Often feel resentful or annoyed toward you?

o Become outwardly angry with you?
o Try to avoid you?
o Feel guilty or apologetic after getting angry with you?

o Nag you so you’ll stop complaining?
o Offer you all the reassurance they can?
o Collect information about the disease that you’re worried about?
o Take over most or all of your chores and other responsibilities?
o Drive you to doctors’ appointments?
o Offer to get medicines or other remedies for you at the pharmacy?
If most of your check marks fall on some or all of the first five options, then your
loved one is likely stressed out. If most of your check marks were placed on some
or all of the last five options, then your loved one may be overinvolved. If you
checked several of the first and last five options, then your loved one may be
both stressed out and overinvolved. Knowing what roles your loved ones have
adopted when interacting with you and your health anxiety will allow you to
help them change in a way that will help you break your health anxiety cycle.
How to Help Them Help You
There are several basic things you can do to help your family and friends help
you conquer your health anxiety. You can start by suggesting that they read the
other chapters in this book so they, too, have a better understanding of health
anxiety, its causes, and the strategies that you’ve been learning for overcoming
it. They can benefit from reading this chapter. We find that when the family and
friend of a person with health anxiety have a better understanding of what
health anxiety is, they’re in a better position to identify the helpful things they
can do. And they’re better able to avoid doing things that make health anxiety
worse (the things you checked off as things your loved ones do when interacting
with you).
You can also spend some time together talking about reassurance seeking
and its role in health anxiety. It’s really important that those close to you under-
stand how reassurance plays into your health anxiety cycle. You can use the
strategies in Chapter 8 to stop seeking reassurance from loved ones, but your suc-
cess in breaking the health anxiety cycle will be limited if they don’t stop giving
it to you. Think of it as similar to trying to quit smoking. If cigarettes aren’t kept
handy, many people who quit smoking can successfully go without. But many
times all it takes for them to give in to temptation and start smoking again is for
someone to offer a cigarette. You need to let your family and friends know that
people with health anxiety are more or less addicted to seeking reassurance. They
also need to understand that although the immediate effect of giving you reas-
surance is one of calming, it’s also one of the things that keep your health anxi-
ety alive in the long run. Sit down with your family and friends and explain
these things to them. Ask them if they understand, and work on it until they do.
We recommend that you work out an agreement wherein you promise not to
seek reassurance and they promise not to give it, whether asked for or not. Figure
9 may be helpful in discussing the effects of reassurance and in agreeing to “kick
it.”
Katy: “Can we talk about something else?”

Katy and Andrea resumed meeting for coffee some time after Andrea
had been in therapy for her health anxiety. Compared with the way she
had been previously, Andrea seemed more relaxed, and her discussion
with Katy was more like a true conversation. For Katy, this was a wel-
Giving me reassurance, although done out of caring and a desire to help, can actually make
my health anxiety worse. There are a few ways reassurance can do this.
• It can increase my preoccupation with disease by extending the amount of time I

dwell on my bodily sensations and changes. It feeds my health anxiety by giving
some temporary relief that is followed by even more anxiety.
• When I’m repeatedly given reassurance, there’s a chance that I’ll eventually be
exposed to alarming information about rare but lethal diseases. For example, if you
tell me that everything is okay and that my symptoms are probably just the result of
some minor ailment or change in my day-to-day routine, I’ll probably feel better for
a while. But when the symptoms come back, I’ll probably dismiss your reassurance
and go look for some other cause. So by giving me reassurance you can make me
even more anxious about my health.
• Giving me repeated reassurance can make me feel vulnerable, helpless, and
dependent. By having turned to you for help in the past, I may have actually
“trained” you to inquire about my health and to offer me assurances. Doing this
makes me feel better for a while, but in the long run it makes me feel more helpless
and reinforces the belief that I’m weak and vulnerable.
If we could agree on two things, it would really help me succeed in taking back my life from
health anxiety. Can we agree that (1) I’ll try not to seek reassurance from you about my
health, and (2) you’ll try not to give it when I ask or at any other time. Instead, you can say
something like, “Sorry, honey, but its doctor’s orders that I don’t reassure you.”
FIGURE 9. The harmful effects of giving reassurance.

come relief from their previous get-togethers, which consisted of mono-

logues from Andrea about her health. Although Andrea’s health anxi-
ety was much better, she occasionally lapsed into reassurance seeking. It
was a habit that was hard to break. At one point over coffee, Andrea
mentioned that she’d been feeling chilly that morning. “Do you think I
look pale?” asked Andrea. Katy replied, “Andrea, as you know, we’re
not supposed to discuss your health. It only makes your anxiety worse.
Can we talk about something else?” Andrea replied, “Okay, sorry, I
know. Sometimes it’s hard to break the habit.” “Let’s talk about that
new job of yours,” replied Katy.
Even well-meaning inquiries from loved ones, such as “How are you feel-
ing?” or “How ya doing today?” can cause your attention to drift to issues of
health. Make an agreement not to discuss your health. This may be easy in
some cases and more difficult in others. Stressed-out family members and
friends usually welcome this kind of arrangement with open arms. On the
other hand, it’s often difficult for overinvolved loved ones to find a way to
shift from what’s been an almost all-consuming focus on your health worries to
something completely different. It helps to develop a relationship around posi-
tive things unrelated to illness. For example, rather than talking about your
health, you might talk about movies, current events, and the most enjoyable
activities of the day. People find pleasure in reconnecting through common
interests.
Cognitive-behavioral therapists encourage people with health anxiety to
pursue active, fulfilling lifestyles (for example, taking the dog for a daily
walk instead of lying in bed dwelling on your health). Involve your loved
ones in some of the things you enjoy doing. This will give you a chance to
spend quality time together, may give you another shared interest to chat
about, and will provide you with a source of encouragement at times when
you’re not feeling overly motivated and need that little nudge to get off your
butt.
Specific Advice for Stressed-Out Family and Friends

There are more specific things that your stressed-out family and friends can do to
help you succeed in overcoming your health anxiety. We’ve found it most help-
ful to summarize these things in a list of dos and don’ts with examples that can be
shared with those close to you. Think of these dos and don’ts as guidelines rather
than rigid rules. Again, we suggest that you sit down with your loved ones and
discuss these things with them. They need to try these things out and use their
best judgment as to which things work for them.
1. “Do try to understand why I’m worried about my health and how my anxiety
feeds itself. With better understanding you’ll be less likely to blame me for
the difficulties I’ve had overcoming my worries. You’ll be better able to help
me put things into perspective.”
Example: Jim’s wife was able to reframe her annoyance into a response that
assisted Jim in gathering evidence against his specific thought that he’d die of
heart failure.
“Jim, I can see why you’re constantly worried about your heart. Your father
and uncle suddenly died from heart attacks at your age. But I think we need
to look at the facts: Your father and uncle smoked like chimneys and ate
nothing but meat and potatoes. You lead a healthy lifestyle. You should listen
to your doctors when they say your heart is fine.”
2. “Don’t accuse me of being ‘crazy,’ ‘neurotic,’ or a ‘faker.’ That won’t help me

get a handle on my anxiety or change it. Instead it creates bad feelings and
tension between us.”
Example: Jim’s wife had gotten into the habit of blaming him for using his
health worries as an excuse for not doing things. This didn’t help Jim deal
with his anxiety. And it didn’t give his wife anything more than a short-lived
release of pent-up frustration. After an hour or so she was accusing him of
being lazy all over again.
“Jim, I’m sick of your crazy, lazy excuses. You don’t have to take out the trash
because of your heart; you don’t take the kids to basketball practice because
driving is too ‘strenuous’; you get to stay home from work and sit in front of
the TV all day while I work. I wish you’d just get off your lazy ass and give me
some help around here!”
3. “Do praise me for the effort I put into learning new ways of coping with my
health anxiety. This will help me succeed in breaking my health anxiety
cycle. Everybody likes praise and encouragement; it can be enjoyable to give
and to receive.”
Examples: There are many different ways of giving praise. It can come in the
form of a small token or gesture—a small treat or a hug for a job well done.
Carefully chosen words of encouragement are very effective. Here are a few
basic ideas, though you’ll want to put them in terms that fit your own rela-
tionship:
“Jim, I’m really pleased that lately you haven’t been asking me for reassur-
ance. It must be difficult for you at times, but you’re doing a great job.”
“Aaron, it’s great that you’ve been ignoring your aches and pains and getting
on with living. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you out playing golf
with your buddies.”
“Jessica, I’m really glad that you’re ignoring those stomachaches and going to
school. And it’s really great that you’ve discovered that the stomach pains
disappear when you get involved in something interesting, like your art
class.”
4. “Don’t punish me for worrying about my health. Nagging, yelling at me, and
threatening me make me feel stressed and, as a result, create the very same
bodily sensations that cause me to worry. It makes my health anxiety worse
and does nothing good for our relationship.”
Examples: Just as praise can come in many forms, so can punishing responses.
Here are a few samples of words to avoid using.
“Albert, if you don’t stop whining about your sore throat and get to school,
I’ll give you something to whine about!”
“Honey, you’re always bitching about feeling sick. For Christ’s sake, why can’t
you just get over it!”
“Janie, come out of the bathroom this instant! You know that Dr. Taylor said
you shouldn’t be in there checking the moles on your back. Janie! Are you
listening to me?!”
5. “Do give yourself a break if you’re feeling stressed out with me. It’s okay! I
understand that my health anxiety is stressful for both of us. You also need
your space and time to relax.”
Example: Jim’s wife felt herself getting frustrated. He’d been working hard at
changing the ways he thought about the noise in his body. She’d been help-
ing out but was tired after a long week at work. She realized that getting away
for some personal time would be a good thing for everyone.
“Honey, I appreciate that your health anxiety is causing some real problems
for you. And I’m glad you’re working hard at overcoming it. But I need to
take care of me, too. So I’m going out shopping for the afternoon with some
friends for a while. I’ll be back soon.”
6. “Don’t make me feel guilty about my health anxiety. It makes me feel stressed,
and this creates the very same bodily sensations that cause me to worry. It
doesn’t help our relationship, either.”
Example: Judy’s husband had put up with more of her asking “Do you think
I’m okay?” than he could take. He didn’t know what to do and just blew up at
her. It felt good to get things off his chest, but within a few minutes he was
feeling pretty bad about making Judy cry.
“Judy, you’re constantly going on and on—and on!—about bowel cancer. Do
you realize how stressful that is for me to listen to?! Do you think that I like
hearing about your make-believe diseases?! I just don’t know what to do!”
Specific Advice for the Overinvolved Caretaker

Just like our advice to you on helping your stressed-out loved ones to help you,
we offer some dos and don’ts for your overinvolved family and friends to consider.
As before, these dos and don’ts should be considered guidelines rather than rigid
rules, and they need to be tried on for size. When you sit down to discuss these
things with your family and friends, we can’t overemphasize how important it is
to let them know that you’re not blaming them for your health worries. Be frank
in letting them know that you’ve grown together in such a way that some of the
things they do aren’t helpful for you in breaking your health anxiety cycle. This,
however, isn’t their fault or yours. Blame isn’t the name of the game, and it
won’t help anyone. Ask them to think of your health anxiety as a puzzle that you
need help to figure out and solve. If you can solve the puzzle of health anxiety
together, everyone in your social circle will benefit. But if you (or someone else)
place blame, bad feelings will arise.
1. “Do understand that I’ll have a hard time getting over the idea that there’s
something seriously wrong with me if you keep fussing over me.”
2. “Don’t blame yourself—or me—for the way your well-intentioned efforts to
help have actually been keeping my health anxiety cycle alive. We didn’t
know this before. Blaming won’t help. But now that we know what’s helpful
and what’s not, we can make changes to the things you do for me in a way
that will starve my health anxiety.”
3. “Do try to stop being so protective of me. The doctors have told me my physi-
cal health is good, and I’m learning that my worries are largely related to
stress and anxiety—things under my control. Although it may be hard for
both of us at first, let me start doing things on my own again.”
4. “Don’t support me when I’m worrying and looking for reassurance. Instead of
giving me reassurance, which feeds my health anxiety, you could try reinforc-
ing my efforts to change my thoughts and behaviors about disease. And you
can reinforce my doctor’s message that my physical health is good.”
5. “Do make sure that there are many important, fulfilling things in your own
life, aside from caring for me. Make sure to care for yourself! I understand that
you need to do this, and I want you to.”
Things to Remember
The important message we want to leave you with is that there are several things
you can do to help your family and friends to help you overcome your health
anxiety. There are some things you can do that will help everyone and others
that depend a bit on whether your loved ones are stressed out or overinvolved.
Getting people to change their ways is never easy, but, with effort, it can be
done. It’s pretty likely that you have loved ones who want what’s best for you.
Get them involved in breaking your health anxiety cycle. Although this is
something you can do alone, you’ll have greater success with a team effort.
The first step is getting your family and friends to read through the first two
chapters of this book so that they have an idea about the nature and causes of
health anxiety. Give them some time to digest the information and offer to
answer questions they have.
The second step is to sit down with them and openly and nonjudgmentally
discuss how your health anxiety affects you and how it affects them. Emphasize
how reassurance feeds your health anxiety, and use Figure 9 to work out an
agreement to kick the reassurance habit. Pick an appropriate time and place for
these discussions. We recommend a time when your loved ones aren’t rushed or
in a hurry to get somewhere. Choose a quiet place that’s free from distraction
and take the phone off the hook so that you’re not interrupted. If need be, have
more than one discussion.
Finally, get your loved ones to read through this chapter. They can do this
alone or with you present. Because the dos and don’ts are written as if being pre-
sented to them by you, being present will give you an opportunity to give your
own examples. You’ll also be able to help them identify whether they feel they’re
in a stressed-out or overinvolved role and assist them in learning how some of
the strategies outlined in this chapter can help them help you overcome your
health worries. By this point you’ve become very knowledgeable about health
anxiety and are in a good position to help those close to you help you. This is
quite an accomplishment!
Where to Turn for Further Help
In the next chapter we discuss professional resources for treating health anxiety. If
you decide to see a therapist for additional help with your health anxiety, then con-
sider taking your loved ones so they, too, can meet with the therapist and further
discuss things that they can do to help you overcome your health anxiety. If the
problem in your relationship is broader than health anxiety, then family or couples
therapy might be needed. For example, if you and your partner find that you’re hav-
ing arguments about all sorts of things—finances, child rearing, social activities—
then couples counseling might be fruitful. Discuss this with a therapist or doctor.
Ten
Living Life
and Maintaining Your Gains
The first nine chapters gave you the tools to break free of the health anxiety
cycle and get on with living life. We’re hopeful that you’ve made progress and
that you’re no longer as worried about your health as you were when you started
reading this book. But your practice shouldn’t stop here. You should keep prac-
ticing until the strategies that work best for you become habitual. This way
you’ll experience lasting reductions in anxiety. This is what we see in clinical
practice. But even after you’ve taken control of it, everyone experiences times
when anxiety flares up. In this chapter we’ll give you some pointers on what to
do if your health anxiety resurfaces and where to turn if you feel that seeing a
health anxiety specialist is right for you. You also need to replace the time you’ve
recaptured from worrying—new free time, so to speak—with things that you
enjoy and that make you happy. This will improve your overall sense of well-
being, which will also help keep your health anxiety at bay. This chapter shows
you a few simple ways you can fill your new free time with activities that
enhance your enjoyment of life.
Handling Flare-Ups
Despite having gained control over your health anxiety, you can expect times
when it will resurface, and you’ll find yourself wondering and maybe even worry-
ing whether the bodily sensations you’re experiencing mean you’re sick. Some-
times this happens when a lot of stressful things are happening in your life.
Other times it can happen when you get sick, when a loved one is struggling
157
with disease, or when there’s a media blitz on the “disease of the month.” It hap-
pens to everyone from time to time. When it happens to you, the best thing to
do is to work through the strategies that you found most helpful in conquering
your health anxiety the first time around. Most people can take control of health
anxiety flare-ups and smother their flames fairly quickly. You have to look at
flare-ups for what they are and what they aren’t.
They are:
• Common,
• Temporary, short-lived setbacks, and
• Reminders to practice the exercises you’ve learned to deal with health
anxiety (and other stressors in your life).
They are not:
• A sign of relapse or, in other words, that you’ve lost all the things gained
by practicing the strategies in this book, or
• A full-out return of your health anxiety.
The key in taking back control when you do experience a flare-up is remember-
ing that they are temporary setbacks and not a complete return of health anxiety. A
few specific exercises will help prepare you for quick action against flare-ups.
It’s often been said that the best defense is a strong offense. This holds true
when the opponent is health anxiety. For this reason we’ve developed a series of
exercises that we call the Health Anxiety Relapse Prevention (HARP) program
that will prepare you to be on the offensive when your health anxiety flares up.
The HARP program consists of three steps as follows:
1. A review of examples of people who responded to their flare-ups in ways

that didn’t help,
2. Thinking of ways the people in the examples could have coped better
with their flare-ups, and
3. Developing your own personalized HARP program.
Responses That Don’t Help

Sometimes people who’ve overcome their health anxiety will respond to flare-
ups in ways that aren’t helpful. Most of the time this happens because they forget
to use the strategies they learned for breaking their health anxiety cycle in the
first place and think that the flare-up is a sign that they’re back to square one.
Here are a few examples of responses to flare-ups that weren’t helpful.
Living Life and Maintaining Gains 159
Riley: “That damn program hasn’t helped.”

Riley had a long history of health anxiety that he’d successfully over-
come a few months ago by practicing self-help strategies. But one morn-
ing he woke up wheezing. He also had a dry, hacking cough. He started
to worry that it could be something serious. “Maybe I have tuberculosis,
or it might even be lung cancer,” he thought. Soon he had worked him-
self up into an extremely anxious state. Riley realized that he’d become
very anxious, just as he was before he’d started the self-help program.
He thought, “That damn program hasn’t helped me a single bit! I’m
right back where I started.” He didn’t use the coping skills he learned
and worked so hard at practicing. His health anxiety continued to
worsen.
Dory: “I can’t even force myself to visit Ken.”

Dory had a strong fear of getting cancer. Because of her fear, she’d been
staying away from pretty much anything having to do with cancer. She
was able to overcome her fear successfully by practicing exposure exer-
cises and hadn’t been avoiding cancer-related things for almost two
years. However, her cancer fear started to return when a close friend was
diagnosed with brain cancer. Dory didn’t notice that her fear had
returned until it was really severe. By that stage she was back to avoid-
ing everything that reminded her of cancer. “I can’t even force myself to
visit Ken, and I know he’s probably not going to be around much lon-
ger,” she’d say to friends. She forgot about the things she’d learned from
practicing exposure exercises and felt helpless to deal with the return of
her fears.
Helpful Responses
Based on what you’ve learned from earlier chapters, what could Riley and Dory
have done differently in response to the return of their anxiety and fear? Think
about this for a few minutes and then answer the questions below.
1. Write down three things that Riley could have done to better cope with
his worries about having a respiratory disease. (Hint: How might Riley’s
thoughts influence his health anxiety? Is there any evidence to support
his thoughts about tuberculosis or lung cancer? What might he say to
himself to feel less anxious? What sorts of things is he doing to make his
health anxiety worse? What could he do differently? Does his lapse really
mean that his self-help program didn’t help “a single bit”?)
2. Write down three things that Dory could have done to better cope with
her cancer phobia. (Hint: Does avoidance help her in any way? If so,
how? If not, why? What things could she do in a step-by-step fashion to
overcome her phobia? Should she visit Ken?)
These questions are meant to get you thinking about things you’ve learned
about health anxiety. If you’re uncertain of what to write down, look back at
some of your worksheets from previous chapters. Look at the examples and illus-
trations we’ve provided. You’ll find the answers there. Here are a few ideas to get
you started.
• Both Riley and Dory viewed their worries and fears as a full-blown return
of their health anxiety. They might be able to take back control more
quickly if they reinterpret the worry and fear as a temporary, even
expected, flare-up.
• Riley immediately jumped to the conclusion that his wheezing and
coughing were the result of some disease, perhaps tuberculosis or lung
cancer. He could try taking a few minutes to examine the evidence and
develop alternate explanations. This would help prevent his anxiety from
spiraling out of control.
• Dory wouldn’t go visit Ken because she was afraid of catching cancer.
Confronting her fear, using exposure exercises to gradually work her way
up to visiting Ken, is one thing that would help her cope.
Preparing Your Personalized HARP Program

Your personalized HARP program consists of two parts. The first part involves
preparing a plan of response for flare-ups before they occur. The second part is a
series of steps to work through when a flare-up actually occurs.
Part 1: Your Response Plan
Your HARP program response plan is based on the things you’ve already learned
from reading and working through the exercises in this book. Working through
the experiences of Riley and Dory should have you thinking about helpful and
unhelpful responses to flare-ups. What you’ll do now is summarize what you’ve
learned by answering the three following questions. This summary is a list of
what you should and shouldn’t do if you feel your health anxiety returning. Matt
(from Chapter 7) completed this exercise, and we’ve provided his responses in
Figure 10, to help you along.
1. Write down all the things you’ve learned about the causes of your health
anxiety. You can use extra pages if necessary.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1. Write down all the things you’ve learned about the causes of your health anxiety. You can
use extra pages if necessary.
• Focusing on my body makes me notice changes that I think are related to
heart disease.
• I used to worry that changes in my heartbeat meant my heart was going
to stop. I now know that all kinds of things, like walking up stairs or being
under pressure at work, can make my heart beat faster.
• I spend a lot of time looking for information about serious heart disease.
This takes away from other things that are important to me and it usually
just makes me more anxious.
• I go to my family doctor all of the time hoping that he’ll tell me everything
is okay. I’ve even gone to a cardiologist a few times for the same reason.
•
•
2. Write down the things that might help you in the short term but make your health anxiety
worse in the longer term.
• Going to my doctor and the cardiologist for reassurance that I’m not going
to drop dead.
• Being inactive. I feel safe when I don’t exercise or play with the kids. But I
know this isn’t good for me in the long run. It’s not fair to the kids, either.
• Carrying around my security blanket, my nitroglycerine pills. They make me
feel safe, but I understand now that just having them around actually makes
me worry about having to use them.
•
•
•
3. What sorts of things have you learned that help you cope with or even overcome your
health anxiety? (Hint: These could have to do with using certain exercises to reduce
stress [from Chapter 5], the way you think about things [from Chapter 6], or the way you
do things [from Chapter 7].)
• When I feel stress building up I try to do rapid relaxation. If I have time I
take 10 minutes and work through my whole body.
• I know that changes in my heart rate and the way my heart “feels” can be
caused by things other than disease. Someday I might have a heart problem.
It’s possible. When I notice changes, I know I can collect evidence to decide
if it’s stress, disease, or something else.
• I can also use interoceptive exposure exercises—running on the spot
works—to show that a rapidly beating and pounding heart won’t harm me.
• I know what exercise I can do if I’m tempted to start carrying my nitro
pills again.
• Checking and reassurance seeking are always tempting me. I know that I
can examine the evidence for and against the effectiveness of these
behaviors in order to remind myself that they’re not helpful.
•
FIGURE 10. Matt’s completed questions for Part 1 of his HARP program.
2. Write down the things that might help you in the short term but make
your health anxiety worse in the longer term.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
3. What sorts of things have you learned that help you cope with or even
overcome your health anxiety? (Hint: These could have to do with using
certain exercises to reduce stress [from Chapter 5], the way you think
about things [from Chapter 6], or the way you do things [from Chapter
7].)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Part 2: A Step-by-Step Approach to Flare-Ups

Your answers to part 1 are a reminder of the things you should and shouldn’t be
doing to keep your health anxiety at bay. Remember, practice turns exercises
into habits; in this case, good habits that will keep your health anxiety under
control. When a flare-up happens, you need to take back control quickly.
Working through the following steps will help you do this.
1. Remind yourself that the flare-up is temporary.
2. Analyze the situation. Try to figure out why the flare-up happened. Write
down the frightening thoughts you had during the flare-up, including
what you thought might happen. Write down your specific thoughts.
Example: “My chest pain means I have heart disease.”
•
•
•
•
3. Review the evidence for and against your frightening thoughts. Are
there alternative explanations? Write down alternative explanations.
Example: “My chest pain is from increased tension in the muscles in my
chest, and not from my heart.”
•
•
•
•
4. Practice the exercises you’ve learned to change specific thoughts and

behaviors related to your health anxiety. Use relaxation and breathing
retraining exercises as well. Write down the exercises that you tried in
order to get your flare-up under control. Which were most helpful?
•
•
•
•
5. Restrict the flare-up. Don’t do things that make health anxiety worse—
reassurance seeking, checking your body, and avoiding things that
frighten you. Write down the things you’re trying not to do. Example:
“I’m not going to give in to my temptation to search the Internet for
information about my stomach cramps and diarrhea. And I’m not rush-
ing to the doctor just yet.”
•
•
•
•
6. Return to any situation that you’re starting to avoid. Do this as soon as

possible. Develop a step-by-step plan for returning to these situations
using the exposure exercises you learned in Chapter 7. If a situation is too
anxiety provoking to enter, then try an easier but related situation and
gradually work up to the more difficult situations. List the situations

you’re avoiding because of fear. List the steps involved in gradually
exposing yourself to these situations in order to overcome the fear. Exam-
ple: Dory could begin to overcome her cancer phobia by first looking at
magazine articles about cancer survivors and gradually working up to a
visit with Ken.
•
•
•
•
7. If steps 1 through 6 haven’t helped you, then seriously consider contact-

ing someone who specializes in the treatment of the health anxiety disor-
ders. Several professional organizations can help you locate a qualified
professional in your area. We’ve provided a list of these organizations, as
well as several therapists from the United States, Canada, and Europe in
the Resources section at the back of this book.
Things to Remember
Flare-ups are temporary and short-lived setbacks that can be controlled using
the same strategies you used to break your health anxiety cycle. They aren’t a
full-out return of your health anxiety. The best defense is a well-developed plan
of action—your personalized HARP program—to use against flare-ups when
they occur. Your HARP program gives you a step-by-step plan that will help you
focus on what needs to be done to regain control over your health anxiety. We
recommend that you keep a copy of your HARP program in a handy place so
that it’s available when needed. Keep a copy in your purse or wallet or post it in a
place that you’re usually near—on your refrigerator, near your computer, on your
bathroom mirror. If you’re unable to regain control, then seeking treatment from
a person who specializes in health anxiety would be worth considering.
Matt: “I’m a new man.”

Matt was successful in overcoming his health anxiety and getting back
to enjoying quality time with his wife and kids. He did experience two
flare-ups in the first six months following completion of his treatment.
In each case he worked through his HARP program—which he keeps
folded in his wallet to this day—and was able to successfully prevent his
anxiety from spiraling out of control. Today Matt’s health anxiety has
faded into a memory of things past and hasn’t been sparked for over
three years. He’s now helping coach his eldest daughter’s baseball team
and, inspired by his wife’s encouragement and Lance Armstrong’s suc-
cesses, has started doing something he’s dreamed of for years—he joined
a road cycling club that trains together and tours the countryside every
Sunday. In his own words, he’s “a new man.”
Specialist Treatments for Health Anxiety
When should you think about seeking specialized treatment for your health anx-
iety? This is a simple question for which there is no easy answer. If you’ve been
suffering with health anxiety for a long time or if you’ve been unable to break
your health anxiety cycle on your own, then you may need specialized treatment
to take back control of your life. You might also give serious consideration to
getting help from a specialist if:
• Your efforts to break your health anxiety cycle on your own haven’t given
you the results you desire,
• You’re having success with some areas but feel you need coaching with
certain aspects of your health-related thoughts and behaviors, or
• You have a flare-up that you’re unable to get back under control on your
own.
Specialist treatment options for people who have health anxiety are as var-
ied as they are for the other anxiety disorders discussed in Chapter 3. They
include medication, hypnosis, approaches based on the teachings of Sigmund
Freud, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Research on health anxiety treatments
is in its early stages, but what we do know is increasing quickly. Hypnosis and
the Freud-based psychotherapies haven’t been shown to be effective with health
anxiety; we don’t recommend them. The methods for which there is growing
evidence of effectiveness include some medications and various components of
cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Medication
The SSRI medications Luvox, Paxil, and Prozac have all been studied in people
with hypochondriasis. The research shows that people who take an SSRI have
greater reductions in symptoms than people not getting any kind of treatment
over a period of 8 to 12 weeks. Prozac was found to be the most promising of the
medications, giving the greatest overall reduction in symptoms. Unfortunately,
little is known about whether the reduction in health anxiety symptoms from
taking Prozac is maintained when it’s stopped. Prozac may be worth considering
and discussing with your doctor if you need immediate relief, if you’re unable to
devote the time needed for the exercises of self-help and cognitive-behavioral
therapy, or if you can’t find or don’t live near a place where there’s a cognitive-
behavioral therapist who specializes in the health anxiety disorders.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy for health anxiety is very similar to the self-help
exercises you’ve been working through in this book. It usually includes some or
all of these elements: psychoeducation, stress management, changing ways of
thinking about bodily sensations, letting go of unhelpful behaviors, situational
and interoceptive exposure, and guidance on active living. Research shows that
psychoeducation by itself is very effective in reducing the symptoms of people
with moderate levels of health anxiety. This is consistent with our own observa-
tions; many of the patients we see feel relief after learning about the health anxi-
ety cycle and the many non-disease-related things that cause their bodily sensa-
tions.
A growing number of research studies have shown that various combina-
tions of cognitive-behavioral exercises (or what we call cognitive-behavioral
therapy packages) are perhaps the most effective way of treating hypochondria-
sis. They’re at least as effective as taking Prozac, their effects last longer, and
they’re the first treatment of choice of about three of every four people who seek
specialist treatment. The difference between self-help approaches and those
used by a cognitive-behavioral therapist is in the degree of coaching and assis-
tance you receive. We’ve tried to guide you through cognitive-behavioral exer-
cises as best we can without actually being there with you; but you’ve been on
your own in coming up with examples from your own life and in working
through any difficult spots that have cropped up during your practice. These are
the sorts of things that a cognitive-behavioral therapist with expertise in health
anxiety can help you with if need be.
Combined and Sequential Treatment

The merits of combining medication with cognitive-behavioral treatment have-
n’t been researched as of yet. We suspect that a combination of these treatments
may work best for people with severe health anxiety. Sequential treatments for
health anxiety haven’t been researched, either. But the same principles we dis-
cussed for the other anxiety disorders apply. We recommend starting with psy-
choeducation and self-help—the things you’ve done in working through the
exercises in this book—followed by specialized treatment with Prozac or from a
cognitive-behavioral therapist as needed to make further gains or regain control
after a bad flare-up.
Living Life to Its Fullest
Has your health anxiety caused you to lose touch with many of the activities you
once enjoyed or that made you feel good about yourself? Some of the people you
met in early chapters had given up a lot—hobbies, favorite sporting activities,
playing with their kids, spending quality time with their partners, visiting
friends, and making useful contributions at work. Bernard, for example, had
abandoned all his favorite pastimes, including playing competitive tennis. He
sought treatment for health anxiety and gradually overcame his problems. How-
ever, he didn’t feel like he was truly living until he returned to his exciting and
demanding world of amateur competitive tennis. He enjoyed the blissful fatigue
after each match and would often think to himself, “How did I ever let myself
get so needlessly worried about my heart? I feel so great after a tough workout on
the court.”
What did you give up in the past? Things that you really enjoyed but have-
n’t been doing lately? Take a minute to think about these things. List them on
the following lines.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Some people find this task easy, but many people have a hard time listing
much more than a couple of things. If you had difficulty, it doesn’t mean there’s
no hope. It may simply mean you’ve been so caught up in the health anxiety
cycle that you’ve lost sight of the enjoyable things in life—a walk in the park,
pursuing a hobby, helping the kids with a school project, socializing with friends,
listening to music, eating good food, and the like. Completing Worksheet 16
will help you figure out what things you’ve been doing that bring you pleasure,
what things you’re not finding fun, and what activities you’d like to be doing but
aren’t.
To get on with living life, it’s important to start adding enjoyable activities
to your day-to-day existence. As we’ve said before, balance in life is very impor-
tant. Marcy’s life used to revolve around checking her blood pressure and going
to see doctors. As she became less concerned about her health, she wondered,
“Now what? I have all this free time on my hands.” Although she continued to
take responsible care of her health—she saw her doctor every six months for a
review of her mildly elevated blood pressure—she sought to balance her life by
engaging in enjoyable activities. She joined a pottery class and soon was
Worksheet 16. Activities for Enhancing Your Quality of Life
Instructions: Enjoyable activities are essential to your quality of life. But sometimes people neglect these
activities when preoccupied or worried about their health. Look through the following checklist of activities.
Did you do any of them in the past week? If so, did you enjoy it? Are there any activities that you haven’t
done but would like to do? This list might help you think about ways of improving your quality of life.
Indicate ( ) Were Indicate ( )

which these which activities
activities you activities you didn’t do
did in the enjoyable? but would like
Activities unrelated to health worries past week. (yes/no) to do.
Creative activities
Doing artwork or crafts . . . . . . . . . . . .
Knitting, needlework, sewing . . . . . . . . . .
Taking a course in something creative (for example,
cooking, photography) . . . . . . . . . . . .
Decorating or redecorating your house or apartment
Woodwork, carpentry, or furniture restoration . . .
Repairing things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mechanical hobbies (for example, fixing gadgets) .
Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creative writing or doing a journal. . . . . . . .
Musical hobbies (for example, singing, dancing,
playing an instrument) . . . . . . . . . . .
Games and entertainment

Watching TV, videos, or DVDs . . . . . . . . . .
Playing video games . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Listening to music or radio programs . . . . . .
Going to the movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to a play, concert, opera, or ballet . . . . .
Going to a museum, art gallery, or exhibition . . .
Going to a sporting event . . . . . . . . . . .
Educational activities that do not have to

do with gathering information about health
and disease
Reading books, magazines, or newspapers . . . .
Going to a lecture on a topic that interests you . .
Learning a foreign language . . . . . . . . . .
Surfing the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Learning about computers (for example, learning to
make a Web page) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to the library . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(cont.)
169
Worksheet 16. Activities for Enhancing Your Quality of Life (cont.)
Did do: Enjoyable? Want to do:
Physical activities
Playing tennis, squash, or racquetball . . . . . . . . . .
Playing golf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ten-pin bowling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Water activities (for example, swimming, sailing, canoeing)
Walking or hiking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jogging, aerobics classes, or working out at a fitness center
Snow sports (skiing, skating, snowboarding) . . . . . . .
Bike riding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Horseback riding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Playing team sports (for example, volleyball, hockey,
basketball) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fishing or hunting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Playing snooker or pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Social and community activities that do not involve
discussing health and disease
Writing, telephoning, or e-mailing friends . . . . . . . . .
Visiting a friend or inviting a friend to your place . . . . .
Going out to lunch or dinner with a friend . . . . . . . .
Giving a party or going to a party . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going on a date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Joining a club (for example, a book club or social club) . .
Going to a bar or restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Involvement in community or political activities . . . . . .
Involvement in religious or church activities. . . . . . . .
Other
Sitting in the sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going for a scenic drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gardening, caring for houseplants, or arranging flowers . .
Visiting fun or interesting places (for example, park, beach,
zoo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Caring for or being with pets . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Planning or going on a vacation. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to a sauna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Soaking in the bathtub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Doing yoga or meditation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Buying yourself something special. . . . . . . . . . . .
Hobbies (for example, stamp collecting, model building, flying
a kite) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
List your favorite activities here, if they are not listed
above:
Source: Adapted from S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York:
Guilford Press. Adapted by permission.
170
absorbed with ceramics. Instead of constantly worrying about her health, she
was now having fun. She felt that her life was in balance; she was looking after
the serious matters, keeping her blood pressure in check, but also taking time for
fun. As a result she also became less tense, and her blood pressure returned to
normal.
If you identified activities on Worksheet 16 that you’ve been doing but
aren’t enjoying, replace them with something you’d get more pleasure from. If
you’re doing some things that are fun, continue doing them. Keep a record of
what you do for fun over the next three weeks and rate how enjoyable you find
each activity. Set aside some dedicated time for these activities. Use the time-
management strategies from Chapter 5 and make a wholehearted effort to do
them without letting distractions get in the way. Worksheet 17 can be used to
keep track of your activities and ratings of them. Make your ratings using a 5-
point scale with 0 indicating no enjoyment and 4 indicating a lot of enjoyment.
Activities that you find to be so-so would be rated at 2. At the end of each week,
take a look at your ratings. Keep doing the things that have ratings that are 3 or
4 on average and replace the ones that are usually lower than 3 with something
else. It’ll take some trial and error, but eventually you’ll come up with a list of
things that bring you true enjoyment.
Karen enjoyed walking her dog along the meandering trials that skirted the
lakeside of the neighborhood park. When working through Worksheet 16 she
realized that, despite enjoying these walks, she had not been to the park for
years. This was something she definitely wanted to get back to doing on a regular
basis. She also decided to start taking in a movie every week with friends. Karen
rated her enjoyment of walking in the park and going to the movies with friends
for a three-week period. The walks were a big hit, with her ratings averaging a
solid 4. The movies, on the other hand, came in at 2 on the 0-to-4 scale. She
kept walking and stopped going to the movies. Still wanting to spend time with
friends, she tried dinner parties, poker nights, and coffee dates. The dinner par-
ties and coffee dates rated highly, and today Karen and three other friends take
turns hosting a monthly gourmet dinner. All in all Karen tested her enjoyment
of eight different activities and found three—walks in the park, dinner parties,
and coffee dates—that she now does on a regular basis.
In addition to scheduling time for pleasurable activities, you can do other
things to improve your overall quality of life. We recommend that you continue
using the relaxation and breathing retraining exercises from Chapter 5 to reduce
the stress of daily life. And try to do the things that we should all be doing to
maximize our sense of well-being—exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, get six
to eight hours of sleep most nights, and smoke or drink only in moderation.
Changing your health habits can be a challenge. But, having succeeded in
breaking your health anxiety cycle, you’ve developed skills that will help you
work through the challenges of pursuing a healthier lifestyle. This can directly
reduce your health anxiety—a program of physical exercise can prove to you
Worksheet 17. Activity Enjoyment Rating Form
Instructions: List each activity you do for enjoyment over the next few weeks. Rate the enjoyment
the activity brings you using a scale with 0 = no enjoyment and 4 = a lot of enjoyment.
Day and date Activity Enjoyment rating
Example Went to a movie 3
Example Took my kids to play in the park 4
172
that you’re not frail and ready to keel over at any minute. We want you to live
an enjoyable life free of unnecessary stress and turmoil. You’ve worked hard at
taking back the control over your life that had been wrested away by health anx-
iety. Now you deserve to enjoy it!
A Final Word
We started this book by having you ask yourself the question “Do I worry too
much about my health?” We asked you a number of other questions, as well, and
had you complete a paper-and-pencil test called the Whiteley Index. The main
reason for beginning this way was to get you thinking—about how your worries
about health and disease affect your life and about whether the strategies that we
had to offer might be worth trying.
If you’re reading this sentence, we know one of two things to be true—
you’ve either tried working through the exercises we laid out for you or you’re
thinking about doing so but wanted to read the whole book first. Either way,
excellent! You should be very proud of yourself for making a wholehearted effort
to understand your health anxiety and take back control of your life. It’s our sin-
cere hope that you’ve been able to (or will) use what you learned from reading
this book to successfully break your health anxiety cycle and that you can con-
tinue to keep it at bay. Flare-ups will occur. Remember that they happen to
everyone from time to time and that you can use your personalized HARP pro-
gram to deal with them. If you’re having difficulties with certain aspects of your
health anxiety—some nagging thought or behavior that you can’t kick on your
own—think about seeing a health anxiety specialist. A specialist can also help if
you have a flare-up that can’t be brought under control or if, despite your coura-
geous efforts, you’re unable to overcome your worries using self-help.
We’ll finish the book in the same way we began—by asking you a few ques-
tions. Do you spend a big chunk of each day worrying about the causes of your
bodily sensations, checking your body for changes, surfing the Internet for infor-
mation about certain diseases, or seeking reassurance from others that you’re
okay? Are you afraid your body is suffering a malfunction or breakdown? Do
friends and family tell you that you worry too much or call you a hypochondriac
or germ phobic? Do you continue to visit the doctor every time your body gets
noisy? Is your score on the Whiteley Index 8 or higher? The ancient Greek phi-
losopher Aristotle said that we are what we do every day. If you’ve been working
at dealing with health anxiety on a daily basis, it’s very likely your answers to
these questions have changed from the ones you gave when you first started
reading this book. It’s also very likely that you are now or will soon be well with-
out worry!
Resources
Audio and Video
Ross, J. (2001). Freedom from anxiety. Chicago: Nightingale-Conant. Available from

www.rosscenter.com. This is a self-help version of a program offered at the Ross
Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders in Washington, D.C. It is not specific to
health anxiety but may be useful to people with disease phobia.
Additional Books
Allen, D. (2003). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. New York: Pen-
guin.
Asmundson, G. J. G., Taylor, S., & Cox, B. J. (Eds.). (2001). Health anxiety: Clinical and
research perspectives on hypochondriasis and related disorders. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Barsky, A. J. (1988). Worried sick: Our troubled quest for wellness. Boston: Little, Brown.
Bourne, E. J. (2000). The anxiety and phobia workbook (3rd ed.). Oakland, CA: New Har-
binger.
Cantor, C. (1996). Phantom illness: Shattering the myth of hypochondria. Boston: Hough-
ton Mifflin.
Greenberger, D., & Padesky, C. A. (1995). Mind over mood: Change how you feel by
changing the way you think. New York: Guilford Prwaa.
Ross, J. (1995). Triumph over fear: A book of help for people with anxiety, panic, and phobias.
New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.
Schlenger, S. (1999). How to be organizwd in spite of yourself: Time and space management
that works with your personal style. New York: Signet.
Starcevic, V., & Lipsitt, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). Hypochondriasis: Modern perspectives on an
ancient malady. New York: Oxford University Press.
Welch, G. H. (2004). Should I be tested for cancer?: Maybe not and here’s why. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
For Children
Quigley, J. (1997). Johnny germ head. New York: Holt.
175
176 Resources
Websites
A number of websites are potential sources of valuable information or support. We rec-
ommend that you visit these sites only if you want to gather specific information about
potential treatment providers. We discourage you from searching these sites for informa-
tion about disease. We are not responsible for the content or quality of the information
that these websites provide.
National Organizations
www.psych.org
www.apa.org
www.adaa.org
www.aabt.org
www.cpa.ca
www.nimh.nih.gov
www.bps.org.uk
Health Anxiety
www.healthubs.com/hypochondriasis
Medication Information
www.webmd.com
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
with Expertise in Treating Health Anxiety
The following is a list of therapists who have identified themselves, from professional associ-
ations, as having expertise in treating health anxiety. The list is not exhaustive; there are
many other practitioners with expertise in treating health anxiety who are not included
in this list. Even so, this list may be helpful if you are searching for a therapist near you.
No therapists from Australia or the United Kingdom made their names available for inclu-
sion on this list. We recommend that people from those countries contact their respective
psychiatric and psychological associations to inquire about qualified therapists.
United States
California
Rodney Boone, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor
UCLA Anxiety Disorders Program
UCLA School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry
24445 Hawthorne Boulevard, Suite 105
Torrance, CA 90505
Tel.: 310-375-4855
E-mail: [email protected]
Resources 177
Emanuel Maidenberg, PhD Jackie Persons, PhD, Joan Davidson, PhD,

Associate Clinical Professor and Michael A. Tompkins, PhD
Neuropsychiatric Institute San Francisco Bay Area Center for
UCLA Cognitive Therapy
Tel.: 310-794-1474 5435 College Avenue, Suite 108
E-mail: [email protected] Oakland, CA 94618-1598
Tel.: 510-652-4455 ext. 12
Website: www.sfbacct.com
Illinois
John E. Calamari, PhD
Director, Anxiety and Obsessive–Compulsive Disorders Treatment
and Research Program
Department of Psychology
Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School
3333 Green Bay Road
North Chicago, IL 60064
Tel.: 847-578-8747
Maine
James Claiborn, PhD
Northeast Occupational Exchange
74 Elm Street, Portland, ME 04101
Tel.: 207-553-7056
Massachusetts
Arthur Barsky, M.D. Daniel Beck, LICSW
Department of Psychiatry School of Public Health
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Health and Social Behavior
Harvard Medical School Research Unit
75 Francis Street 1637 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02115 Boston, MA, 2120
E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: 617-470-3900
Sabine Wilhelm, PhD
OCD Spectrum Disorders Clinic
Massachusetts General Hospital
13th Street, Building 149
Charlestown, MA 02129
Tel.: 617-726-6766
178 Resources
Minnesota
Jonathan S. Abramowitz, PhD
OCD/Anxiety Disorders Program
Mayo Clinic
200 First Street SW
Rochester, MN 55905
Tel.: 507-284-4431
Missouri
Alec Pollard, PhD
Anxiety Disorders Center
Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute
1129 Macklind Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63110
Tel.: 314-534-0200
Website: www.slbmi.com
New Mexico
Charles H. Elliott, PhD
3615 NM Highway 528, Suite 200
Albuquerque, NM 87114
New York
Robert L. Leahy, PhD Fugen Neziroglu, PhD
Director, American Institute for Bio-Behavioral Institute
Cognitive Therapy 935 Northern Blvd
136 East 57th Street, Suite 1101 Great Neck, NY 11021
New York, NY 10022 Tel.: 516-487-7116
Tel.: 212-308-2440 E-mail: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.bio-behavioral.com
Deborah K. Melamed, PhD
SohoCognitive
560 Broadway, Suite 510
New York, NY 10012
Tel.: 212-925-9833
Resources 179
North Carolina
R. Trent Codd, III, MAE, EdS
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Center of Western North Carolina
20 Battery Park Avenue, Suite 411
Asheville, NC 28801
Tel.: 828-350-1177
Website: www.BehaviorTherapist.com
Washington State
Stephen Sholl, EdD
2200 24th Ave East
Seattle, WA 98112
Tel.: 206-328-0910
Canada
Alberta
Kerry Mothersill, PhD
609 14th Street NW, Room 509
Calgary, Alberta, T2N 2A1
Tel.: 403-571-1781
British Columbia
Amy S. Janeck, PhD
Clinic Director
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 2A1
Tel.: 604-822-1958
Manitoba
John Walker, PhD and Patricia Furer, PhD
Anxiety Disorders Program
M5—St. Boniface General Hospital
409 Tache Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R2H 2A6
Tel.: 204-237-2055
180 Resources
New Brunswick
David A. Clark, PhD
Professor
University of New Brunswick
Bag Service #45444
Fredericton, NB, E3B 6E4
Tel.: 506-452-6225
Nova Scotia
Sherry Stewart, PhD
Fenwick Psychological Services
Fenwick Medical Centre, 5595 Fenwick Street, Suite 314
Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4M2
Tel.: 902-421-7514
Ontario
Martin M. Antony, PhD Margret Hovanec, PhD
Director, Anxiety Treatment and 358 Danforth Avenue
Research Centre P.O. Box 65090
St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton Toronto, Ontario, M4K 1NO
Fontbonne Building, 6th Floor Tel.: 416-861-1562
50 Charlton Avenue East E-mail: [email protected]
Hamilton, Ontario, L8N 4A6
Tel.: 905-522-1155, ext. 3697
Website: www.anxietytreatment.ca
Eilenna Denisoff, PhD and Peter

Farvolden, PhD
CBT Associates of Toronto
100 Adelaide Street West
Toronto, Ontario, M5H 1S3
Tel.: 416-363-4228
Resources 181
Quebec
Adam S. Radomsky, PhD Debbie Sookman, PhD
Assistant Professor Director, Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder
Department of Psychology Clinic
Concordia University Department of Psychology
7141 Sherbrooke Street West McGill University Health Centre and
Montreal, Quebec, H4B 1R6 Training Director
Tel.: 514-848-2424, ext. 2202 1025 Pine Avenue West
E-mail: [email protected] Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1A1
Tel.: 514-842-1231, ext. 34290
Saskatchewan
Heather Hadjistavropoulos, PhD
Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training
Department of Psychology, University of Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan, S4S 0A2
Tel.: 306-585-5133
Website: www.uregina.ca/arts/psychology/faculty/hadj-h.htm
The Netherlands
Paul M. G. Emmelkamp, PhD
Oosterpark 81
1092 AV Amsterdam
Norway
Ingvard Wilhelmsen
Professor, Department of Medicine
Haraldsplass Deaconal Hospital
University of Bergen
N-5009 Bergen
Tel.: 47-55-979-427
Worksheets
183
The Whiteley Index
Here are some questions about your health. Circle either YES or NO to indicate your answer to each
question.
1. Do you often worry about the possibility that you have got a serious YES NO
illness?
2. Are you bothered by many pains and aches? YES NO
3. Do you find that you are often aware of various things happening in YES NO
your body?
4. Do you worry a lot about your health? YES NO
5. Do you often have the symptoms of very serious illness? YES NO
6. If a disease is brought to your attention (through the radio, television, YES NO

newspapers, or someone you know) do you worry about getting it
yourself?
7. If you feel ill and someone tells you that you are looking better, do you YES NO
become annoyed?
8. Do you find that you are bothered by many different symptoms? YES NO
9. Is it easy for you to forget about yourself, and think about all sorts of YES NO
other things?
10. Is it hard for you to believe the doctor when he or she tells you there YES NO
is nothing for you to worry about?
11. Do you get the feeling that people are not taking your illness seriously YES NO
enough?
12. Do you think that you worry about your health more than most people? YES NO
13. Do you think there is something seriously wrong with your body? YES NO
14. Are you afraid of illness? YES NO
Note. Score 1 point for every YES circled, except for question 9 where 1 point is scored for circling NO. Reprinted with kind per-
mission from Professor Issy Pilowsky, Department of Psychiatry, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia.
185
Worksheet 1. Symptom Interpretation Form
186
Intensity of
Day and date Symptom Initial thoughts anxiety (0–100) Response Medical opinion Scenario
Example Heart racing and Believed I was 90 Rushed to Nothing wrong. False alarm
shortness of having a heart emergency room Likely an anxiety
breath attack attack
Example Headache and Thought it might 25 Went to doctor Sinus infection Hit (for the cold)
sore eyes be a brain tumor the next day
but more likely a
cold
Example Lumps in right Thought I had 99 Visited several Harmless fibroids False alarm
breast breast cancer doctors and
specialists
From Asmundson and Taylor (2005). Copyright 2005 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this worksheet is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).
Worksheet 2. Common Stressors
Stress is a fact of life, although people commonly fail to recognize how it affects them. This is
because stressors are often minor irritants or hassles. When hassles do occur, people often experi-
ence stress-related bodily sensations. This is especially likely when many stressors occur at the
same time or in succession. The following are some common stressors. Circle the ones that you
experienced in the past week.
Household Work
Difficulty arranging child care Difficult duties
Too many household chores Inadequate training
Shopping problems Lack of a clear job description
Crowded living space Lack of appreciation
Difficulties with home maintenance No avenue to voice concerns
Misplacing or losing things Insufficient resources
Conflicts with partner or children Boring job
Divorce or separation Doing job below level of competence
Car trouble Concerns about shift work
Insufficient backup
Social Long work hours
Too few friends A lot of responsibility with little or no authority
Feeling isolated Unrealistic deadlines or expectations
Friends or relatives living too far away Conflict with coworkers
Arguments with friends Incompetent colleagues
Dating problems Hassles from boss
Unwanted social obligations Problems with supervisees
Staff shortages
Neighborhood and environment Difficult clients
Weather (for example, too hot, too cold, too Computer problems (hardware or software)
humid) Difficulty keeping up with technological
Things that you are allergic to developments
Pollution Poor promotional prospects
Crime Unpleasant working conditions (for example,
Traffic noisy, dirty, no privacy, cramped)
Commuting Too much travel (for example, to meetings)
Noise Lack of work boundaries (that is, being
Waiting lines contacted after hours by e-mail, phone, or
Neighborhood crowding pager)
Troublesome neighbors Corporate downsizing, restructuring, or job
Inconsiderate smokers relocation
Parking problems Workplace violence
Problems with other drivers Lack of job security
Discrimination or harassment Unemployment
Disturbing news stories (cont.)
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Reprinted by permission in It’s Not All in Your Head by Gordon J. G. Asmundson and Steven Taylor. Copyright 2005 by The Guilford Press. Per-
mission to photocopy this worksheet is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).
187
Worksheet 2 (cont.)
School or university Health

Conflicts with roommates Physical illness
Conflicts with other students or instructors Physical disability
Academic deadlines Concerns with medical treatment
Difficult or boring courses Treatment side effects
Too much schoolwork Concerns about physical appearance
Concerns about career path Overweight
Financial problems (for example, problems Underweight
with student loans) Sexual problems
Budgeting problems
Inner concerns
Finances Inability to express oneself
Debts Conflicts about life choices (for example,
Credit problems career, choice of dating partner)
Lack of money to pay bills Too much time on one’s hands
Insufficient money for recreational activities Concerns about the meaning of life
(for example, movies) Too little sleep
Problems with taxes
Retirement concerns Legal
Auto payments Parking tickets
Speeding fines
Time pressures Other legal problems
Too much to do
Too little to do
Too many interruptions
Insufficient time for recreation
Too many meetings
Too many responsibilities
188
Worksheet 3. Common Stress-Related Bodily Reactions
Stressors, big and small, can produce bodily reactions. Sometimes these reactions happen while
you are experiencing a stressful event, and sometimes they occur later on. The following is a list of
some of the common stress-related bodily reactions. Not all of these sensations occur together;
people typically experience one or two (or sometimes more) of these sensations during times of
stress. Circle the ones that you have experienced in the past week. For each bodily sensation you
circled, rate how much it bothered you over the past week by placing a number from 1 (not very
bothersome) to 10 (extremely bothersome) on the line beside the sensation.
Muscle spasms Stomach cramps
Chest pain Nausea
Feeling restless or fidgety Indigestion
Fatigue Stomach churning
Headache Diarrhea
Neck pain Frequent need to urinate
Chest tightness Difficulty swallowing
Leg cramps Weight gain
Backache Weight loss
Aches and pains Heart thumping
Trembling Heart racing
Difficulty taking a deep breath Heart skipping a beat
Tingling in the feet or hands Dry mouth
Muscle twitches Dizziness
Hot flashes Feeling light-headed
Sweating Insomnia
189
Worksheet 4. A 12-Step Approach to Problem Solving
There are solutions to most of life’s problems. The chances of effectively solving your problems
depend on the approach you take. The following steps increase the chances of solving important
problems in your life.
1. Pick a problem that you would like to work on. It could be a big, urgent problem that may take
some effort to solve, or it might be a little one. Successfully tackling small problems can increase
your confidence of solving bigger problems. List your problem as specifically as possible:
2. State your goal. Please be as specific as possible. What is the outcome that you are hoping to
attain? For example, if you are an unemployed accountant, your goal might be to find a full-time
accounting position.
3. Is your goal realistic? If not, list another, more attainable goal.
4. What are your resources for attaining your goal? This would include material resources (for
example, money, transportation) and social resources (for example, people who could help you
or offer support).
5. Brainstorm! List all the possible ways of attaining your goal that you can think of. List these
possibilities regardless of whether they’re plausible or not. Use an extra sheet if necessary.
6. Refine your solutions. Look through your list of solutions and see if you can think of ways of
improving your solutions. If you think of extra solutions while doing this, then write them down
as well.
(cont.)
190
Worksheet 4. A 12-Step Approach to Problem Solving (cont.)
7. Evaluate. List the pros and cons of each solution. Which one looks the best?
8. Baby steps. Can you break your goal up into subgoals? For example, if your goal was to find a
dating partner, your subgoals might be the following: (a) Put yourself in situations in which you
will meet people whom you might like to date (for example, join a sporting club or enroll in a
course at a community center). (b) Get to know people. Make friends. Even if you don’t find a
dating partner, at least you’ll have friends. (c) If you find someone attractive, arrange to have
coffee with him or her . . . and so on.
9. Identify obstacles. What are the things that might get in the way of solving your problems?
These might be behavioral obstacles (for example, lack of job skills) or thinking obstacles (for
example, negative thoughts such as “Nobody would ever hire me.”). List your obstacles here.
10. Overcome your roadblocks. List ways of overcoming the obstacles. This might involve
improving your skills or challenging your negative thoughts.
11. Make a commitment to solving your problems. Plan to do something each day.
12. Track your progress toward achieving your goals. Are you making steady progress? If so,
good. If not, then identify the roadblocks and try to come up with solutions. Sometimes it helps
to reward yourself for your efforts in overcoming problems, especially big problems. Treat
yourself to something nice.
191
Worksheet 5.
Identifying Overgeneralizations and Emotional Reasoning
Symptom/situation Overgeneralization
Headache This headache means I must have a brain
tumor.
Touching doorknobs If I touch doorknobs, I’ll catch some nasty

infectious disease.
Your feelings Emotional reasoning

Anxious and on edge I must be sick, otherwise I wouldn’t feel so
anxious.
From It’s Not All in Your Head by Gordon J. G. Asmundson and Steven Taylor. Copyright 2005 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy
this worksheet is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).
192
Worksheet 6.
Details of a Recent Health Anxiety Episode
One of My Recent Episodes of Health Anxiety
193
Worksheet 7. Health Anxiety Thoughts and Behaviors Monitoring Form
194
Health anxiety trigger Specific thoughts

(for example, an event or (and strength of belief Intensity of anxiety What you did to deal with
Day and date bodily sensation) from 0 to 100 percent) (0–100) your anxiety.
Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. Saw a TV program on Worried that small lumps in 95 Checked my body for more
breast cancer. my breasts were cancerous. lumps. Checked so much that
(Believed it 100 percent.) my breasts were tender and
sore.
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York: Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission in It’s Not All in Your Head by Gordon J. G.
Asmundson and Steven Taylor. Copyright 2005 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this worksheet is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).
Worksheet 8. Collecting Evidence for and against
Specific Thoughts about Health
Evidence for the specific Evidence against the specific
thought thought
Frightening thought
my hand is skin cancer.”
Alternative explanation
my hand is simply a
freckle.”
195
Worksheet 9. Acceptable Uncertainties in My Life
Uncertainties that the authors of this book are prepared to accept:
• Commuting to work, even though there’s a small chance we could be killed in a car
accident.
• Eating chicken wings, even though there’s a tiny chance we could choke to death on a
bone.
• Smoking the occasional cigar, even though nobody can guarantee that it’s safe.
• Flying on a plane, even though it could conceivably crash.
• Working the occasional day at home, even though nobody can guarantee that a satellite
or piece of space junk won’t fall from the sky and crash through one of our roofs.
• Shopping in the mall, even though there’s no guarantee that a crazed gunman won’t kill
us all.
• Talking on a cell phone, even though no one can give a 110 percent assurance that the
electromagnetic waves from the phones are safe.
Which uncertainties are you prepared to accept? Write them here:
196
Worksheet 10. Putting You in the Doctor’s Shoes
You as the patient You as the doctor, responding to the patient
Write your real-life health anxieties Now, put on your white coat and write down the most likely
in this column—that is, the cause of the patient’s concerns. Remember, your mission is
things about your health that you to make sure that your patient doesn’t become needlessly
really worry about these days. worried about his or her health.
I ate beef last week. Now I’m I ate beef, too. So did millions of people. The chances of
worried about getting the human getting sick are over a million to one. Your time on this
version of mad cow disease. earth is too precious for you to be worrying about rare
diseases. I suggest that you spend your time on the
things that give you a sense of happiness or pride; for
example, pursuing fun hobbies, working on a career, or
spending quality time with your friends or family.
Lately I’ve been feeling tired all Remember that you’ve already had an HIV test and a
the time. I’m frightened that I number of other medical tests. The most likely causes of
might have AIDS. fatigue are stress, sleep difficulties, lack of physical
fitness, boredom, and too much coffee. When you worry
about feeling tired, then you might say this to yourself:
“I’m very good at thinking of bad causes of tiredness, but
maybe I need to think about all the harmless things that
could be making me feel this way. I’ll wait and see how I
feel in a week or so, before consulting a doctor.”
197
Worksheet 11.
My Checking and Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors
Type What I do
Bodily checking
Searching for information
Reassurance seeking
198
Worksheet 12.
Collecting Evidence of Advantages and Disadvantages
of My Checking and Reassurance Seeking Behaviors
Behavior
Example: “I check the
mole on my arm
throughout the day,
poking and picking at it
to see if it’s changed
color or grown.”
Alternative behavior
Example: “I could stop
checking the mole” or
“I could start checking
more often, say every
two hours for the next
four days.”
199
Worksheet 13. Monitoring Form for Behavioral Exercises.
200
Peak anxiety
Day and date Exercise (0–100) What did you learn from the exercise?
Example 1 Spent 5 min feeling the lymph glands on neck, to see 50 Repeated checking and squeezing makes my glands
if they were swollen feel sore and swollen. Repeated checking creates
problems— it makes me think my glands are swollen.
Example 2 Jogged around the block 70 I was worried that my body couldn’t take the
exertion. But I survived! Maybe I’m not as frail as I
thought.
Example 3 Walked past a funeral home 65 Nothing bad happened. I can’t get sick by being
near dead bodies.
Source: From S. Taylor and G. J. G. Asmundson (2004). Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. New York: Guilford Press. Reprinted by permission in It’s Not All in Your Head by Gordon J. G.
Asmundson and Steven Taylor. Copyright 2005 by The Guilford Press. Permission to photocopy this worksheet is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).
Worksheet 14.
Things Related to Situations I’m Afraid of
Situation:
201
Worksheet 15. When to Visit the Doctor
Instructions: Answer the questions below. Make an appointment with your doctor to discuss the
things you’ve listed. Have him or her assist you in completing the list of confirmed medical ill-
nesses that you should keep an eye on. Working together, come up with a list of times when you
should visit the doctor.
Write down all anxiety-related bodily sensations or changes you have. Looking back at worksheets
from other chapters may help.
Write down any bodily sensations or symptoms you have that you haven’t been able to explain.
What confirmed medical illness do you have? Are regular check-ups for any of these necessary?
List check-up frequency for each.
(cont.)
202
Worksheet 15. When to Visit the Doctor (cont.)
List all legitimate reasons for seeing your doctor here.
I’ll visit my family doctor at these times:
• When I have a scheduled annual medical examination.
• When I need inoculations.
• If I need to renew a prescription.
• When I experience bodily sensations that are clearly not normal and don’t seem to be part
of the stress reaction (for example, blood in my urine, loss of continence, inability to
speak).
203
Worksheet 16. Activities for Enhancing Your Quality of Life
Instructions: Enjoyable activities are essential to your quality of life. But sometimes people neglect these
activities when preoccupied or worried about their health. Look through the following checklist of activities.
Did you do any of them in the past week? If so, did you enjoy it? Are there any activities that you haven’t
done but would like to do? This list might help you think about ways of improving your quality of life.
Indicate ( ) Were Indicate ( )
which these which activities
activities you activities you didn’t do
did in the enjoyable? but would like
Activities unrelated to health worries past week. (yes/no) to do.
Creative activities
Doing artwork or crafts . . . . . . . . . . . .
Knitting, needlework, sewing . . . . . . . . . .
Taking a course in something creative (for example,
cooking, photography) . . . . . . . . . . . .
Decorating or redecorating your house or apartment
Woodwork, carpentry, or furniture restoration . . .
Repairing things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mechanical hobbies (for example, fixing gadgets) .
Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creative writing or doing a journal. . . . . . . .
Musical hobbies (for example, singing, dancing,
playing an instrument) . . . . . . . . . . .
Games and entertainment
Watching TV, videos, or DVDs . . . . . . . . . .
Playing video games . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Listening to music or radio programs . . . . . .
Going to the movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to a play, concert, opera, or ballet . . . . .
Going to a museum, art gallery, or exhibition . . .
Going to a sporting event . . . . . . . . . . .
Educational activities that do not have to
do with gathering information about health
and disease
Reading books, magazines, or newspapers . . . .
Going to a lecture on a topic that interests you . .
Learning a foreign language . . . . . . . . . .
Surfing the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Learning about computers (for example, learning to
make a Web page) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to the library . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(cont.)
204
Worksheet 16. Activities for Enhancing Your Quality of Life (cont.)
Did do: Enjoyable? Want to do:
Physical activities
Playing tennis, squash, or racquetball . . . . . . . . . .
Playing golf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ten-pin bowling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Water activities (for example, swimming, sailing, canoeing)
Walking or hiking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jogging, aerobics classes, or working out at a fitness center
Snow sports (skiing, skating, snowboarding) . . . . . . .
Bike riding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Horseback riding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Playing team sports (for example, volleyball, hockey,
basketball) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fishing or hunting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Playing snooker or pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Social and community activities that do not involve

discussing health and disease
Writing, telephoning, or e-mailing friends . . . . . . . . .
Visiting a friend or inviting a friend to your place . . . . .
Going out to lunch or dinner with a friend . . . . . . . .
Giving a party or going to a party . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going on a date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Joining a club (for example, a book club or social club) . .
Going to a bar or restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Involvement in community or political activities . . . . . .
Involvement in religious or church activities. . . . . . . .
Other
Sitting in the sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going for a scenic drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gardening, caring for houseplants, or arranging flowers . .
Visiting fun or interesting places (for example, park, beach,
zoo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Caring for or being with pets . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Planning or going on a vacation. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Going to a sauna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Soaking in the bathtub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Doing yoga or meditation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Buying yourself something special. . . . . . . . . . . .
Hobbies (for example, stamp collecting, model building, flying
a kite) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
List your favorite activities here, if they are not listed

above:
205
Worksheet 17. Activity Enjoyment Rating Form
Instructions: List each activity you do for enjoyment over the next few weeks. Rate the enjoyment
the activity brings you using a scale with 0 = no enjoyment and 4 = a lot of enjoyment.
Day and date Activity Enjoyment rating

Example Went to a movie 3
Example Took my kids to play in the park 4
206
Index
Acceptable Uncertainties in My Anxiety disorders Common Stress-Related Bodily

Life worksheet, 97, 98, 196. See generalized anxiety disorder, 39– Reactions worksheet, 64
also Worksheets 41 depression and, 47–48, 50
Aches and pains, 20. See also health anxiety and, 42 explanations for, 18–23, 21t, 22t
Bodily sensations less common, 41–42 exposure techniques and, 120–
Active avoidance, 109. See also obsessive-compulsive disorder, 121, 122t, 123–125t, 126,
Avoidance 37–39 127f–129
Activities for Enhancing Your overview, 33–34 fear of death and, 130
Quality of Life worksheet, 168, panic disorder, 34–37, 35t flare-ups of, 157–161, 162f, 163–
169–170, 171, 204–205. See treatment options, 42–45 166
also Worksheets Appetite changes, 48. See also overview, 8
Activity Bodily sensations panic attacks and, 35t
changes in routine and, 19 Applied relaxation, 65–66. See also selective attention to, 26, 28–30
enjoying, 168, 171, 173 Relaxation exercises stress reactions and, 61
relationships and, 152 Appointment setting, 77 thoughts regarding. See Thoughts
worksheets regarding, 169–170, Attention to body, 26, 28–30, 86, understanding, 23–26, 25f
172, 204–205, 206 101–102. See also Thoughts when to visit the doctor, 141,
Activity Enjoyment Rating Form Autonomic nervous system, 21–23, 142–143, 144
worksheet, 172, 206. See also 22t Body checking. See also Behavior,
Worksheets Avoidance, 36, 108–109. See also anxiety
Adolescence, 36, 38, 40, 48 Behavior, anxiety challenging your need for, 112,
Adulthood, 36, 38, 40, 48 114f–115, 118t, 120
Agoraphobia, 36. See also Anxiety Balance, 21–23, 77–78 identifying, 106
disorders Behavior, anxiety selective attention and, 26, 28–
Ailments, minor, 20–21 identifying, 105–111 29
All-or-none thinking, 84–85, 96, overview, 104–105 worksheets regarding, 113, 116–
97, 98. See also Thoughts ridding yourself of, 111–112, 117
Allergies, 20–21 114f–115, 118t, 120–121, 122t, Breathing difficulties. See also
Amplifying somatic style, 30. See 123–125t, 127f–129 Bodily sensations
also Attention to body worksheets regarding, 113, 116– autonomic nervous system and,
Anal discomfort, 21. See also Bodily 117, 119, 126, 194, 198, 199, 22t
sensations 200 exposure exercises and, 122t
Anger, of loved ones, 147–148 Beliefs about health and sickness, inactivity and, 20
Antidepressant medications, 42–43, 30. See also Attention to body; minor ailments and, 21
51–53t, 166–167. See also Thoughts panic attacks and, 35t
Medication; Treatment Biological factors, 28 Breathing retraining exercises, 72–
Anxiety Black-or-white thinking, 84–85, 96, 74. See also Relaxation
bodily sensations and, 8, 21–23, 97, 98. See also Thoughts exercises
22t Bloating, 20. See also Bodily
cognitive-behavioral approaches sensations Caffeine consumption, 36
and, 44 Blood pressure, 19. See also Bodily Catastrophic conclusions, 85–86,
cycle of health anxiety and, 30– sensations 99, 101. See also Thoughts
32f Blood sugar levels, 19, 36. See also Causes of health anxiety, 42
defining, 6–7 Bodily sensations Certainty. See also Uncertainty
exposure techniques and, 120– Bodily sensations. See also challenging your need for, 96,
121, 122t, 123–125t, 126, Symptoms 98
127f–129 anxiety and, 6–7, 30–32f relationships with doctors and,
generalized anxiety disorder and, applied relaxation and, 65, 71f– 140
39–41 72 worksheet regarding, 97, 196
207
208 Index
Checking behaviors. See also Cramping, 20, 21t. See also Bodily worksheets regarding, 93–94, 113,
Behavior, anxiety sensations 116–117
challenging your need for, 112, Cycle of health anxiety, 8–10, 30– Exercise, 19
114f–115, 118t, 120 32f Exposure techniques, 43. See also
identifying, 105–108 Cognitive-behavioral approach
selective attention and, 26, 28– Death, fear of, 130–131 fear of death and, 130
29 Decision-making, 48 overview, 120–121, 122t, 123–
worksheets regarding, 113, 116– Depersonalization, 35t. See also 125t, 126, 127f–129
117, 198, 199 Bodily sensations worksheets regarding, 119, 126,
Checking health information. See Depression 200, 201
also Behavior, anxiety common forms of, 47–49
challenging your need for, 112, health anxiety and, 49–51 Faintness, 19, 35t, 122t. See also
114f–115, 118t, 120 obsessive-compulsive disorder Bodily sensations
overview, 106–108 and, 38 False alarms, 25f–26
worksheets regarding, 113, 116– overview, 46 Family
117, 198, 199 treatment options, 51–55, 53t helping to help you, 150–155,
Chest breathing, 73. See also Derealization, 35t. See also Bodily 151f
Breathing retraining exercises sensations overinvolvement of, 148–149
Chest tightness, 20, 35t, 122t. See Details of a Recent Health Anxiety overview, 146, 156
also Bodily sensations Episode worksheet, 88, 89, 193. roles of, 149–150
Childhood, 38, 40, 48 See also Worksheets stress of your health anxiety on,
Chills, 35t. See also Bodily Diaphragm breathing, 73. See also 147–148
sensations Breathing retraining exercises Family therapy, 54–55. See also
Choking, 35t. See also Bodily Diarrhea, 21. See also Bodily Treatment
sensations sensations Fatigue, 20, 39, 122t. See also
Cognitions, 80–81. See also Beliefs; Digestive problems, 22t. See also Bodily sensations
Thoughts Bodily sensations Fear, 7, 126, 130–131, 201
Cognitive-behavioral approach. See Disease, 6, 23–26, 25f “Fight or flight” response, 22, 65,
also Treatment Disease phobia, 12–13, 82. See also 71, 108
for anxiety disorders, 43–44 Health anxiety Flare-ups, 53, 157–161, 162f, 163–
combining with medication, 167 Dizziness, 19, 35t, 122t. See also 166
for depression, 53–54 Bodily sensations Focus on body, 26, 28–30, 86, 101–
overview, 5 Doctor visits 102. See also Thoughts
resources for, 176–181 overview, 135–137 Friends
when to seek out, 167 as part of the cycle of health helping to help you, 150–155, 151f
Cognitive distortions, 53–54 anxiety, 9–10 overinvolvement of, 148–149
Cognitive restructuring, 43 when to seek out, 141, 144–145 overview, 146, 156
Collecting Evidence for and worksheets regarding, 142–143, roles of, 149–150
Against Specific Thoughts 197, 202–203 stress of your health anxiety on,
about Health worksheet, 92, Dying, fear of, 35t 147–148
93–94, 95, 195. See also Dying, thoughts of, 48
Worksheets Dyspepsia. See Heartburn Gender differences, 36, 40, 48
Collecting Evidence of Advantages Dysthymic disorder, 48–49, 51–55, Generalized anxiety disorder, 39–
and Disadvantages of My 53t. See also Depression 41. See also Anxiety disorders
Checking and Reassurance Guilt, depression and, 48
Seeking Behaviors worksheet, Emergency room, 141. See also
115, 116–117, 199. See also Doctor visits HARP program, 158–161, 162f,
Worksheets Emotional component of health, 6 163–166, 173. See also Relapse
Common Stress-Related Bodily Emotional reasoning, 83, 84, 192. Headache, 21t. See also Bodily
Reactions worksheet, 64, 189 See also Thoughts sensations
Common Stressors worksheet, 61, Emotions Health, 6, 171, 173
62–63, 187–188. See also bodily sensations and, 21–23, 22t Health anxiety. See also Anxiety
Worksheets of loved ones, 149–150 disorders
Communication with loved ones, stress reactions and, 61 anxiety disorders the occur with,
156. See also Relationships Energy, lack of, 48. See also Bodily 41, 42
Compulsions, 38. See also sensations common forms of, 10–14
Obsessive-compulsive disorder Energy level, 65, 78 cycle of, 8–10, 30–32f
Concentration difficulties, 39, 48 Enteric nervous system, 21 defining, 5–8
Congestion, 21, 22t. See also Bodily Evaluating the costs technique, 99, depression and, 46, 49–51
sensations 101 examples of, 3–4
Constipation, 20. See also Bodily Examining the evidence technique. exposure techniques and, 120–
sensations See also Thoughts 121, 122t, 123–125t, 126,
Control, 65 for checking behaviors, 112, 127f–129
Coughing, 21. See also Bodily 114f–115 flare-ups of, 157–161, 162f, 163–
sensations overview, 91–92, 95–96 166
Index 209
medication and, 52 Medication. See also Treatment worksheets regarding, 75–76,

overview, xii, 4–5, 14–15 anxiety disorders and, 42–43 190–191
resources for, 175–181 combining with treatment, 167 Procrastination, 78
selective attention and, 26, 28– depression and, 51–53t Prospective monitoring, 89
30 when to seek out, 166–167 Psychoeducation, 43, 167. See also
stress on loved ones by, 147–148 when to visit the doctor, 144 Cognitive-behavioral approach
time management and, 78 Menstrual cramps, 21t. See also Psychotherapy, 44, 54–55, 139. See
Health Anxiety Relapse Prevention Bodily sensations also Treatment
program, 158–161, 162f, 163– Monitoring Form for Behavioral Putting You in the Doctor’s Shoes
166, 173. See also Relapse Exercises worksheet, 118, 119, worksheet, 99, 100, 197. See
Health Anxiety Thoughts and 200. See also Worksheets also Worksheets
Behaviors Monitoring Form, Monoamine oxidase inhibitors. See
89, 90, 194. See also MAOI medications Rapid relaxation, 69, 71. See also
Worksheets Mood disorders, 47–49. See also Relaxation exercises
Health information, checking Depression Reassurance. See also Doctor visits
challenging your need for, 112, Muscle aches. See also Bodily challenging your need for, 112,
114f–115, 118t, 120 sensations 114f–115, 118t, 120
overview, 106–108, 106–108 exposure exercises and, 122t relationships and, 150–151f, 155
worksheets regarding, 113, 116– generalized anxiety disorder and, 39 seeking of, 109–110
117 inactivity and, 20 worksheets regarding, 113, 116–
Heart rate. See also Bodily minor ailments and, 21t 117, 198, 199
sensations My Checking and Reassurance- Relapse, 53, 157–161, 162f, 163–
autonomic nervous system and, Seeking Behaviors worksheet, 166
22t 113, 114f, 198. See also Relationships
changes in routine and, 19 Worksheets with doctors, 135–137, 138–141.
exposure exercises and, 121, 122t see also Doctor visits
inactivity and, 20 Nagging, of loved ones, 148 helping others to help you and,
panic attacks and, 35t Nausea, 20, 35t. See also Bodily 150–155, 151f
Heartburn, 20, 21t. See also Bodily sensations overinvolvement and, 148–149
sensations Negative thinking, 53–54. See also overview, 146, 149–150, 156
Homeostasis, 21–23, 77–78 Cognitive-behavioral approach; stress of your health anxiety on,
Hopelessness, 50 Thoughts 147–148
Hot flashes, 35t. See also Bodily Negatively biased thinking, 85. See Relaxation exercises. See also
sensations also Thoughts Cognitive-behavioral approach
Hypochondriasis, 11–12. See also Nervous system, autonomic, 21–23, applied relaxation, 65–66
Health anxiety 22t breathing retraining exercises
Hypoglycemia, 19. See also Bodily Numbness, 35t. See also Bodily and, 72–74
sensations sensations overview, 43
release-only, 66, 69, 70
Identifying Overgeneralizations and Obsessions, 37–38 tense-release, 66, 67–68
Emotional Reasoning Obsessive-compulsive disorder, 37– Release-only relaxation, 66, 69, 70.
worksheet, 83, 192. See also 39, 43. See also Anxiety disorders See also Relaxation exercises
Worksheets Overgeneralized thinking, 82, 83, Restlessness, 39, 48. See also Bodily
Illness, minor, 20–21 84, 192. See also Thoughts sensations
Inactivity, 20 Routine, changes in
Information regarding health, 106– Pains, 20. See also Bodily sensations avoidance and, 108–109
108 Panic attacks, 34–37, 35t bodily sensations and, 19–20
Internet checking, 29, 106–108 Panic disorder, 34–37, 35t, 42–43. examining the evidence
Interoceptive exposure, 120–121, See also Anxiety disorders technique and, 95
122t, 123–124. See also Parasympathetic division of the panic attacks and, 36
Exposure techniques autonomic nervous system, 21–
Interpersonal therapy, 54. See also 23, 22t Sadness, 46. See also Depression
Treatment Paresthesias, 35t. See also Bodily Scheduling, 77, 171
Irritability, 39 sensations Security blanket, use of, 110–111,
Passive avoidance, 109. See also 129. See also Behavior, anxiety
Loss of control, 35t. See also Bodily Avoidance Selective attention, 26, 28–30, 86,
sensations Perspective shifting, 98–99, 100, 101–102. See also Thoughts
138–139 Selective serotonin reuptake
Major depressive disorder, 47–48. Physical symptoms. See Bodily inhibitor (SSRI) medication,
See also Depression sensations 42–43, 51–53t, 166–167. See
MAOI medications, 52. See also Prioritizing, 77 also Medication; Treatment
Medication; Treatment Problem-solving skills Self-confidence, 65
Marital therapy, 54–55. See also overview, 74, 77 Self-help, 44. See also Treatment
Treatment relationships with doctors and, Shaking, 35t, 122t. See also Bodily
Media influence, 29, 106–108 140 sensations
210 Index
Shame, 48 cycle of health anxiety and, 30–32f measuring somatic amplification

Signs of disease, 23–26. See also of depression, 47–48, 50 with, 30
Bodily sensations; Symptoms of dysthymic disorder, 48–49 overview, 15, 173
Sinus congestion, 21t. See also examining the evidence Worksheets
Bodily sensations technique and, 95 Acceptable Uncertainties in My
Situational exposure, 120, 124– exposure exercises and, 122t Life, 97, 98, 196
125f, 126, 127f–128. See also of a panic attack, 35f Activities for Enhancing Your
Exposure techniques when to visit the doctor, 141, Quality of Life, 168, 169–170,
Skin problems, 21t. See also Bodily 142–143, 144 171, 204–205
sensations worksheets regarding, 26, 27, 28, Activity Enjoyment Rating Form,
Sleeping. See also Bodily sensations 31–32, 186 172, 206
applied relaxation and, 65 Collecting Evidence for and
changes in routine and, 19 Tense-release relaxation, 66, 67–68. Against Specific Thoughts
depression and, 48 See also Relaxation exercises about Health, 92, 93–94, 95,
generalized anxiety disorder and, Tension, applied relaxation and, 66 195
39 Things Related to Situations I’m Collecting Evidence of
Sneezing, 21. See also Bodily Afraid of worksheet, 125, 126, Advantages and Disadvantages
sensations 127f, 201. See also Worksheets of My Checking and
Social component of health, 6 Thoughts Reassurance Seeking Behaviors,
Somatic amplification, 30. See also negative, 53–54 115, 116–117, 199
Attention to body overview, 80–81, 102–103f Common Stress-Related Bodily
Somatic delusions, 13–14. See also regarding health, 81–82, 84–87, Reactions, 64, 189
Health anxiety 89, 91 Common Stressors, 61, 62–63,
Somatoform disorder, 33. See also ridding yourself of, 91–92, 95–96, 187–188
Anxiety disorders; Health 98–99, 101–102 Details of a Recent Health
anxiety worksheets regarding, 83, 88, 90, Anxiety Episode, 88, 89, 193
SSRI medications, 42–43, 51–53t, 93–94, 97, 100, 193, 194, 195 Health Anxiety Thoughts and
166–167. See also Medication; Thyroid gland, 36 Behaviors Monitoring Form,
Treatment Time management, 77–78 89, 90, 194
Stomach upsets, 20–21, 22t, 35t. Tingling sensations, 35t. See also Identifying Overgeneralizations
See also Bodily sensations Bodily sensations and Emotional Reasoning, 83,
Stress Tiredness, 20. See also Bodily 192
applied relaxation and, 65–66, sensations Monitoring Form for Behavioral
71f–72 “To-do” list, 77 Exercises, 118, 119, 200
breathing retraining exercises Treatment My Checking and Reassurance-
and, 72–74 for anxiety disorders, 42–45 Seeking Behaviors, 113, 114f,
examining the evidence for depression, 51–55, 53t 198
technique and, 95 stigmas associated with, 139 Putting You in the Doctor’s
flare-ups and, 157–158 when to seek out, 166–167 Shoes, 99, 100, 197
on loved ones, 147–148 Trembling, 35t, 122t. See also Release-Only Relaxation
problem-solving skills and, 74, Bodily sensations Instructions, 70
75–76, 77 Tricyclic antidepressants, 52. See Symptom Interpretation Form,
sources of, 60–61, 65 also Medication; Treatment 26, 27, 28, 31–32, 186
time management and, 77–78 A 12-Step Approach to Problem Tense-Release Relaxation
worksheets regarding, 62–64, Solving worksheet, 74, 75–76, Instructions, 67–68
187–188, 189 190–191. See also Worksheets Things Related to Situations I’m
Substance use, 19 Afraid of, 125, 126, 127f, 201
Suicidal thoughts, 48, 51 Uncertainty A 12-Step Approach to Problem
Superstitious thinking, 86–87. See anxiety and, 6–7 Solving, 75–76, 190–191
also Thoughts learning to tolerate, 96, 98 When to Visit the Doctor, 142–
Sweating, 19, 35t. See also Bodily relationships with doctors and, 143, 202–203
sensations 140 Whiteley Index, 15, 16, 30, 173,
Sympathetic division of the worksheet regarding, 97, 196 185
autonomic nervous system, 21– Urine secretion, 22t. See also Bodily Worry
23, 22t sensations compared to obsessions, 37–38
Symptom Interpretation Form. See cycle of health anxiety and, 31–
also Worksheets Weight changes, 48. See also Bodily 32f
complete, 27, 186 sensations depression and, 46
cycle of health anxiety and, 31– Well-being, 6 generalized anxiety disorder and,
32 When to Visit the Doctor 39–41
overview, 26, 28 worksheet, 142–143, 202–203. health anxiety and, 5
Symptoms. See also Bodily See also Doctor visits overview, 14–15
sensations Whiteley Index panic attacks and, 36
bodily sensations and, 23–26, 25f complete, 16, 185 Worthlessness, feelings of, 48
About the Authors
Gordon J. G. Asmundson, PhD, is a professor and Canadian Insti-

tutes of Health Research Investigator in the Faculty of Kinesiology
and Health Studies at the University of Regina, Canada, and an
adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan.
He is currently the North American editor of Cognitive Behaviour
Therapy and serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Anxiety
Disorders, the Clinical Journal of Pain, and the European Journal of
Pain. He has published over 130 journal articles and book chapters,
as well as four books, including Clinical Research in Mental Health
(with G. Ron Norton and Murray B. Stein; 2001, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage), the edited volume Health Anxiety (with Steven Taylor
and Brian J. Cox; 2001, New York: Wiley), and the coauthored volume Treating Health Anxi-
ety: A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach (with Steven Taylor; 2004, New York: Guilford Press).
He served as a member of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edi-
tion, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) Work Group for the Anxiety Disorders. Dr. Asmundson’s
research contributions have been recognized by early career awards from the Anxiety Disor-
ders Association of America and the Canadian chapter of the International Association for
the Study of Pain, and by Fellowship in the Canadian Psychological Association. He is
actively involved in clinical research and clinical research supervision and has interests in
assessment and basic mechanisms of the anxiety disorders, health anxiety, and acute and
chronic pain, and the association of these with disability and behavior change.
Steven Taylor, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and professor in the

Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia,
Canada. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy
and a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. For 10
years he was associate editor of Behaviour Research and Therapy and is
now associate editor of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy. He has
published over 140 journal articles and book chapters. He has also
published eight books, including the monograph Understanding and
Treating Panic Disorder (2000, New York: Wiley), the edited volume
Health Anxiety (with Gordon J. G. Asmundson and Brian J. Cox;
2001, New York: Wiley), and the coauthored volume Treating Health Anxiety: A Cognitive-
Behavioral Approach (with Gordon J. G. Asmundson; 2004, New York: Guilford Press). He
211
212 About the Authors
served as a consultant on the recent text revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). Dr. Taylor has received early
career awards from the Canadian Psychological Association, the Association for Advance-
ment of Behavior Therapy, and the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. He is
actively involved in clinical teaching and supervision and maintains a private practice in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His clinical and research interests include cognitive-
behavioral treatments and mechanisms of anxiety disorders and related conditions.

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

Who wrote the book?

Who wrote the book?

It’s Not All in Your Head

This page intentionally left blank

Gordon J. G. Asmundson, PhD

THE GUILFORD PRESS

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

LIMITED PHOTOCOPY LICENSE

The copyright holder grants to individual purchasers of this book nonassignable

To Amy Sue Janeck and Alex Janeck Taylor

One Do I Worry Too Much about My Health? 3

Two Body and Brain: It’s Not All in Your Head 18

Three Do I Have Some Other Anxiety Disorder? 33

Four Sick and Sad: Am I Depressed, Too? 46

Five Understanding and Managing Stress 59

Eight Dealing with Doctors 135

Nine Helping Friends and Family Help You 146

Ten Living Life and Maintaining Your Gains 157

About the Authors 211

Do I Worry Too Much

Joan: “Do something soon or I’m going to die.”

Jonathan: “What’s wrong with me?”

Bob: “Dangerous germs are everywhere.”

upset stomach be the result of something I ate, or is it an ulcer? Are my head-

What Is Health Anxiety?

disease, mental health professionals often refer to it as a health anxiety disorder.

Are Your Bodily Sensations Imagined or Real?

The Health Anxiety Cycle

Sarah: “My doctor thinks I’m a crock.”

Common Health Anxiety Disorders

• Your medical history and history of medical tests,

Mike: “I don’t want to catch SARS.”

In determining whether you have disease phobia, a cognitive-behavioral

• Your degree of fear relative to other people,

Vicky: “People don’t like me because I smell bad.”

A mental health professional may ask a variety of questions regarding the

How Much Is Too Much?

If your answer to question 1 was, in so many words, pretty often; if you’ve

How This Book Can Help

2. Are you bothered by many pains and aches? YES NO

4. Do you worry a lot about your health? YES NO

5. Do you often have the symptoms of very serious illness? YES NO

6. If a disease is brought to your attention (through the radio, television, YES NO

14. Are you afraid of illness? YES NO

Body and Brain

Why Do Bodily Sensations Occur?

Let’s take a closer look at these sources of bodily sensations.

resulting from changes to your typical routine is indicative of an impending

When an inactive person resumes a more active lifestyle, he or she will, as

Anxiety and Other Emotions

TABLE 1. Common Ailments and the Bodily Sensations They Produce

Headache Head pain, throbbing, blurry vision

TABLE 2. Body Systems and Structures Affected by the Parasympathetic

Body system Parasympathetic effect Sympathetic effect