Help for Health Anxiety in the UK: Where to Start

The NHS says you may have health anxiety if you:

• constantly worry about your health
• frequently check your body for signs of illness, such as lumps, tingling or pain
• are always asking people for reassurance that you are not ill
• worry that a doctor or medical tests may have missed something
• obsessively look at health information on the internet or in the media
• avoid anything to do with serious illness, such as medical TV programmes
• act as if you were ill, for example by avoiding physical activities

The NHS notes that anxiety itself can cause symptoms like headaches or a racing heartbeat, which you may mistake for signs of illness, and that health anxiety is related to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Source: NHS: health anxiety.

• Keep a diary of how often you check your body, ask for reassurance or look at health information, and try to reduce this gradually over a week.
• Challenge your thoughts by writing your health worries in one column and more balanced thoughts in another.
• Keep busy: when you get the urge to check your body, go for a walk or call a friend.
• Get back to normal activities you have been avoiding, such as sport or socialising, gradually.
• Try to relax, for example with breathing exercises.

The NHS says to see a GP if your worries about your health are stopping you leading a normal life or self-help is not working. A GP who diagnoses health anxiety may refer you for a talking therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or offer you a medicine for anxiety. In England you can also refer yourself directly to an NHS talking therapies service without a GP referral: find your local NHS talking therapies service (England only). In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a GP is usually the first step.

If you can afford it, you can choose to pay for therapy privately. The NHS also points to charities that can help with free or low-cost sessions: Mind and Anxiety UK. See our guide to free and low-cost therapy.

Several professions work with health anxiety, and none is better for everyone. Ask about their training and experience with health anxiety and which approach they use:

• CBT therapists.
• Practitioner psychologists, such as clinical and counselling psychologists, who are on the HCPC register.
• Counsellors and psychotherapists.
• Physiotherapists, if worry about pain or movement is making you avoid activity (they may help you build activity back up gradually).
• Psychiatrists, medical doctors who can assess, diagnose and prescribe.

Whoever you choose, check their register and ask about fees, session length and how you will review progress together. See questions to ask before you book and how much therapy costs. On Therapist Circle, each practitioner's registration is checked when they join, and their profile shows the register and number so you can check it yourself.