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r/HealthAnxiety•
feelcreative

Ask yourself: “What would a healthy person think?”

SpoilerAdvice

I got this little tidbit from the book “Atomic Habits”. Our brain is an answer factory, it creates answers from the questions you ask it.

So never leave the brain with a crappy question like “Do I have [insert illness here]?”, it will always find a crappy answer for you.

Leave it with “What would a healthy person think?”

E.g. “I feel [symptom], could it be [illness]? What would a healthy person think?”

In this instance I take health to mean mental health.

This has helped me a lot lately, I hope it can help others here.

It helps me feel like a part of the rest of the world, rather than some protagonist from a tragic story.

I like to say to myself, “You are normal people” to remind myself that I am like everyone else, I have the same tiny chance of getting the illnesses I fear as everyone else. This makes it easier to sit with the uncertainty that living a full life brings.

Edit: spelling and additional 2 paragraphs.

Edit 2: added example.

Posted Jan 16, 2023, 1:17 AM UTC · edited

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yourdad132•

Do healthy people constantly get symptoms though? That's what drives us crazy. The symptoms that never seem to go away. If it isn't one thing, it's something else.

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feelcreativeOP•

I think they may feel a symptom, and then dismiss it or ignore it all together, our bodies are noisy places, lots of small gurgles, niggles, and pains, that healthy people dismiss, but that we are hyper aware of.

There is no adrenaline cycle for them.

Where as for us, we are hyper aware of every sensation, we feel a symptom, catastrophise, flood our body stress hormones, which disrupts almost every system we have and creates yet more symptoms, which we then catastrophise, and the cycle continues.

I think leaving our brain with a better question like ‘what would a healthy person think?’ gives our body a break from the stress hormone cycle.

“I feel [symptom], could it be [illness]? What would a healthy person think?”

Its next to impossible to stop a catastrophic thought, like not thinking about a purple elephant. But we can tack on another thought at the end of the catastrophic thought.

For me the thoughts still come, but I feel better about them, and there is less of a vicious cycle of stress hormones (or at least shorter in duration)

Edit: grammer

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hollyreadstarot•

It’s not all about “hormones”. In fact, I don’t make stress hormones. I have a disease that caused my adrenal glands to die. I barely have enough cortisol replaced to have bodily functions. You’re way oversimplifying the psychology here.

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feelcreativeOP•

Point taken, replace all the instances of ‘we’ with ‘me’, as this is my personal opinion and experience with HA

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Advanced-Ease-6912•

A friend once told me about how her child was walking with a limp for over a week and when it didn't get better she took them to the doctor and her kid had sprained their ankle. I honestly couldn't believe something like that could happen and the mom wouldn't immediately jump to thinking her kid had cancer the first day. It was a good example of how many normal people just assume things are fine and don't jump to the unlikely worst case scenario.

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feelcreativeOP•

Its like a little glimpse into normalcy isn’t it? It feels fantastic walking around like a normie and not thinking of the worst case scenario.

A doctor once told me, common things happen commonly, and rare things happen rarely, sprained ankles are common, and cancer is comparatively rare. It didn’t help my HA in the midst of it, but it does make sense.

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kingfrank243•

Why is it that we Hypochondria always think it's cancer, like seeing blood in the toilet after taking poop yup cancer,

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Embarrassed-Olive-65•

I've been stuck with catastrophic thoughts for arround 3 months. Can't seem to bypass this anymore

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feelcreativeOP•

I’ve never been able to stop a catastrophic thought, the only thing I have been able to change is how I feel about the thought, and I don’t mean some difficult will power based practice (I don’t think I have the strength or discipline for that), I mean tacking onto the end of the thought another thought.

“I feel [symptom], could it be [illness]? What would a healthy person think?”

“I did [trigger], could I get [illness]? What would a healthy person think?”

I don’t even have to consciously answer that additional question “What would a healthy person think?”, as long as that is the last thought I leave my mind with, it will compulsively look for an answer like “a healthy person would notice it, and then dismiss it and get on with their day”

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False_Bluebird5097•

Yes! I love this. Recently with my anxiety (not HA just regular anxiety) I’ve started saying to myself how would a “normal” person deal with this? It’s helped a ton with putting myself into perspective and noticing that it’s just my anxiety brain!

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feelcreativeOP•

Have you noticed that your anxiety brain, stops being anxious after practicing this technique for a while, sometimes so suddenly that you are dubious of how it happened?

That’s happened to me before, we’re so conditioned to thinking change and improvement takes lots of time and effort, that its a “journey”, but thats not always the case, sometimes it is quick and immediate and you just gotta appreciate it.

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False_Bluebird5097•

Sometimes, yes! Other things that my anxiety brain has conjured up take a little more convincing than others, but most of the time I end up at the same conclusion aka it’s just anxiety! Haha

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RachyJ•

Would you recommend atomic habits? I have a sample on my kindle but haven’t purchased it yet

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feelcreativeOP•

have only just started, so far its really great, very practical

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RachyJ•

Thank you :)

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feelcreativeOP•

You’re welcome! I don’t normally post here, but I’ve very recently had a pretty tough bout of HA (still somewhat in it), and this helped turn the corner.

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RachyJ•

I’m very much in the thick of my HA at the moment, very much centred around myself, partner and daughter and it’s really tough to stop the hectic, catastrophic thinking so any help is appreciated

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feelcreativeOP•

I’ve found it impossible to not think a thought, like not thinking about a purple elephant. I can only redirect the thought or try to replace the thought.

I learnt this NLP technique called anchoring that might help to replace the thought and build a different neural pathway for that thought pattern.

This is the setup:

  1. Identify a catastrophic thought that you have repeatedly e.g. “What if this [symptom] means that I have [illness]”
  2. Create a realistic replacement thought e.g. “It’s just a normal sensation”
  3. Choose an anchor - e.g. clicking your fingers

And this is the practice:

Start saying the catastrophic thought, but don’t finish it, interrupt it by simultaneously performing the anchor action and thinking the replacement thought.

E.g. “What if this [symptom] means I have.. click its just a normal sensation”

Repeat that out loud x 10

Then repeat in your mind silently with the anchor action.

Practice this any time you have catastrophic thoughts, and hopefully it creates new grooves / neural pathways for your mind to autopilot to.

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RachyJ•

Thank you for this I will definitely try it, the thoughts come thick and fast sometimes I’m not even aware that I’m panicking! It’s something for me to work on ! Thanks again

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[deleted]•

[removed]

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Accomplished_Run_896•

Hello everyone looking for reassurance. I suffer from anxiety and anxiety health symptoms. I just felt a weird sensation/symptoms that i have felt before but its been a while. Usually i go to the worst case scenario then panic then its spirals. While it did worry me, I tried to talk to my Anxiety (hope that is what it is) but how do you deal with the after math? Im tired, anxious, and keep checking my HR. My Anxiety has disappeared before for years. Ut its been 3 yrs and hasn’t left.. urgg

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Misled-Heat•

Sorry to hear it is bothering you for so long again. I have a similar experience, was gone for around 5 years and came crashing back in January. Exhausted, depressed, just melted down at my therapy session today, so disappointed in myself that it came back, feels like I failed. Trying so hard to use the tools that helped me before, grounding, meditation and refocusing thoughts. Just have to keep trying and figure out what works again. So hard.

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