If you’ve been searching for health anxiety help or wondering if hypnotherapy near you could be your answer - you’re in the right place.

If you find yourself constantly worrying about your health, you're not alone. Health anxiety is more common than most people think - and it is exhausting. As a hypnotherapist based in North Walsham, working with clients all around Norwich, country (and globe!) for a wide array of issues - health anxiety being one of them.

In this article I aim to offer you valuable insights, what to look out for, and strategies you can use to introduce today to introduce more calm into your life right now. First, let’s dive into the signs & what you can do.

1. You Constantly Worry About Body Sensations

Random aches, twinges, or flutters in your body have potential to spark a wave of anxiety. If you find yourself hypervigilant on physical symptoms, and find yourself convincing yourself that every headache is a brain tumor, or a tight chest feels like a heart attack.This hypervigilance keeps your nervous system on high alert, making it almost impossible to relax.

What You Can Do:

• Normalise to yourself that it's completely natural for your body to have sensations.
  

• Practice a "3-minute body scan" where you observe sensations without judging them. (Relaxation Audios on YouTube work excellently with this!)
  

• Use deep breathing to bring awareness to calm, not fear.
  

2. You Google Symptoms... Constantly

It starts as a quick search and ends with hours of reading worst-case scenarios and stories. Sound familiar? Googling your symptoms feeds the health anxiety cycle, reinforcing the idea that something is definitely wrong. Googling symptoms may also provide you temporary relief, if you find the answer you were looking for.

But this cycle is a bit like the cycle of people with OCD. Starting with an intrusive thought, which leads to giving you a feeling, then acting a certain way to make yourself feel better temporarily. However all this does is reinforce the cycle. So when you're next worried about something and reach for Dr Google for answer, the very thing that provides you with relief will be where your brain wants to go the next time to search for an answer or feel some relief.

Googling for a symptom may be good or bad depending on the person and the answer you get. But I definitely don't recommend it, as generally it is worse and reinforcing of your fears.

What You Can Do:

• Set a personal rule: No symptom Googling for 7 days.
  

• Write down your symptom-related thoughts instead - this creates distance from them and helps make sense of them.
  

• Seek reassurance from a trusted health professional once, not repeatedly. (And do your best to trust their judgement!)
  

If you’re finding it hard to break this habit, hypnotherapy for health anxiety can help rewire those automatic urges gently and effectively.

3. Reassurance Never Really Helps

You go to the doctor. They say you're fine. You feel okay... for a little while. But soon, the doubts creep back in - "What if they missed something?" This is classic health anxiety thinking. Think about it like this.. Reassurance becomes like a drug: you need more and more of it, but it never really fixes the underlying fear.

It only temporarily soothes you, but inevitably draws you in to a pattern of behaviour you can easily fall victim to. The problem with seeking reassurance, is it requires someone else to provide that to you. This means not utilising the resources you already have to provide yourself with the reassurance, calm and comfort you're seeking.

What You Can Do:

• Notice the urge for reassurance and gently sit with it, without reacting immediately.
  

• Trust the expertise of healthcare professionals - if you’ve been checked, it's fair to assume you’re safe.
  

• Focus on rebuilding self-trust - a major part of overcoming health anxiety. I have an article about this here on methods you can use today to build self trust and challenge the thoughts of health anxiety.
  

4. Fear of Dying or Serious Illness Dominates Your Mind

A lot of people with health anxiety fear death, terminal illness, or sudden medical emergencies. This fear often feels larger than life - like it's lurking around every corner. One thing I'd like to mention here is that this is very common. And I think almost everyone experiences this feeling and fear at some point in their life. This difference here is, people with health anxiety will worry about this constantly and it will dominate their mind to the point it affects every area of their life.

What You Can Do:

• Practice mindfulness to stay in the present moment rather than the "what if" future.
  

• Challenge catastrophic thoughts: "Is there real evidence for this fear right now?"
  

• Consider seeking help. Clients often tell me that hypnotherapy near me was the first thing that finally helped them shift this deeply rooted fear. One thing I'd like to add is that although this may be the case right now, it doesn't have to be. You can find your peace, calm and freedom from fear. Below is a link to a video with someone I worked with recently. She had a fear of death but after working together this is now no longer the case. I'll leave the link here
  

5. You Avoid Life to “Stay Safe”

You might avoid exercise, travel, social events, media, or even medical appointments - anything that could “trigger” fear or symptoms. The problem is, the more you avoid, the smaller your world becomes, and the further the health anxiety cycle is reinforced. This is something I've personally experienced, not wanting to leave the house (and not wanting to be in the house also, that wasn't fun!) It's important to remember your brain is trying to protect you here, with the best information it has in this current moment.

What You Can Do:

• Start with small steps. Go for a short walk. Meet a friend for a coffee.
  

• And then celebrate tiny wins!! Every mountain is climbed by many steps.
  

• Adopt a "do your worst' mindset, invite the anxiety to do whatever it wants KNOWING it's anxiety - this can be a very powerful strategy.
  

• Remember: Avoidance keeps anxiety alive. Action and tiny wins shrinks it.
  

How Hypnotherapy Can Help Break the Health Anxiety Cycle

Remember - health anxiety is not "who you are" - it’s a pattern your mind has learned to follow to try and protect you and keep you safe. The good news? If it can be learned, it can be unlearned - and fast. That’s exactly where health anxiety hypnotherapy comes in.

Through advanced conversational hypnotherapy techniques, I help clients:

• Calm the nervous system with a 'reset'. Many people say to me this is the calmest they have EVER felt. It's truly amazing to witness.
  

• Breaking the health anxiety cycle into calmer, more beneficial ways of thinking and feeling.
  

• Reconnect with inner trust and safety so daily life can resume normally again with joy.
  

• Resolve the root causes - often being old fears that no longer serve your best purpose. This is where anxiety is rooted - remove this and the experience of health anxiety dissolves.
  

Clients often tell me that they finally felt understood and experienced real, lasting relief after just a few sessions. I like to think that's down to my personal experience with health anxiety, and my love for what I do.

If you’ve been searching online for health anxiety help or hypnotherapy near me, this could be your next step forward. I am based in North Walsham but I work with clients all around Norwich and the surrounding areas, often with home visits so you can get that life change you're looking for from home, without years of therapy.

Ready to Feel Calm, Confident, with Clarity again?

I offer a free consultation where we can chat about your specific experience with health anxiety and how we could work together to create rapid, lasting change.

Click here to book your free consultation now.

This call may be the first step towards your freedom. This is a no obligation call and I'd be happy to have a chat with you. In this call, we'll uncover the root cause of your anxiety - something you probably don't even realise is there.