Anxiety over physical health can significantly impact day to day life. At some point, we’re all faced with health concerns of varying degrees. While health anxiety is an official diagnosis, which can be incredibly debilitating, general stress regarding health can have a considerable influence on physical and spiritual life. Here are 8 helpful tips to cope with mild to moderate anxiety related to physical health.
1. Set a time limit
If you struggle with health-related anxiety, researching different terms and conditions is probably nothing new. In some cases, this may bring comfort or reassurance, but it can also heighten anxiety, causing unnecessary stress or perpetuate any symptoms you may be having.
It’s important to speak with a professional if you are experiencing symptoms that raise concern or are causing distress. Each individual is different, so the balance between tempering irrational worry vs making sure you’re informed and taking care of your health is going to look different.
For some people, it may be helpful to limit the time you allow yourself to research, or possibly none at all. This is especially important before bed, when our minds can race more than normal, making it difficult to sleep. If you know you struggle with excessive worry regarding health, then reading articles before bed 9.9/10 times won’t accomplish anything except cause more stress.
Of course if you’re having legitimate concerns, it’s important to reach out for help, but in many cases, nothing is going to be accomplished before morning. Sleep is one of the top indicators of health, so give yourself space to decompress and cultivate peace of mind for a good night’s sleep.
2. Know your feelings are valid
Whether you struggle with general stress about health, or a mild form of health anxiety—take a deep breath and know you’re not crazy!
Feeling uncomfortable and uncertain in your own skin is scary. The journey to unravel what’s causing your anxiety or related physical symptoms can be daunting, confusing, time consuming, expensive, and emotionally draining.
It’s normal to doubt yourself and feel overwhelmed by the unknown. But expressing your concerns and taking steps to address them is admirable. Give yourself credit for listening to your body’s signals, following your intuition, and being brave enough to address how you feel, rather than dismiss when something seems off.
3. Have accountability
Sometimes just speaking your concerns out loud can help give a different perspective to stressful thoughts you’re having. Anxiety tends to feel consuming or like a massive pressure looming over us when we keep it all inside. But as soon as you talk about it—whether that’s with a therapist, a loved one, or even writing in a journal and reading it aloud to yourself—those thoughts start to shrink and feel more manageable.
There’s something about hearing our thoughts audibly and outside of ourselves that can minimize anxiety and provide a more realistic perspective. This habit can help prevent (or reverse) spiraling to the worst case scenario.
4. Explore self soothing techniques
For times when you’re already consumed by stress or ruminating over potential symptoms, it’s useful to have a list of self soothing techniques prepared that you can implement. Set some time aside when you’re not feeling anxious to explore what methods work best for you.
It could be listening to music, breathing exercises, prayer, reading a particular bible passage, guided meditation, yoga, going for a walk or run, journaling, coloring, playing a game, snuggling with a pet, watching a favorite tv show, talking with a loved one, or anything else that calms you.
5. Seek professional help*
It’s well known that physical and mental health are closely connected, so depending on your situation and levels of anxiety, professional help may come through a variety of avenues.
It’s important to have a general checkup to ensure that foundational health is in check and rule out any underlying conditions that may be causing anxiety as a result. If you’re stressed about particular symptoms, speaking with a medical professional can also help reduce some anxiety, giving reassurance and tangible feedback from a neutral source that you’re okay.
Meeting with a therapist or counselor can also be beneficial, to talk through any distress you’ve been having and plan out actionable steps to reduce and better manage your anxiety.
6. Practice gratitude
When you’re under stress and uncomfortable in your own skin, the last thing you feel is grateful. There’s a lot of content out there with benefits of gratitude lists and finding small things to be thankful for each day. This can feel overpromising or unrelatable when you’re stressed out simply by staying alive. But it really does make a world of difference.
In the moment, it keeps your mind occupied with all the overlooked blessings in your environment, which minimizes the mental space anxiety can take up. And over time, cultivating gratitude can shift our anxious perspective to focus on God’s promises we KNOW are true, versus whatever we may FEEL in the present, however strong.
The book Fearfully & Wonderfully by Dr. Paul Rand and Philip Yancey, gives an incredible perspective of our physical bodies and their connection to the spiritual Body of Christ. It’s written by a surgeon who spent his career treating pain and lack thereof. If you weren’t already in complete awe of your body, you will be after reading this book!
Over 23 chapters, it helps align the reader with viewing their body—down to each individual cell—as miraculous and a holy living temple of God. By exploring the inner workings of how we’re made in God’s image, gratitude and reverence become natural responses to each cell and every function that works day in and day out, often without us even noticing. It’s a fascinating book for anyone, but is especially helpful for anxious individuals to refocus on all that IS working and going well, rather than ruminating over what’s not.
7. Understand the purpose of anxiety
Each individual person and situation are unique, and the connection between physical and mental health isn’t always cut and dry. Anxiety is typically our mind’s way of scanning for potential threats to ensure that you stay safe. A small or concentrated level is actually good and exists for our benefit.
But for a whole variety of factors, it can be overstimulated to look for issues when there are none. Reminding yourself that it’s a natural response, just currently overworking itself, can ironically help to reduce some of your anxiety related to unknown physical stress.
Humans are complex and multifaceted beings, which is beautiful, but it also means taking care of yourself is complex too. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are all interconnected. Listening to your natural signals, getting proper sleep, exercise, eating balanced food, cultivating prayer life, being in community with others, and practicing mindfulness are all great places to revisit if you find yourself struggling with health anxiety.
8. Surrender it to God
This isn’t to say give up hope or just give into the most recent affliction you think you might have. Rather, it’s accepting the reality that many factors are beyond our human control. There are healthy people who work out and eat super clean for decades who end up afflicted with illness. There are others who have unhealthy habits that end up living into old age without major life-altering issues.
We have considerable control over where our lives lead, but it’s impossible to prevent or plan out every last detail, despite what anxiety tries to convince us of. Admitting this can feel scary, but it can also be liberating.
Anxiety (in any form) is not punishment or because you don’t have enough faith. But it can be an opportunity to rely more fully on God and take small steps forward in His strength. There is so much we can’t control in life as a whole, but what we CAN do is surrender our current fear of the unknown to God and in its place, receive peace over our future.
In day to day life, we control what we put into our bodies, we control designating time for movement. We control how much intention we put into cultivating a life of gratitude and wholeness, over desperation and perfection.
We can focus on the endless list of “what if” and ruminate over an ever-changing future… or we can focus on the smaller things within our control and take action to make the best of our situation with what we have. Whether you struggle with health-related anxiety, other forms of anxiety, mental health, or physical conditions, know that you can trust your unlimited uncertainty to an unchanging God, for He is with you at every step.
≫ How has God proven His faithfulness to you in the past? What steps can you take to affirm you trust Him with both physical and spiritual matters?
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*Disclaimer: The information provided on The Beacon Road is not a substitute for professional medical advice, mental health advice, or treatment of specific medical and/or mental health conditions. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified healthcare provider. The Beacon Road is not liable for how the information is used and cannot be held responsible or guarantee any results. The Beacon Road is simply serving as a guide to help you reach your own health and wellness goals through simple holistic remedies and healthy lifestyle changes.
