Illness anxiety disorder is a chronic and disabling mental disorder that can interfere with school, work, sleep, and relationships, and can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.
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<li>People who are comfortable with uncertainty about health tend to think: 'I must be tired or stressed, so I will forget about this symptom.'</li>
<li>But when you have an intolerance of uncertainty, your mind tries to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach to the infinite possibilities of illness and health: imagine the worst-case scenario.</li>
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The need to know

Reassurance-seeking and avoidance give you a momentary escape from the worry and anxiety, but in the long run, they make it worse by convincing you that you cannot tolerate the uncertainty of not knowing your future health - yet this is an uncertainty with which we must all ultimately live.<ul><li>Identify the triggers that sustain your health anxiety - identify the triggers for your worries about illness and all the ways you try to get rid of them</li><li>Practice illness-related exposure therapy - exposure therapy involves gradually reducing (and ultimately ending) your worries and anxieties.</li></ul>

Understand what maintains your illness anxiety

<ul><li>The problem is not actually your health - it's your discomfort with not knowing what the future holds. It's possible to live well with an illness. Most people with serious or terminal illnesses enjoy life and live well, despite the knowledge of a future that contains illness.</li><li>Understand what maintains your illness anxiety. Identify and practice the triggers that sustain your health anxiety and practice exposure therapy</li><li>Decrease your reassurance-seeking. Gradually stop doing so much illness-related research and other checks.</li><li>Reduce your avoidance of anxiety-provoking triggers.</li></ul>

Overcoming worrying about your health

The easiest way to do the right thing is to follow the advice of your doctor or the general advice given to the public for health screenings that fit your age and risk status.Let sound medical practice dictate when you see the doctor and get lab tests, as opposed to letting your anxiety make the decision.

How to deal with illness anxiety disorder

Forever looking up symptoms and fearing the worst? There are ways to stop the endless checking and find real peace of mind

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

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Health

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Mental Health

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Science & Nature

How to overcome worrying about your health | Psyche Guides

Dentist William Morton performed the first successful public test of a general anaesthetic in 1846. He first experimented on a hen, his dog, his goldfish, and himself before going to the Massachusetts General Hospital surgical theatre. His concoction of sulfuric ether and oil from an orange (just for the fragrance) knocked a young man unconscious while a surgeon cut a tumour from his neck. Today’s anaesthetic includes ether-based inhalants such as sevoflurane and isoflurane, and intravenous anaesthetic propofol.

General anaesthesia redefined surgery

General anaesthesia redefined surgery and medicine, but over a century later it still carries significant risks. <ul><li>Too much sedation can lead to neurocognitive disorders and may even shorten lifespan;</li><li>Too little can lead to traumatic and painful wakefulness during surgery.</li></ul> Generally speaking, anaesthetic drugs render people unconscious by changing how parts of the brain communicate. But scientists still don’t fully understand why.

Risks with general anaesthesia

<ul><li> 17 to 43 percent of patients may have cognitive problems such as memory and executive functions that typically last for up to two weeks. However, delirium in adults over 65 can last for several months.</li><li>Some studies have shown that the risk of long-term cognitive damage and post-op delirium is highest for those who already have underlying cognitive vulnerabilities, such as Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment.</li><li>A small percentage of patients have reported traumas from recalling some experience of their medical procedure during general anaesthesia.</li></ul>

Negative effects of anaesthetic

In 2011, renowned anesthesiologist Emery Brown began using EEG to track patients’ brain waves.EEG records the electrochemical activity between communicating neurons in the brain.  During general anaesthesia, you can see, based on the patterns on the EEG monitor, how unconscious someone is, and you can dose your drugs accordingly. But testing whether EEG monitoring helps patients go under and recover better has produced mixed results.

Signal to noise

Understanding how patients wake from anaesthesia and under what circumstances they struggle could also help scientists with how to treat disorders of consciousness, including coma.  Researchers can use general anaesthesia to control the transition into and out of unconsciousness. Like anaesthesia, a coma seems to alter essential communication between different brain networks. Researchers already use anaesthesia to test potential coma therapies. For example, Ritalin, often prescribed for ADHD, has been found to bring rats back to consciousness after general anaesthesia.

Usefulness of anaesthesia

Under Anesthesia, Where Do Our Minds Go?

There's a vital difference between food rules and healthy eating habits: <ul><li>Food rules are rigid: you have strict parameters around how you should eat and feel guilty or worried when you don't eat according to that plan.</li><li>Healthy eating habits are flexible: you prioritise nutritious ingredients but don’t agonise over what to eat.</li></ul> Following food rules can be physically, mentally, and socially exhausting, impacting your overall quality of life.

Food rules impact your well-being

If we think of food in terms of good and bad, and that eating is a bad behaviour, it is easy to believe you are a bad person for eating. Then food becomes a source of stress and shame instead of nourishment and pleasure. Rather than feeling you're a terrible person without self-control because you ate some ice cream, acknowledge that you just ate something delicious because you wanted it. Thinking this way makes it easier to let go and move on.

There are no bad foods

There’s no evidence that a low-carb diet is any healthier than one that includes a balance of all macronutrients. The same for low-fat diets. A 2020 review of 121 previous trials found that none of the diets limiting certain macronutrients is more effective at improving health than a regular, varied diet.

Don't demonize macronutrients

We eat food for more than just to gain energy. We connect with our culture through food, we connect with others over a meal, and we eat for pleasure and nostalgia. Trying to compensate with exercise when you feel you’ve eaten too much can have a significant negative impact on your quality of life. It could also set in a cycle of overeating, compensating, and overeating again. Instead, just let your body do its thing. Most importantly, don't be rigid or punish yourself for eating too much.

You don't need to burn anything off

If you're working toward a healthier relationship with food, a good first step is to identify your own food rules and then challenge them

How to overcome worrying about your health | Psyche Guides

Under Anesthesia, Where Do Our Minds Go?

There Are No Rules for Healthy Eating

Gabriela Ochoa