health anxiety
Fearing bodily symptoms
Health anxiety is excessive worry about having or developing a serious illness, often despite medical reassurance.
Someone with health anxiety may interpret normal bodily sensations as signs of disease, repeatedly check their body for symptoms, or obsessively research conditions online.
Her health anxiety spiked every time she felt a minor ache.
The term has largely replaced the older clinical label hypochondria, which carried dismissive connotations.
- hypochondriaExcessive illness worry
- worryTroubled mental state
- what ifWords introducing a hypothesis
- symptomsIndicators of disease
- googlingInternet query activity
symptom checker · panic · racing thoughts · doctor · second opinion · illness · obsession · dread · checking · heartbeat · diagnosis · catastrophizing · worst case scenario · reassurance · body · scanning · fear · WebMD
- phobiasphobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, bibliophobia, acrophobia
- Anxietynervousness, panic, worry, dread, uneasiness
- obsessionsobsession, fixation, monomania, preoccupation, mania
- aging psychologyaging brain, life review, late adulthood, life span, brain aging
- Anxiety Measuresscreening tool, self-report, questionnaire, rating scale
- psychosomatic disordersconversion disorder, functional disorder, hypochondriasis, somatization, hysterical blindness
health anxietyhealth security
Protection of wellbeing from threats
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