Health anxiety can turn a normal sensation into a medical emergency in the mind
Hollie Sharman spent years convinced she was dying. Chest pain sent her to hospital four to five times a week, and one stretch in A&E lasted 13 hours before tests again failed to show a physical cause. The pattern is familiar to clinicians who treat health anxiety: the body produces a sensation, the brain interprets it as danger, and the cycle intensifies with every search, pulse check and return visit.
Her story captures how quickly vigilance can become captivity. What began as childhood worry over illness escalated after a severe panic attack on her 22nd birthday, then hardened into hours spent trawling symptoms online and repeatedly seeking reassurance from doctors, family and the internet. Each negative test should have calmed the fear. Instead, it often lasted only until the next symptom appeared.
Reassurance can feed the disorder it is meant to calm
Clinical psychologist Dr Kirren Schnack describes health anxiety as an “obsessional worry” about being seriously ill, or becoming seriously ill, when there is no evidence of disease. The core problem is not attention to the body itself; most people notice physical sensations from time to time. The disorder takes hold when ordinary sensations are given catastrophic meaning and then repeatedly rechecked for confirmation.
The most visible behaviours are easy to miss because they can look like responsible self-care. People measure temperature, blood pressure or heart rate, inspect their bodies, and read and reread symptom lists. They may ask friends, relatives or internet forums for reassurance, then return to the same questions an hour later. Each round of reassurance can briefly lower distress, but it also teaches the brain that danger can only be managed by checking again.
Avoidance can sit on the opposite end of the same problem. Some patients stop looking at their bodies or skip appointments because they fear hearing bad news. Others slow their movements, stop exercising or begin living as if illness has already arrived. In both cases, fear narrows daily life long before any diagnosis does.
The rise of search engines has given health anxiety new fuel
Sharman describes a relentless loop: a symptom appears, she searches it, the search suggests a serious condition, and fear drives her back to hospital. That sequence is more than a modern nuisance. It is a mechanism by which uncertainty is repeatedly transformed into perceived evidence of catastrophe.
The internet can amplify this pattern because it offers explanations without context. A stiff back becomes a warning sign. Weak legs become a sign of heart failure. A brief episode of chest pain becomes a story of imminent collapse. For someone already sensitized to bodily sensations, search results can function like a threat detector with no off switch.
Her withdrawal from family and friends also fits the condition’s social cost. Repeated panic can make ordinary conversations feel exhausting, especially when loved ones keep offering the same reassurance that no longer lands. Relationships then become strained not by indifference, but by the exhausting repetition of fear.
A diagnosis can change the frame, but not by itself
Sharman was eventually diagnosed with health anxiety and health-related obsessive compulsive disorder. The pairing is clinically important because obsessive-compulsive features can make the fear sticky, repetitive and hard to dismiss. Once the body becomes the site of constant scrutiny, even relief can feel temporary and unreliable.
She says her family and partner became more supportive once they understood what was happening, and that support helped her reach a better place through practical coping techniques. Her notes about symptoms also became a kind of personal record: she would write down “chest pain, excruciating,” then later record that she was fine. On the next flare-up, the written proof that the worst fear had passed gave her a counterweight to the panic narrative.
That kind of self-observation can be useful because it breaks the illusion that every symptom is unprecedented and every episode is proof of decline. Memory under anxiety is selective; it preserves fear more easily than reassurance. Written records can restore proportion.
When physical symptoms deserve medical review
Dr Schnack draws a line between anxious checking and sensible medical care. A new symptom, a concerning symptom or one that does not go away should be reviewed, and checking trusted NHS information is a responsible first step. If a symptom persists for two weeks, she advises booking a GP appointment.
That advice matters because health anxiety and genuine illness can coexist. The goal is not to dismiss symptoms, but to stop them from being automatically upgraded to disaster. When clinicians and patients share a framework for what needs review and what can wait, the risk of endless escalation falls.
Simple changes can interrupt the panic loop
The practical advice in the BBC segment is grounded in how anxiety behaves in the body. Adrenaline surges create restlessness, muscle tension and a heightened sense of threat, so brief bursts of movement such as jumping jacks can help burn off some of that physical energy. Grounding exercises, like holding an ice cube or tasting something sour or spicy, redirect attention away from internal scanning and toward immediate sensory input.
Breathing also matters because panic changes the rhythm of respiration. A long breath through the nose, a second inhale at the top, and a slow sigh out through the mouth can help reduce the feeling of air hunger and restore a sense of control. The aim is not to eliminate fear instantly. It is to keep fear from dictating the next hour.
Limiting reassurance-seeking is often the hardest step, because it means tolerating uncertainty without immediately trying to erase it. Setting rules around how often you ask others about symptoms can make the pattern visible. Challenging worst-case thinking can do the same: a stiff back is more often posture than catastrophe, and a passing sensation is not always a diagnosis in disguise.
Sharman says health anxiety no longer controls her life. Her message is blunt and clinically familiar: keep moving, keep living, and do not let fear freeze the rest of the day. For patients trapped in the same cycle, the practical task is not to outthink every sensation. It is to stop feeding each one with a search, a check and another reassurance round.