The Mind Games of Health OCD
Are you constantly worrying about your health? Do you find yourself obsessively checking for symptoms or searching for answers online?
If so, you may be dealing with Health OCD.
Health OCD is a condition that can have a significant impact on your daily life. But there is hope. In this episode, we will explore the journey of overcoming Health OCD, uncovering the strategies and techniques that can help you find balance and build resilience.
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This episode focuses on raising awareness about OCD, specifically health OCD, in partnership with NoCD. Health OCD involves excessive worry about having a serious medical condition, leading to compulsive behaviors for temporary relief. Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and OCD Specialist, Erin, addresses the symptoms, effects, and strategies for overcoming health OCD. The episode outlines how OCD can impact daily life including personal relationships and work. Erin discusses treatment options such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention, highlighting the importance of self-care, building resilience, and seeking professional help. Additionally, the episode emphasizes the difference between being reasonably concerned about health and the excessive worry characteristic of health OCD, aiming to provide hope and encouragement for those struggling.
00:00 Introduction to OCD Awareness with NoCD
00:33 Understanding Health OCD: Symptoms and Impact
00:51 Meet Erin: Your Guide to Overcoming OCD
01:15 The Journey Through Health OCD: Symptoms, Effects, and Personal Stories
01:45 Statistics and Insights on OCD
02:37 Deep Dive into Health OCD: Symptoms, Triggers, and Compulsions
13:38 Strategies for Overcoming Health OCD
20:58 Building Resilience and Coping Mechanisms
26:27 Seeking Help and Support for Health OCD
29:27 Conclusion and Next Steps
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Health OCD
[00:00:00] We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away. That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, Thoughts and urges about your partner or loved one.
Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to n ocd.com to get evidence-based treatment.
Are you constantly worrying about your health? Do you find yourself obsessively checking for symptoms or searching for answers online? If so, you may be dealing with health OCD. I'm here today to tell you that there is hope.
Hi, I'm Erin, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and OCD Specialist. I'm also a Christian, wife, mom to three, and small business owner, helping those who are overwhelmed by stress to climb out of that valley and enjoy the view. Reheat your coffee and pop in your AirPods to learn how to boss up to OCD.
The outline for today's episode includes first understanding health OCD. Next the symptoms and effects of health OCD. Third, the impact of health OCD on your daily life. Four. Strategies for overcoming health OCD. And five, things you can do at home self care practices for managing health OCD. People are more focused on their mental health now than ever before.
I want to share with you some statistics about OCD. These statistics come from the international OCD foundation. Which says between two to 3 million adults in the United States currently have OCD. That severity. Ranges from mild, moderate to severe. And according to the research. More people have moderate as well as severe OCD. There are fewer people in the mild range.
My guess is that the people that are in the mild range are the ones that have gone through treatment before and have little to no impact. From this health diagnosis. And with that two to 3 million people who have [00:02:30] OCD. This is roughly the same number of people that are living in the city of Houston, Texas.
In understanding health, OCD. This is a subtype or theme of OCD. The obsession and preoccupation includes an excessive worry about having a serious medical condition. It's different from other terms that you may have heard before, like illness, anxiety, disorder, hypochondria, hypochondriac, et cetera, because with the health OCD presentation, The person not only worries. But they add that other level of compulsion's. This is where not only do you have the worry, but again, those intrusive thoughts are coming in where the person is experiencing images, visuals, et cetera, that bring on fear. Then there is another level of compulsion's where the person is having to do something in order to relieve the anxiety.
People with health OCD often experience intrusive thoughts and persistent fears about their health which leads to compulsive behaviors like frequent doctor visits, excessive self examination, and compulsive researching on the internet about medical conditions.
These compulsive behaviors provide temporary relief from your anxiety, but they also perpetuate that vicious cycle of fear. It's important to understand that health OCD is not Simply being concerned about your health, it goes beyond that normal, reasonable worry.
Like we talked about last week, what would 100 people say about this? It goes beyond being reasonable. It can significantly impair your quality of life. Because those with health OCD may experience high levels of stress, difficulties with their relationships or with work, or even going out with friends. In taking a closer look at health OCD, someone may take responsibility for seeking a diagnosis. They will go to a doctor and they will read their own lab results and they will misinterpret the lab results. They may think that they have an illness that is rare and the doctor is the one not figuring it out or they haven't. I done enough research in order to [00:05:00] discover the cure for their illness or their symptoms. And then there are other layers about really being vigilant in monitoring their symptoms.
So they may get the sensation of what if they accidentally miss a son for cancer or another chronic illness or. What if they didn't. Check the signs for the illness and it was their fault for not catching it soon enough or not getting to the doctor soon enough.
Then we think about like, even hanging out with friends, like what if they allow themselves to go out and they're in a public place or someone where there could be a high possibility of contamination or cross-contamination. Or what if they didn't pay close enough attention to something that could have gotten them sick. tHen there's another level of symptoms here that can come up with health OCD, where someone could be concerned about accidentally. Making someone else sick and then they feel like it's their fault, or they feel like it's due to a lack of their own vigilance
Oh, and time and time again, when I'm working with someone who has health, OCD. They will. Ruminate and rumination by the way means that you are worrying about something that happened in the past, and you're worrying about it in a repetitive way. there'll be ruminating about what if I didn't describe my symptoms accurately enough to the doctor.
And that's why I can't get a diagnosis or I got the wrong diagnosis. peOple will feel like they haven't gotten an accurate diagnosis and they will continue. To research or do the self examinations to make sure that they are okay. And with those itself examinations. That could be like even pricking your finger to make sure you don't have diabetes, even though you have no signs of being a pre-diabetic or it could be checking your blood pressure, listening to your heartbeat, Checking your temperature or looking for tumors across your body, et cetera. With all of these compulsion's and behaviors, keep in mind that with the OCD cycle, they tend to happen due to an urge to relieve the anxiety. So just because you check your temperature doesn't mean you have OCD, but if you take it to another level [00:07:30] where it is excessive repetitive, and you have those intense, fearful, frightening, intrusive thoughts followed by. These types of behaviors, then this could be a sign that you are suffering from health OCD.
So it's important and crucial to recognize the signs and symptoms so that you can get the help and support that you need.
Symptoms of health OCD, they do vary from person to person but typically includes an excessive worry or a preoccupation with the thought that you have a serious medical condition. Common symptoms include seeking reassurance from health care providers or your loved ones and avoiding situations that may trigger your anxiety. Here are some examples of health OCD: it may be fear of having a heart attack, fear of having cancer, fear of having a tumor or a blood clot. It could also be fear of developing a serious mental illness. It's not always a, like a physical medical illness, but it could also be developing a serious mental illness.
If you, or your loved one has health OCD, then you know what I'm talking about when we are thinking of those moments, when. You are asking for reassurance and it's just this back and forth of like, are you sure I don't have cancer? Well, how do you know I don't have cancer? Do you think I have a lump on my neck?
So, someone who has helped OCD, they are Tom and Tom, again, looking for reassurance. And it's not really an equal exchange in the conversation. You're asking for reassurance to ease your anxiety. The dynamic in those dialogues, it's not very helpful or productive. It's not contributing to the relationship between you and that other person. When thinking about this type of dynamic interaction and dialogue, it's not like you guys are collaborating about anything that is contributing or building to your friendship. It's mostly about feeding into the OCD and you're trying to get reassurance so that you can put your anxiety at bay.
Oftentimes this intense fear of having a serious illness, puts a damper on the quality of life. There is very little joy or fulfillment happening in your day to day. You will hear me say in [00:10:00] session, don't believe everything you read on Dr. Google.
Let's talk more about the impact of health OCD on your daily life.
No matter which subtype of OCD you have, especially with the health OCD, you may feel that disconnect between you and your loved ones because they are struggling to understand your worries. They may struggle to understand Why you worry as much as you do and they may become frustrated with you.
When your family members are frustrated with you. It's understandable that this can be. Quite an invalidating experience. They, your family may also be dismissive of the things you're saying. So for example, they may say, oh, you just need to stop worrying about that. And they are dismissing your worries.
And it's not ultimately helping you, the relationship or your OCD. At the end of the day. These things can leave you feeling lonely. Now let's also think about how health OCD can impact your work life. So imagine you've got a limited amount of hours to take off, to go to the doctor. This can be detrimental to your work performance, because what if you get an evaluation, you're getting behind on projects at work or coworkers are noticing that you're not present at work. All in all, not a good scenario for health OCD. Especially when you're trying to create that work-life balance. And be successful in the workplace.. There can also be a strain with your health care provider . Think about a time. You've probably experienced this as well. Whenever you go to the doctor and they say, Oh, everything checks out, is just anxiety. My goodness, that does not feel right. It just doesn't sit. Right. And then you're thinking like, what do I do now? So no matter who you are, you're always looking for the root cause.
And whenever you're going to the doctor, you're wanting to get answers. So if your medical professional tells you that all of your labs, all of your test results are. Checking out quote-unquote normal then. And then the root causes stress. Then your next step is to seek a professional therapist. And particularly a therapist who [00:12:30] is specially trained for OCD in doing the exposure and response prevention.
We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away. That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, thoughts, and urges about your partner or loved one.
If you think you may be struggling with Relationship OCD, there's hope. NoCD offers effective, affordable, and convenient OCD therapy. NoCD therapists are trained in exposure response prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD. With NoCD, you can do virtual, live face to face video sessions with one of their licensed specialty trained therapists.
It's affordable and they accept most major insurance plans. Breaking the relationship OCD cycle takes effective treatment. To get started with NoCD, go to nocd. com slash savage.
Strategies for overcoming health OCD. Overcoming health OCD requires a multi step approach where we're addressing the underlying anxieties, the obsessions and the compulsive behaviors. Everything will be unique depending upon your particular fear. First, we'll start with some psychoeducation. in defining that, that is just Educating you or educating your loved ones about your condition. It helps you get a better understanding of the history, statistics and information behind OCD so that you can recognize that this is a mental health disorder and it's not a reflection of any personal . In learning about the health OCD, it can give you hope and motivation for change.
Another step in treatment is receiving cognitive behavioral therapy or we call it CBT for short . Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence based therapy that has shown to have great success in treating health OCD. It involves identifying and challenging irrational thoughts and beliefs.
That leads me into step number three with the gradual exposure or what we call the exposure and [00:15:00] response prevention or ERP. With the gradual exposure, it's an effective way to desensitize your brain to the anxiety provoking situation. There's a YouTube video out there that I like to show my clients.
by a guy named Till Gross. That's G R O S S . He's a German who does comfort zone challenges where, don't try it if it's unsafe, but he really challenges his social anxiety by laying in the middle of the street. He learned that doing those exposures, it ended up not being as bad as he thought. I will put a link to that YouTube episode in the show notes. Okay, with the gradual exposure, you will learn to tolerate your fear. The amount of stress that comes with that fear, will become lower and lower and will eventually diminish over time.
Then this in turn allows competence to enter in. And build up where you no longer feel like you need to do those. Compulsion's..
Let's take a moment and examine a very common medical condition that we can all kind of relate to and bounces example around. Let's go with like an obsession. Related fear of having diabetes and this person is. Healthy. Well, Functioning. Normally . their obsessions may look like. What if I have diabetes and I don't know it. What if I become diabetic? What if I die from diabetes? So on and so forth, and they may mistake every single sensation or symptom as a reassurance or evidence for having diabetes. Okay.
And then in talking about the triggers, so a trigger is any. Thoughts feelings situation that reminds you of. The fear or the anxiety. And so the trigger for someone who has. A help OCD concerned about developing diabetes. They may get overly anxious and start experiencing those intrusive thoughts. If other people are talking about diabetes or if they see a glucose monitor or, even those little symptoms like, oh, I'm feeling thirsty.
And so I might be developing diabetes or maybe they notice. That there. Losing weight without trying tingling in their [00:17:30] fingers and feet. So small things that are adding up in their mind as evidence that they have diabetes.
And with the compulsion's. So again, here's where we have the difference between the health, anxiety and health OCD. So When we're crossing over into OCD territory, the person has compulsion's . Those compulsion's. Could look like researching symptoms and causes of diabetes. Getting reassurance from doctors, nurses. Checking their body for sensations or symptoms or they're giving themselves reassurance. Using a glucose monitor to check their levels.
They're avoiding certain foods. And you know, I've seen this before, too, where they're already buying into the idea that they have diabetes. The compulsion then is to eat food that is. Complimentary of a diabetic diet or they're buying cookbooks, looking up recipes. You get the picture. When it comes to the ERP, that exposure and response prevention. We will. Talk about how we're going to reduce the researching and more specifically when we are doing the exposure and. response prevention. There's a time. And, you know, we can time. it, we can track it. Where the person will feel triggered with the anxiety and maybe just the word diabetes, or again, that glucose monitor, whatever that. Trigger is we will have that. with us. And. We'll present that. The anxiety will go up. We will wait it out and we're not going to give into the compulsion. We wait until the anxiety starts to come down into a normal level. By doing this, the brain is learning that you don't have to do the compulsion.
You don't have to feed into the fear and that your environment is safe. So instead you're learning to sit with the uncertainty. And tolerating the distress. People who are going through OCD treatment. ThEy are looking for a different way to live their life. They. want to be the master of their lives and they don't want OCD to be their master anymore.
Fourth thing is doing some mindfulness and meditations. With mindfulness, it can help you have a greater awareness of your [00:20:00] thoughts and emotions. You can observe your health related stress, without judging it, without giving those thoughts power. This can help create Distance between your obsessive thoughts and reduce the intensity of your emotions.
A fifth option here, and this is not an all inclusive list, but just the fifth thing for today's discussion are some self care practices. You can benefit by Doing some regular exercise, eating well, getting enough sleep, because those three things are like the trifecta of health and wellness. This can help promote just healthy endorphins, improving your brain functioning, and all in all, we are going for an improved overall mental and physical wellness.
In our last piece of the episode today I want to focus on building resilience and coping mechanisms. Resilience is that skill and that quality we have where we can bounce back, where we can rebound. And Building resilience is an important part in overcoming health OCD because we are maintaining long term mental wellness.
So whatever brings us down, we can bounce back from the hardship or the adversity. And let me list out some ways that we can build that resilience. First, you can have healthy coping skills. I encourage you to rotate and experiment with different coping skills, because sometimes a coping skill will work for a season or a period of time, and then you need to rotate, try something new. Whatever it is, make a list and practice those things routinely.
Okay, when it comes to coping skills, my personal perspective here is that anyone can Google coping skills and give them a try. So when you have that resource at your disposal, that kind of leaves you to think. What's therapy about? And let me tell you, therapy goes deeper and yes, the coping skills are an essential part of recovery because you want to do healthy and productive things, right?
But [00:22:30] therapy is going to get into the weeds and do a deeper dive into Like, why you're thinking the way you do and giving you practical strategies that are unique to your situation. Because probably a lot of you have done these coping skills and you're thinking, yeah, yeah, I've been there, done that. But when you have someone coaching, you guiding you and really taking a much more trained approach. It just makes a world of difference.
Okay, but, with all of that being said, let me list out a few coping skills that you may find beneficial. Like, taking a mental health day, where, you focus on you, do things that are rejuvenating, relaxing, maybe it's watching a funny movie. A lot of people find enjoyment from Comedy, of course, and when you are watching something funny, it does release endorphins, so why not?
caLling a friend, and when I say calling a friend or calling a loved one, I mean in the sense of just hanging out, not for the reassurance part. Exercising is another great way to release some endorphins. You've heard several people say that Cleaning is a good one. It reminds me of Monica from Friends.
It feels like she was the first one to put things out on television with how cleaning was a coping skill, and they put a fun spin on it. Playing with your pets or your kids, all of these things, just bonding and connecting with other people is a huge thing. Recently I came across a study that was asking like what are those strategies or what are those tips in improving your mood.
And it was very interesting because it was four different options and it was those typical things that we normally see like, oh, take a bath, go shopping, indulge in something for you. But then the fourth thing was doing something pro social, meaning do something for others. And what's fascinating and interesting is that the people who did pro social activities actually had the most improved mood.
So, anyway, it's just very cool research and there again that would be something you could talk about with your therapist about what would [00:25:00] specifically work for you where you can get out there, volunteer, contribute to society. And it's amazing that it's kind of a two for one thing, you're benefiting others and yourself.
Number two, you can practice self compassion. And self compassion is easy to give to others and hard to give to ourselves. We tend to be our own Worst critic. In being kind to yourself, remember that healing takes time, setbacks or regressions can happen, but treat yourself with patience, understanding, and forgiveness.
Third is building a support network. Surround yourself with supportive people that understand you and validate what you're going through. They are your people who provide you support and emotional help whenever you feel alone. Number four, Focus on your strengths and accomplishments.
Celebrate the things that you're doing well and the accomplishments you've made. No matter how small, give yourself a pat on the back. Acknowledge your victories. Recognizing your resilience and progress can boost your self confidence and motivate you to continue to grow and get better. Building resilience is an ongoing process and it requires dedication, self reflection, and having people in your corner.
If you are experiencing health anxiety. You can seek help in various ways. First is individual therapy . If you're interested in individual therapy you can go to my website at ValueDrivenTherapy. com and click book your consult . We can have a 15 minute discussion to see if we are a good fit.
With another professional you may want to seek out medication, it depends upon your situation and the severity of your symptoms. What I recommend depending upon, again, your unique factors, is let's try the mental health counseling for a bit before we jump to medication, but sometimes medication can serve like that life raft.
If you have been drowning in your health OCD, the medication will be your life raft to help you float until we can swim to shore and catch our breath This brings me to another resource, which is the [00:27:30] third option of finding support groups. You can find support groups through Facebook or through an app called meetups. . The support groups can provide a sense of community and understanding . They can be validating and empowering.
What you have to be careful of in a support group is that you guys are not co compulsing together. I want to leave you with the idea and the hope that things can be better, and getting help is not a sign of weakness, but rather a step towards healing.
With seeking out support from a trained professional, you can get guidance, advice , and treatment to get you on the path to health, wellness, and living a more fulfilling life.
We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away. That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, Thoughts and urges about your partner or loved one.
Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to n ocd.com to get evidence-based treatment.
If you haven't already, I would love for you to join my email list, where I give you tips and tricks on how to improve your mental health wellness. You can join my newsletter by going to erin davis.my float. desk.com/newsletter. I'll also have that link for you in the show notes. Remember that overcoming health OCD can be a journey. It can take time. With the right strategies, support, and your therapist, all of these things can help you regain control over your life and give you a sense of peace and balance. Thank you for listening to today's episode. This information is intended to be helpful and not a substitute for professional counseling. Before you go, kindly leave me a five star review and check out the links in the show notes to see the products that can make your small business dreams happen. Take care and see you next time.
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