Overcoming Hypochondria

Hypochondria is a mental state where a healthy person thinks that he or she is seriously ill. The person affected by this treats him/herself as a very sick one even though proper medical justification says that, the patient is completely fine. A person with this kind of disorder generally reacts in every pain no matter how little it is. This disorder often pushes people to serious anxiety and fear and their daily life is being crippled by this.

The major symptoms of this disorder are slightly inflated lymph nodes and runny noses. The most common example of Hypochondria is repeated visit to doctor over trivial pain, treating slight chest pain as a heart attack etc. they become so cautious of their health; they start to figure out the things that trigger the trivial health problem and start to avoid those irrespective of their importance.

Recently many treatments have been developed to cure Hypochondria; these are proved to be completely safe and effective. Exposure and Response Prevention” (ERP) is one of them. In ERP short stories are used which are crafted based on the patient’s health obsessions. The stories are audio taped which allows the patient to experience his/her feared situation. It helps them to understand that there is no such risk as anticipated. It helps the patient to relax both mind and body. Another popular treatment is Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT). It helps the patient to rationalize his or her predicted disease and incorporate the belief that, there is nothing to worry about. This process makes the patient more capable of successfully dealing the situation which appears to be uncomfortable for them and they generally avoid these situations. So in the initial stage it is vey important to consult with an expert and make sure what is the condition of health, otherwise it will be severely harmful for one.