Worrying about health is not healthy

Worry can be a proxy for activity; when something is troubling you, it can be tempting to think that worrying about it is doing something, instead of actually doing something about it. If you are a worrier, then a new study might give you some impetus to stop that worrying as it has shown that worry is counterproductive when it comes to health.

For the new study, researchers followed more than 7000 subjects born between 1953 and 1957. Between 1997 and 1999, each of the subjects answered questions about their health, lifestyle and level of education. The subjects also had height, weight and blood pressure measured as well as giving blood samples. Anxiety levels were also assessed using the Whiteley Index.

What the researchers were specifically looking for was “health anxiety”, which features excessive worrying over a serious illness and seeking medical advice in the absence of physical disease. People with health anxiety misinterpret physical signs as indications of disease and often seek repeated help for the same issue. In its worst result for health, anxiety becomes hypochondria.

Twice as many people with health anxiety developed heart disease as those without health anxiety

Over a 12-year follow-up period, it was found that twice as many people with health anxiety developed heart disease as those without health anxiety (6.1 per cent versus 3 per cent). The risk of heart disease also increased with increases in health anxiety.

This doesn’t prove that health anxiety causes heart disease but it does show that it doesn’t protect against it. In other words, worrying about your health does not translate into healthy behaviours. In fact, it is likely that the hormonal state set up by excessive worry has negative effects on your health and heart.

What you want is to be mindful of your Health and act with awareness but you don’t want to obsess about it and focus on the negative possibilities. The advice is simple: don’t worry, be healthy.

Source: BMJ Open