Health anxiety sucks. At times, there can be seemingly constant flux of bodily sensations or symptoms to worry about. A headache, random heart palpitation or stomach ache can send you into a tailspin of worries, anxiety, body checking, googling, doctor visits, scans and tests. The whole process is exhausting. So, what is happening behind the scenes?

People with health anxiety often have inaccurate beliefs and interpretations of their bodily symptoms. They misinterpret benign bodily changes or sensations as being indicative of some serious disease or illness. Research on cognition shows that people with health anxiety (compared to non-anxious control groups) are: