A Psychiatrist's View: How to Stop Internally Checking In with Your Symptoms and Sensations
A familiar pattern of symptom-checking I often see in my patients — especially those who have clinical anxiety, OCD, or somatic disorders — also appears in certain professional situations. This seemingly innocent act can actually increase the very unease we are attempting to turn away from. In this blog post, I dive into how it affects our mental health and some ways to get out of monitoring your symptoms inside.
The NSFW Call of Little and often: Why are we prompted to track?
We can’t walk around not thinking about how we feel, especially when you don’t quite feel great. Your heart may race, chest tighten or many other symptoms as a result of stress, anxiety or simply existing with other medical conditions. At first, monitoring these sensations can seem like diligent health maintenance but it also becomes another form of compulsion that exactly not helpful.
Here’s why this happens:
1. Sensation Specific- Sensations are the go-to response for anxiety disorders though many people do not realize they are manifesting them. This is because your brain becomes very hyper- focused to pick up potential threats that may end up causing health anxiety or panic disorder.
2.Reassurance Seeking- asking for reassurances can provide temporary relief In the short run, you might feel better from something like perceiving that your heart rate has calmed. But this behaviour actually reinforces the idea that you have to be on guard for your safety at all times.
3. Perception of control- We check in because it seems like it would allow us to have some say over our symptoms. And ironically, it often just makes us feel more out of control because the more you drill down on sensations, the bigger they get.
This constant cycle of anxiety is fuelled by checking in with symptoms internally. You experience a feeling, you look at it closer, and take further notice of that feeling causing you to be more anxious. And this cycle also reinforces the feeling of threat and increased stress. For instance, if you think about having a fast heart rate, this will cause anxiety, which causes your heart to race even more. This vigilance over time can result in:
-Increased anxiety: Anxiety is maintained via constant monitoring. You refuse to let it rest, keeping your body in this state of paranoia.
Sensitization: Your brain becomes hyper-aware of a symptom, and even smallest benight can be amplified.
– Avoiding normal activities: You may begin to avoid particular activities or places because you worry that these will make your symptoms worse.
How to Get Out and Staying Out Vicious Cycle
In order to break free of this cycle, it is important to learn how to take your focus off the symptoms and begin retraining your mind to tolerate some discomfort. The following are a few strategies that can assist with this:
1. Mindfulness-Based Awareness
It is a great tool to break the checking cycle. Instead of continually monitoring your body for shifts, mindfulness teaches to experience these sensations as they arise without opinion. The idea is not the defect the symptoms; you are learning how to watch them and observe, without reacting to them.
Practice: The next time you see something that makes your feels a sensation set with it. Recognize that it is there, and release any pressure to change or manage its very existence. Just note how it feels in your body, it’s severity, and if it shifts with time. This makes your brain have hundreds of experiences seeing the sensations as neutral, not harmful.
2. Cognitive Restructuring
Identify and challenge irrational thoughts about your symptoms. Sometimes the individuals who notice their symptoms are having thoughts more along the lines of “Omg: what if this is a heart attack? or “What if this lasts forever?”. Cognitive restructuring is a skill set that will allow you to frame these thoughts in realistic and balanced views.
How to practice: Catch yourself having catastrophic thoughts and challenge them. > You should be asking yourself, “What evidence do I have that this is so?” or maybe the question “What is the worst that could happen in reality, and can I survive it?
It is the treatment world-wide gold-standard for obsessive compulsive tendencies, health anxiety included. ERP means purposefully subjecting yourself to your fear (in this case, not checking the symptoms) and then preventing from responding with compulsive reassurance seeking.
How to practice: Begin with baby steps; set a timer for yourself, maybe an hour or two where you vow not to check in with your symptoms. Increase the interval at which you check-in as you can. With time, you will discover that your anxiety naturally decreases without constant attuned vigilance.
4. Redirect Your Attention
One of the most effective ways to stop this checking is by diverting your focus elsewhere. Take up activities that command your attention and live in the present. Respectively, all such physical activities, hobbies or social gstherings can turn out to be your worthy distractions.
How to Practise: Next time you want to check in, be conscious about doing something that demands your full attention instead. This could be anything as simple as a crossword puzzle to talking with someone or just going out walking.
5.Self-Compassion
A thought habit like internal checking will take some time to break, so be gentle with yourself. There will be times when you fall off the wagon, and that is fine. Don’t bring yourself down instead remind yourself that you are learning a skill which requires patient practice.
Practice: Whenever you catch yourself checking in, say “It’s okay. I am relearning to trust my body.
Seeking Professional Help
If you have difficulty breaking the cycle by yourself, think of asking for help from a mental health professional. A psychiatrist can also ascertain whether medication may be useful in alleviating this surgically generated anxiety.
Conclusion
Although it is completely normal to want to pay attention to what you are feeling but too often paying attention to your symptoms does nothing but keep you stuck in a response of hyper-vigilance and anxiety. With the practice of mindfulness, cognitive restructuring, ERP and simply redirecting your focus you can build up that trust in your body and reduce the amount of checking one has to do. The point is not to get rid of the pain, but change our way of relating to it. That your body knows how to heal and that all you need is to stay out of the way.
If you are suffering from anxiety and compulsive checking, please do seek help. We can work together to break these habits and bring back calm and balance to your life.
—
If you are struggling with health anxiety, panic or other forms of anxiety and you need extra support please feel free to book a consultation. I am here to help you build the skills necessary so that you can trust your body, and have peace.
