Especially if you’re predominantly a natural Vata body-mind, you’re likely sensitive to changing daily weather, body, and health conditions (and can have hypochondria or health worry tendencies).
To a sturdy, unaffected Kapha or a strong, enduring Pitta, your Vata body health thoughts could be seen somewhere between hypochondria thinking and healthy prevention.
We all have traces of each body type in us (air/space, water/fire, and earth/water in more eastern world dosha term descriptions), and at any time, any of us can get off-balance for a day, a season, or longer.
If you’re experiencing any natural body type imbalances these can start off as minor body annoyances, but that can gradually aggravate your quality of life as they grow and the season goes on–so it’s better to nip them in the bud and make the healthier lifestyle changes/choices now or asap.
Today I wanted to share how you can handle and next steps for any of your less-than feel-good (unhealthy) body symptoms (that we all will run into at some point in our lives).
If you’re a super sensitive person, seek healthy prevention ways, live a healthy, balanced lifestyle balance, or are even a slight germophobe, then you may have hypochondria tendencies that can be good and bad, and I wanted to delve deeper into how you can play up the good sides and get rid of the bad tendencies as a healthy lifestyle choice you make…
In some countries outside the U.S., like our sister countries, Italy and France, hypochondria ways of thinking are known to permeate the culture. So a French Vata person is more likely to be adaptive to healthy preventative ways and body health self-awareness. They can also get inside their minds a little too much, e.g. taking more than they need or before symptoms arise.
So let’s look at both sides.
The Good In Hypochondria
If you consider yourself a hypochondriac (or know of someone who is), you can help detect and prevent health issues with solid facts and knowledge, as you probably like to Google and research health symptoms and solutions, and read health articles to become aware of the latest trends and outbreaks.
You can replace old health beliefs with better ones as they evolve, a concept that’s never-ending.
You can be more in-tune with your body so that when you do have a health concern that needs to be addressed, you know which specialists to see over general help, as you’re been a researcher and live in and feel parts of your body.
You can also share helpful, health information with other people to bring awareness to better health ideas, such as OTC medicine knowledge and alternative medicine solution paths that you learn.
The Not-So-Good In Hypochondria
But then there’s the other side…
You can go down the wrong diagnosis rabbit-hole believing that something is causing your health issue that’s not based on all the facts.
You can falsely imagine your health scenarios worsening that cause anxious-worry energy, that further hurt your health or symptoms in our human bi-directional mind-body connections.
You can also become less productive and stressed as you believe yourself as a sick person or feeling less than 100%. Some of these thoughts can lead to chronic ailments or symptoms that last longer than a week.
So, the balance between healthy and unhealthy hypochondria thinking is doing and attempting the right things that don’t over or under-react to the symptoms you’re experiencing.
Observing your body, and gathering data from the opinions of others around you can be a good, first step sounding board. And of course, talking to a medical professional when it’s necessary.
Some people tend to go to the doctor for everything and anything, and then there are others who won’t tend to go unless they’re seriously ill and you have to convince them to go to the hospital. In general, you want to be somewhere in between these two extremes.
When you talk to friends and co-workers first, they will likely share their learned health journey experiences. They may advise seeing a doctor and that could be the next healthy step, but before that, here’s how you can handle almost any change in daily, health situation that comes up without a known cause and before you have a diagnosis.
And, before you consider seeing a doctor or reach for your medicine cabinet to treat symptoms with no known cause, you can ask yourself objectively:
On a scale of 1-10 — how severe (feelings, pain, and appearance) are your symptoms relative to your normal daily health?
Continue reading “Hypochondria: Health Prevention vs. Health Anxiety”