gulp! help with health anxiety

how I navigate this as a provider + reader submitted tips

The point of this newsletter isn’t to have all the answers or reflect on things I’ve made definitive conclusions or opinions about. Sometimes it’s to explore things I feel really question mark about. And sometimes still it’s about exploring how I got to a place of burnout and quite frankly annoyance with a certain topic, in an effort to rediscover a deeper well of compassion. Or perhaps to add some water to a well that’s been desiccated.

One of those things is addressing health anxiety in patient appointments. This is something I admittedly struggle with, and it often takes significantly more time in patient encounters. Not only more time in the visit, though more time after the visit, too. And it weighs on me! Thinking and reflecting and thinking and reflecting.

In this post, I’m exploring why and how this topic contributes to some of my burnout, ways I’ve evolved to address it in patient encounters, how I feel social media can be helpful and harmful, and also reader recommendations on how to manage health anxiety.