I’ve been dealing with hypochondriasis ever since a heart condition scare and cancer scare last summer. That led me into hyperawareness somatic OCD. Now every day I feel like I can’t fully take a deep breath, so I keep trying to, which makes my anxiety worse. Has anyone ever dealt with this? Any tips?

I went to therapy (which didn’t help much in my case since I’m a psychology major and already knew everything they were telling me). But I really learned how to talk to myself. If I would get a weird feeling, I wouldn’t google it and I would just tell myself that if it was something bad, I would be feeling a lot worse than I was. And honestly, even if it is something bad...there’s nothing I can do about it. Things happen.??‍♀️ It’s good to keep yourself distracted as well. I find myself to be less stressed about my illness anxiety disorder (that’s the name for it, they don’t call it hypochondria anymore) when I’m busy and doing things.

First time about a week last time about 1.5 months

But dont focus on how long it lasts! Just do what you did before everything and let it be there no matter how annoying IT WONT KILL YA!

Yeah it is, honestly the best erp for that is focus on it even more until u literally forget about it!

Set a timer and every hour focus on ur breathing for 10 minutes

I had this issue too. A doctor once told me that if something is bothersome and it gets worse and worse then that’s a reason to get it checked. Otherwise small issues usually go away on their own and no need to be hyper aware. Also, someone told me that If you fear having whatever disease it is, fearing it won’t make it go away. Might as well not worry. That helped me get over the anxiety of every pain and odd feeling.

I had a bad case of the whole breathing ocd... i felt like i never has a satisfying breath and its all i thought about so i took deep breaths every 5 seconds to get the satisfaction. Honestly it just went away on its own. I forgot about it because it didnt bother me anymore i would get reminders about it but they wouldnt stick thankfully cause i remember how annoying and frustrating it was

It didnt really make me sad or depressed it was mostly just anxiety cause it was so annoying i was scared it was gonna last forever

@milio how long did it last for you?

Thank you!! It’s just frustrating because it’s so preoccupying, but I’m trying!

Thank you so for all your help!! I really appreciate it!

I actually beat it!

@kalk9 how?!

@kalk9 yeah, I’m a nurse so I know how it goes lol. I know exactly what’s going on with me, sometimes it’s just hard for me to stop the thoughts