How to Stop Obsessing About Your Anxiety Symptoms

Anxiety can feel like a constant battle against bizarre and mysterious physical symptoms. These sensations are so strange that you can find yourself becoming fixated and obsessed with them. You’re constantly thinking about them and worrying about them. You’re friends, family, and even medical professionals may tell you that you're too focused on your symptoms and that you need to shift your attention to something else. But that’s easier said than done. Because how do you stop obsessing over your symptoms when they can, at times, seem to dominate your every waking moment?

Well, let's going to break down why you have become so obsessed with your symptoms, and how to shift your focus away from anxiety and back to productive tasks. This is not only going to make life more enjoyable, but it is a key component in helping your nervous system desensitize and get back to normal. 

Before we get to that - and as I'm sure you know - As I’m sure you know, recovery from anxiety is multi-pronged approach. That’s why I created the 5 Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks. It’s lays out the exact way that I fully recovered from anxiety and the way that countless clients have followed to reach a full recovery. I’ve put that in the link below it’s completely free. 

Alright, when I was suffering from anxiety, I had just about every symptom you can imagine. Every day I’d suffer through wave after wave of anxiety, panic attacks, derealization, heart palpitations - you name it, I had it. To be honest, it was several months into my anxiety before I realized how obsessed I’d become with my symptoms.  I mean, my anxiety was pretty much all I thought about. I was constantly “checking in” with my symptoms – I’d check in to see where the level of my anxiety was at, how bad my heart palpitations were, and whether there might be a panic attack coming. 

First, why are we so obsessed with our symptoms? Well, when you experience the strange and intense symptoms of anxiety, it’s actually very natural to become hyper-focused on them. This hyper-focus is a natural response because you have a problem, and you’re brain wants to solve it. Your mind tries to figure out what’s happening by closely observing the symptoms, looking for patterns, and trying to understand what triggers them. However, unfortunately, this approach can lead to a never-ending cycle, because your anxiety symptoms often do not follow a predictable pattern. They’ll come and go, and they’ll often increase and decrease in intensity without any rhyme or reason.

So, the first step to stop obsessing about your anxiety is to understand that the root cause of your symptoms is a sensitized nervous system. A sensitized nervous system is not an illness or disease - it’s simply the state that your nervous system is in. Your nervous system is sensitized - meaning it is hyperactive, and it’s reacting as though you are being threatened or you’re in danger. Because of that, it’s flooding your body with adrenaline and stress hormones and that is the cause of every single one of your anxiety symptoms. 

What this also means is that, despite the intensity of these symptoms, it is extremely likely that nothing is medically wrong with you. And if you’ve taken the step to have your doctor examine you, which is a step I recommend, your doctors can’t find anything wrong because, on paper, you are perfectly healthy. It’s just your nervous system that is in overdrive.

Alright, just knowing that your symptoms are a result of a sensitized nervous system can help you begin to shift your focus. Because instead of trying to fix each individual symptom, you are able to see all your symptoms as part of the broader issue of anxiety. If you’re like most my clients, this realization can be liberating because it means you don’t have 10 or 20 different problems to solve, you only have one: a sensitized nervous system.

But even with this understanding, it will often be difficult to stop focusing on your symptoms. That’s because when you’ve been dealing with anxiety for weeks, months, or even years, your brain develops a habit of constantly checking in on your symptoms. It becomes second nature to monitor how you’re feeling, and breaking this habit can be challenging.

Here’s the truth, though. Focusing on your symptoms only makes your anxiety worse. When you are focusing on your symptoms, what you’re really doing is worrying about the symptoms. You are worrying that your symptoms will get worse, that they'll never go away, and that you might be stuck this way forever. These worries only give you more anxiety. 

Here’s what I don’t want you to do: don’t try to ignore these worries. That’s the absolute worst thing you can do. Instead, I want you to respond to these worries. So, first, go ahead and Dismiss your anxious thoughts, which is Step #1 of the Fearless Approach that I teach and then - here’s the key - shift your focus to an engaging activity. I want you to turn your entire focus towards something that will require your full attention. This could be working on a project at work, having a conversation with a friend or family member, reading or writing, or volunteering. Do whatever you want, but the key is to have an activity that you can immerse yourself in, which is going to divert your attention away from your symptoms.

Despite having a focus, your brain will naturally try to return to thoughts about your anxiety. This is normal, especially at the beginning of your recovery. When this happens, gently guide your focus back to your chosen task or activity. This is where you will spend the most time and where much of your healing will happen in recovery. By focusing on engaging activities, you are giving your nervous system the opportunity to calm down and desensitize.

This process is simple but powerful. Because by consistently refocusing, you gradually train your brain to stop obsessing over your symptoms and start engaging more with life. That means as you recover there are going to be more and more periods where you don’t think about your anxiety at all. Then, when you fully recover, you won’t ever worry about these symptoms again for the rest of your life. And that’s where we’re headed - to a fully recovery - so make sure you download the free 5 Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks to get the framework for recovery.