The Fear of Getting Sick
and How to Put an End to It
by www.Sedona.com
The 21st century has brought with it a unique tool for people who fear their cold or headache is actually something much worse: the Internet. Unlike decades ago, you can now type your latest symptom into any search engine and be bombarded with health information, including all the potentially deadly diseases you could have. More than 6 million Americans search online for medical advice every day, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, and while most of this searching is harmless, it can be devastating for someone who has a fear of getting sick. Why? The power of suggestion. Suddenly, minor aches and pains turn into scary, festering diseases, and your trouble falling asleep becomes cause for great alarm. The fear that can be generated simply by looking for something that’s wrong with you is, quite possibly, enough to actually make you sick. This happens because the more you focus on something, the faster your mind will manifest that in your body. If you focus on health, your body will go in that direction, but focus on sickness, and that’s another story. The Web is not the only place where you can heighten a fear of getting sick. Television, which is ripe with direct-to-consumer drug ads, can be just as scary. Any time you turn on the TV, in fact, you’ll likely be inundated with drug ads -- for insomnia, restless leg syndrome, erectile dysfunction, depression, shyness, stress, you name it. As a result, more Americans are asking their doctors for drugs to treat health conditions they may not have, or may never have even heard of if not for the drug ad. "We're increasingly turning normal people into patients," said Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz of the Dartmouth Medical School in The Christian Science Monitor. "The ordinary experiences of life become a diagnosis, which makes healthy people feel like they're sick."
Quite simply, the Web and drug advertisements have the potential to turn just about anyone into a hypochondriac. In reality, estimates say that only about 4 to 6 percent of all primary care patients actually have severe hypochondria (a persistent fear that you have a serious medical illness that has yet to be diagnosed), but countless others live daily with varying degrees of health anxiety and fears of getting sick.
Turning a Fear of Sickness Into a Belief in Health
As with all forms of fear, when you are afraid of getting sick, you are holding in your mind thoughts of illness, anxiety, symptoms and disorders -- everything that makes the fear seem more real and more scary to you.
This is why letting go is so important. It is only when you let go of your fear of getting sick that you become free to feel healthy. The scientifically proven Sedona Method is an elegant, easy-to-learn, do-it-yourself system that will show you how to tap your natural ability to let go of any unwanted feeling, including all forms of fear, on the spot. “Any time you are afraid of something, including sickness, your mind is saying ‘I hope this does not happen to me.’ Yet the mind does not translate words like not, never or don't -- it can only picture the actual event. It cannot picture it not happening,” says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates. “So if you are afraid of getting sick or sicker, let go of the expectation or the desire for that happening and you will find that the tension melts away, out of your body and mind, and you can more easily allow your body to fulfill its natural healing process,” he continues. Countless people have already used The Sedona Method to overcome their own fear of getting sick. “I have released the fear that cancer would return to my body. I have learned to recognize how the appearance of even a small symptom can trigger a tremendous amount of fear -- and now, I can release on the symptoms in the moment they arise and be pain and fear free,” said one Sedona Method graduate Jeanne-Neera Fingerhut.
You, too, can use The Method to release your fear of getting sick, and experience your tense, panicked feelings disappearing once and for all, only to be replaced by calm, peace and relaxation.
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