Cyberchondria: Why You Should Take a Break From Googling Every Symptom

The ease of accessing information is indeed a click away. Looking up a symptom and health condition has never been easier. One can get thousands of articles, forums, and medical resources wherein all are set up to shed light on symptoms, diseases, and health issues. But as useful as this instant information may be, it can be a double-edged sword, causing undue anxiety and even fear at times. This is what “cyberchondria” is all about—a word that marries “cyber” (the digital world) with “hypochondria” (excessive worry about health). As many feel a minimal level of anxiety when accessing health care information online, this cycle evolves into a pattern of being anxious and more nervous than relieving feelings for others.

Cyberchondria

Cyberchondria is believed to be the anxiety generated by frequent, compulsive online health searches. Unlike other hypochondria, which involves the fear of having a serious illness despite medical reassurance, cyberchondria is driven by the rich and unfiltered information on the internet. Cyberchondriacs usually begin with an innocuous question, such as “What does a headache mean?” and end up scrolling through articles linking headaches to serious illnesses, increasing their anxiety with every search.

This behaviour generally creates a vicious cycle: a person’s anxiety causes an online search that yields scary information. Therefore, their anxiety peaks again, prompting them to perform more searches in a quest to assuage the anxiety. Instead of mitigating the fear, it can exacerbate it further and, in extreme cases, lead to panic attacks. Research has even documented that such a cycle becomes compulsive and interferes with daily activities and mental health (Muse et al., 2012).

Why Cyberchondria Happens

• Availability of Information: The Internet provides access to an enormous volume of information from sound advice of qualified physicians to web forums consisting of other individuals’ first-hand experience. However, the matter is that this information, however extensive it may seem, is not equal; hence, users find it challenging to navigate themselves through those valid sources as against not-so-authentic ones.
• Confirmation Bias: People tend to give way to information that affirms their initial fears: an example of confirmation bias as a psychological concept. Assuming that the headache is because one has a severe illness may lead a person to “click” on more material supporting that belief but reject more probable and innocuous explanations.
• Vague symptom interpretations: Symptoms like fatigue and headaches are common in both minor and serious conditions. This often causes people to assume the worst, even though there are usually more common and less serious explanations.
• Cognitive Distortion: A thought process that is irrational or exaggerated in nature is called cognitive distortion. Catastrophising, for example, can force a person to assume a worst-case scenario about what might be a minor symptom, while overgeneralization causes a person to believe in the fact that if he has one symptom related to a serious illness, he must have it.

Read More: Cognitive Biases in Everyday Life

Impact on Mental Health

Besides anxiety in the short term, it will have an even more critical long-term impact on a person’s mental health. Studies have found that individuals diagnosed with cyberchondria often experience intense health anxiety, causing them to feel constantly unwell in their minds, even though they are generally physically healthy. All this permanent apprehension causes the body many adverse reactions like tachycardia, sleep disorders, or digestive disturbances that might also encourage the conviction that everything is not normal (Norr et al., 2015).

In addition, people who develop high health anxiety can become prone to mood swings, irritability, and depression. Such stress from living in an environment of constant fear of falling sick can lower the quality of life, strain relations, and affect work or school duties over time (Starcevic & Berle, 2013).

Role of Social Media and News

Cyberchondria can be sparked by social media and sensational news articles as well. Social media allows easy access to facts and anecdotes. Patients will find some stories that magnify their fears, like when a person writes about having a rare disease and it makes another relate his or her symptoms to that even if there is no medical evidence. News outlets, especially if they are focused on headline-grabbing headlines, sometimes
sensationalise diseases to keep readers reading thus further increasing anxiety in readers who have already been concerned about their health (Mathes et al., 2018).

Combating Cyberchondria

Combating cyberchondria is not about keeping away from searching for illnesses online but about how it can be done without letting it increase anxiety even more. Here are some tactics for combating cyberchondria:

• Restrict Online Health Search Behavior: Fix certain times of the day to search online rather than consult symptoms based on impulse. For example, one can restrain one’s search to once a week or set a particular day to research health concerns focusing only on reliable sources such as websites from the CDC, WHO, or NIH.
• Use Reliable Resources: Sources from credible, evidence-based medical websites can be tapped into for health information; however, avoid forums or blogs where personal experience easily heightens anxiety. These give one a well-balanced perspective that would hardly scare the person needlessly about an issue.
• Cognitive Behavioral Techniques: Using cognitive-behavioural therapy, alter the negative thought patterns by reframing these thoughts. For instance, if you tend to catastrophize, remind yourself of this by posing the following questions: “What are the chances that this symptom indicates something serious?” or “Could there be an alternative cause?”
• Consult your Doctor: Take the information gathered from the internet and talk to your doctor who will give a comprehensive review of your condition. He will be able to ease your worries or advise you on some tests. This often is much better than any self-diagnosis.
• Mindfulness and Coping Skills: Mindfulness, meditation, and practice breathing exercises can reduce diffuse anxiety and the urge to look at symptoms on the internet.

Regular practice of these increases overall mental well-being with which health issues can also be dealt without getting unduly anxious and searching for medical information on the internet at all times (McManus et al., 2014).

How Well-Wishers and Relatives Can Be of Help

Another very important way to manage cyberchondria is the support of loved ones. The family and friends can, in a very gentle way, urge the individual to cut down on searching and tell them to go to the professional and not to self-diagnose. For people who suffer from cyberchondria, listening to reassurance from a person they love can calm down the anxiety and shift focus from negative spirals online.

A Balanced Approach to Online Health Research

With the proper approach it, online health information can be extremely helpful in bringing people into control regarding their health and keeping in touch with things. However, for anxious people, one needs to build a balanced approach to the situation; one needs not think that every single symptom leads to a bigger disease. The realisation of constraints on the internet and awareness about credible sources can certainly minimise the side effects brought about by cyberchondria.

The internet is a tool rather than a diagnostic entity and so can be used well when one browses judiciously and is aware of all cognitive distortions regarding a certain health issue and instead of alarming oneself provides helpful information. Cyberchondria may be a common phenomenon in the digital age. Proper strategies can manage that for a healthier and better relationship with online research on health issues.