You feel heaviness in your chest. 

Your heart is beating ridiculously fast.

You experience lightheadedness.

You ask someone to check your pulse repeatedly.

You even monitor your blood pressure every hour.

You suspect of having something wrong with your heart or even a possibility of heart attack.

Then you visit your doctor just to realize that everything is normal and you are just fearful about your heart health. 

But this incident is not limited for one day. It’s the same thing you are doing for years. Now, it’s an ongoing battle for you and you could not able to move forward without worrying.

Your brain doesn’t want to believe it, though. You still think you’re going to die due to heart problem. You pay too much attention to your heart all times that you’re convinced there’s something wrong. Finally, you turned to internet just to make a matter worse because your symptoms are similar to heart attack. 

Yes, there are people with heightened concern about their heart health. In some cases, this over imagination can turn into anxiety disorder known as cardiac anxiety or cardiophobia. 

Understanding cardiophobia

With the rising number of heart attack cases worldwide, getting fearful about own heart health is natural. It is always good to be alert and seeks medical attention in case of any heart related events. However, in some people this fear turns irrational leading to stress and anxiety. 

Cardiophobia is an intense fear of experiencing heart-related issue, especially heart attack. The extreme fear trigger worries about the possibility of having a heart attack or other heart related diseases. It is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about the health of your heart, the suspicion of having a heart condition or the fear of developing heart diseases.

With this heart related anxiety, you may experience heart palpitations, chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and an overwhelming fear of dying. This can manifest in your behavior too such as excessive monitoring of blood pressure, frequent medical appointments and seeking constant reassurance from a medical expert.

In an attempt to control your fear, you may request specialist to refer to other specialist for further consultation and diagnostic testing.

Shades of this fear start to spread on your lifestyle too. Persistent worry about your heart is mentally taxing. Avoidance of physical activities, work-related task and even social interaction is common. You may start to avoid stressful situations, such as funerals or visiting someone who is admitted to a hospital because these conditions act as a trigger to provoke anxiety.

Cardiophobia is fairly common in people who have had a heart-related incident in the past, especially heart attack. 

Yes, heart attack often comes as an unwanted surprise that transform person’s life significantly. Fear of reexperiencing the same situation again is mentally challenging.

But sometimes heart-related anxiety can occur in people without any diagnosis of heart condition or previous history of heart diseases. In spite of repeated examinations and explanations by specialist that everything is normal, these people continue to complain of same symptoms and seek medical reassurance that their heart health is normal.

Hearing conversations about heart attack cases, especially from unreliable sources is the main reason for developing irrational fear. When you get partial or incomplete information, naturally your brain starts to generalize things.

Witnessing someone to suffer from heart attack also raise the risk for developing cardiophobia. The image of a victim of heart attack never left your brain reminding you the same incident again and again.

Also Check : Heart Attack And Emotional Health

Coping with cardiophobia

There is no real way of telling the difference between actual heart attack and cardiophobia without medical testing. Therefore, getting medical evaluation from an expert should always be a priority. 

But not everything is a cause for concern.

Getting more insight into heart health can be bliss, giving you a sense of control. In most heart conditions, there is an interplay between genetics and environmental factors. If you don’t have genetic history, you shouldn’t have to worry about genetic heart problems. Even if you are genetically susceptible, you can reduce your risk for heart attack by almost half by living a healthy lifestyle.

There are too many factors that are in your control. For instance, dietary choices, physical activity, stress management, and skipping tobacco and alcohol. So, you have the best chance of avoiding heart-related issues. 

Talking to a therapist about your fear is lifesaving. Psychotherapies are available as an effective option to tackle your fear. Therapies help to control fearful thought pattern you might have developed around cardiophobia. With the help of a therapist you can slowly untangle unhelpful thoughts.

In conclusion, you are supposed to stay aware not fearful.

Also Check : Emotional Impact Of Heart Diseases

Disclaimer 

Mediclin Brain Health’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.