Health Anxiety Hypnosis: The Health Scan Spiral Stops

Welcome. Before we begin, I want you to know that nothing is wrong with you for being here. A mind that worries about health is often a mind that cares deeply, that pays close attention, that wants to stay safe. The problem is not your awareness. The problem is what your mind does with that awareness. A small sensation arrives, and almost instantly, a story attaches itself. The story feels urgent. It pulls you toward your phone, toward searches, toward reassurance. In this session, we are going to work with something called cognitive defusion. A long name for a simple idea. We are going to help your mind see thoughts as thoughts, and sensations as sensations, instead of fusing them into frightening certainties. You do not have to fight your fears today. You do not have to argue with them. You only need to watch them differently. So settle in. Let your body be supported by whatever is beneath you. And let this be a moment that belongs entirely to you.

Close your eyes when you are ready. And take one slow breath in. And a longer breath out. Another breath in. And let it go, slowly. There is nothing you need to fix right now. Nothing you need to diagnose. Nothing you need to check. Just this moment. Just this breath. Let your attention drift down to your feet. Notice them resting. Let them soften. Move up through your ankles, your calves, your knees. Let each part become a little heavier. A little more at ease. Through the thighs. Through the hips. And into the belly. Let the belly be soft. Let it rise and fall without effort. Up through the chest. Notice the heartbeat, whatever it is doing. You do not need to change it. You only need to let it be. Through the shoulders. Let them drop, just a little more. Down the arms, into the hands. Let the hands be heavy. Now the neck. The jaw. Let the jaw unclench. Let the tongue rest at the bottom of the mouth. The eyes, soft behind the lids. The forehead, smooth. The whole scalp, loose. With every breath out, you sink a little deeper. Not into sleep. Into something more interesting than sleep. A quiet, clear, settled awareness. A place where your mind can work differently. Where you can watch your own thoughts, without being inside them.

Imagine, if you will, a wide, open sky. Perhaps it is dawn. Perhaps it is dusk. Perhaps it is midday and blue. Whatever feels right for you today. You are lying on soft ground, somewhere safe, looking up. The sky stretches in every direction. Vast. Unhurried. Always there. And clouds are drifting across it. Some small. Some large. Some thin and wispy. Some heavy and grey. Notice that the sky does not fight the clouds. It does not try to push them away. It does not chase them. The sky simply holds them, and they pass. In this place, you are not the clouds. You are the sky. Your thoughts are clouds. Your sensations are clouds. Your worries, your stories, your diagnoses, your fears, your memories of the search bar glowing late at night. All clouds. They move across you, but they are not you. They do not change the sky. The sky remains. Let yourself rest here for a few breaths, simply being the sky, while the weather of the mind passes through.

And now I am going to count down from ten to one. With each number, you will drift a little deeper. Not away from yourself, but more deeply into yourself. Ten. Softer. Nine. Heavier. Eight. Quieter. Seven. A sense of the body letting go of an old weight. Six. Deeper still. Five. Halfway. Feeling the steady ground beneath you. Four. The mind slowing. Thoughts arriving less often, less loudly. Three. Any sensation in the body, simply noticed. Not labelled. Not feared. Just noticed. Two. Almost at the bottom. A deep, safe place inside you. One. All the way down. Open. Receptive. Ready. From this place, your mind can learn something new.

In this quiet place, I want you to notice something important. A body sensation is one thing. A story about a body sensation is another. For a long time, your mind has been treating them as the same. A twinge becomes a tumour. A flutter becomes a failing heart. A headache becomes something terrible. The sensation and the story fuse together, and you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. Today, you are going to learn to separate them. Gently. Without force. Imagine a sensation arriving in your body. Any sensation. Just a small signal. Now, instead of wrapping a story around it, try this. Say quietly to yourself, I am noticing a sensation. Not, something is wrong. Not, this could be serious. Just, I am noticing a sensation. Feel how different that is. The sensation is still there, but now there is a little space around it. And in that space, you can breathe. Now, when a frightening thought arrives, you will practise the same move. Instead of, I have something terrible, you say, I am having the thought that I have something terrible. Notice what that small change does. The thought is still there. But you are no longer standing inside it. You are standing beside it. Watching it. Like a cloud. A thought is not a fact. A thought is not a diagnosis. A thought is an event in the mind. It comes. It goes. It tells you nothing reliable about your body. Your body knows how to regulate itself. Your heart has been beating without your supervision since before you were born. Your lungs breathe while you sleep. Your cells repair. Your organs communicate in a language older than worry. Your body does not need your fear to function. In fact, it works better without it. From now on, when you feel the urge to google, pause. Notice the urge. Name it. This is the urge to check. And know that you can feel the urge without following it. Searching has never once made you feel safe for long. The relief is brief. The fear returns. Each search teaches the fear that it is important. Each search you do not do teaches the fear that it is not the boss. You are learning to let sensations be sensations. You are learning to let thoughts be thoughts. You are learning to be the sky, not the clouds. When reassurance-seeking arises, you will notice it. When catastrophic stories bloom, you will notice them. And noticing, you will return, again and again, to your breath. To the ground beneath you. To the simple fact that right now, in this moment, you are here, and you are alright. This is your new default. Sensation arrives. Noticed. Allowed. Released. Thought arrives. Noticed. Named. Released. Your nervous system is learning, right now, that noticing is safe. That a signal from the body is not an emergency. That you can live in your body without being afraid of it.

Now, imagine yourself a few days from now. You are going about your day. Perhaps you are at work. Perhaps you are at home. And a sensation arrives. A small ache. A flutter. A twinge. See yourself pause. Watch yourself take one breath. Hear the calm voice in your mind say, I am noticing a sensation. See your hand stay away from the phone. Watch the urge to check rise, peak, and fade, like a wave. You return to what you were doing. The sensation may still be there. But you are not inside a spiral. You are living. Now imagine the evening. The time when health anxiety has so often been loudest. You are in bed. The room is dim. Your mind begins to offer a frightening thought. And you hear yourself say, I am having the thought that something is wrong. And then, gently, you return to your breath. To the sensation of the sheets. To the weight of your body resting. The thought does not grow. Because you did not feed it. You let it pass. Like a cloud crossing the sky. And you fall asleep more easily than you have in a long time. Your body resting. Your mind resting. Trusting that you are safe enough, right now, to simply be.

In a moment, I am going to bring you back to the room. You will carry everything you have learned here with you. I will count from one to five. With each number, you will become a little more awake, a little more present. One. Awareness returning to the body. Two. The sounds of the room around you. Three. Energy returning to your arms and legs. Feel free to move a little. Four. Feeling clear, calm, and grounded. Five. Eyes opening when you are ready. Fully back. Fully here. Fully you.

As you return to your day, remember this. You are the sky. The clouds will come and go. When a sensation arises, you will notice it without fusing to it. When the urge to search appears, you will meet it with a breath instead of a click. When a catastrophic thought begins, you will name it for what it is, a thought, not a truth. Each time you practise, this becomes easier. More automatic. More natural. Be patient with yourself. You are rewiring a long pattern, and you are doing it beautifully. Thank you for trusting yourself with this work today. I will see you again soon.