Cardiophobia

i think a sudden death is a huge health anxiety trigger. my mum died very suddenly when i was young and its made me terrified of illnesses too. i stop reading news related to deaths and tell myself that people have always passed in these ways its nothing new and there is no evidence to suggest that it will happen to me. i know this is stating the obvious but sometimes ( a lot of the time) i need to remind myself.

Greetings,

I've read your post and it's important to distinguish here whether you are exclusively experiencing excessive ruminations regarding an impending cardiac event or whether you are actually experiencing somatic features, or physical symptoms, that are somewhat consistent with those that are markers for true cardiovascular pathology. It's important to make this distinction because cardiophobia is actually a functional disorder. In other words, fear of a cardiac event actually produces a particular anxiety that reaches beyond a state of mind to actually produce physical symptoms that are consistent with true cardiac disease.

I can tell you that health anxiety in general is extremely prevalent and very often produce anxiety of a level sufficient to produce somatic features. You can think of somatic features as a false reproduction of the real thing, so to speak. It's important for you to understand that the human body has but one nervous system and anxiety can rise to the extent that it is capable of stimulating the nervous system in an erroneous manner, or mistaken sense.

While family history is relevant to some extent, it in no way is confirmatory regarding one's health status in general. It is most definitely not a foregone conclusion that if someone in your immediate family suffered a cardiac event that it unavoidably places you in the same path that you are destined to experience yourself. While certain rare genetic disorders may more appropriately prove this to be a reality, cardiac health and status is definitely not one of them. As for people known to you, it is even further from reality that such a case in their instance is to likewise be the consequence in your own instance.

People with health concerns in general tend to focus upon cardiovascular health because it constitutes the number one cause of mortality in many, but not all, countries. This fact does not, however, mean that you are particularly more vulnerable because of that fact and you must remain grounded in reality that the reason cardiovascular disease takes first place is due in largest part to the fitness and dietary habits that people engage that are endemic to their surroundings. More importantly, cardiovascular disease takes its place in the list because people are largely under the influence of personal fable. That's an important term because we see it in many forms, i.e. tobacco use, alcohol consumption, certain dietary choices and many more factors that individuals within societies perceive to impact the health of persons other than themselves. In other words, the health impacts from the products mentioned above are delayed to such an extent that people become unafraid to the extent that it establishes a belief that such detriment won't occur in their own instance, but strictly those that become part of the statistics that drive such facts.

So to be more direct in responding to your question, cardiophobia is strictly a term reserved for those who not only ruminate to the point of distraction regarding their heart health but also must express somatic features associated with a cardiac event. From a historical standpoint there is a somatic disorder known as DaCosta's Syndrome, wherein an American Civil War officer was noting an overwhelming number of front-line soldiers being admitted to the field infirmary all complaining of symptoms associated with a heart attack. DaCosta subsequently reasoned that it had to be impossible that so many soldiers could be succumbing to actual heart attacks as a consequence of battle. Since none of those soldiers subsequently experienced heart attacks, it was theorized by the medical teams that it was actually the mental trauma of war and associated fear of dying in battle that drove anxiety in these soldiers to such an extent that it produced the somatic features of a heart attack that later subsided without intervention. It must be remembered that anxiety of any focus is most often driven by irrational consequences and/or beliefs

As for your own heart health concerns, you can fend off irrational rumination concerning your heart by holding fast to rational facts and means to suppress unwarranted beliefs. Schedule a visit with your primary doctor and inquire about your heart health. Let the facts put your mind at ease, thereby replacing unwanted and irrational beliefs that have no true basis in fact. You are obsessing over the matter by targeting examples that in all reality have no impact where your own health is of concern. Realize that generational patterns are governed by what we obtain from our knowledge during that generational period. Medical science has made tremendous leaps and advancements in cardiology alone that make both early detection and treatment afford people the opportunity to sidestep the prospect of heart disease and its negative impact. Statin therapy has been demonstrated to be a miracle in defeating atherosclerosis, one of the main causes of heart disease. New medications are arising all the time that result in astounding improvements to heart health.

So it's critical to simply stop worrying about what happened to those closest to you and making connections that are irrational, instead taking the right steps in working with your doctor to determine your own individual risk assessment and whether there is a need for any type of treatment to very realistically avoid any type of cardiac event. You'll likely be surprised by how such an approach will change your outlook and the importance of maintaining wise health decisions to keep you the furthest distance from trouble such as that which presently makes you so worrisome. Only the facts, not assumptions, will lead you in the right direction and ground you in such a way that your quality of life becomes absent the needless worries that can very often shine a very dim light on one's future and present you with hopelessness rather than enthusiasm.

You're going to be just fine. Simply follow the right path and don't allow false assumptions to cause a runaway train that produces thoughts within the realm of an irrational state of mind. Always focus upon being proactive rather than reactive and such discipline in doing so will change your life.

Best regards