Chapter 4
Scaring Us for Our Own Good
How We Lost Our Faith in Health
Public health officials use the parental practice of scaring us for our own good by flooding the media with frightening health information, hoping to alarm us into behaving in ways they believe will reduce our health risks. Doctors, too, use worst-case scenarios to motivate patient compliance and protect themselves from malpractice suits. This fear mongering can backfire, though. Studies of the mind-body connection reveal how susceptible we are to the power of suggestion from medical authorities, often obediently developing expected symptoms in response to direct or indirect messages about disease.
Fear also prevents us from feeling competent to take charge of our health, making us overly reliant on doctors to reassure us at every sign of illness. That this is the case is supported by studies that estimate that 60 to 90 percent of doctor visits are the result of self-limiting, stress-related symptoms--health problems that can’t be effectively diagnosed or treated by conventional medicine.
Negative assumptions about health are further magnified and manipulated by those selling health-related products and services. Keeping us worried about possible health hazards and disease motivates us to buy things we hope will protect us.
Those in the media add to the onslaught of anxiety-producing information about health, since they know that no news sells like bad news. As a result of this relentless focus on how health can go bad, we have become a nation of "worried well," convinced that health is fragile, elusive, and hard to maintain. If we're tired, we worry that it's chronic fatigue syndrome. If we get the flu, we expect pneumonia. If we're forgetful, we assume it's a sign of Alzheimer's.
Because of our deference to scientific and medical authorities we tend not to think for ourselves about health, which leaves us with few resources for fending off this constant barrage of bad news. We also believe that worrying about our health is a sign of responsible adulthood. The optimistic message that we can positively influence our well-being by changing how we think is considered delusional and irresponsible.
The current over-concern with health is reflected in rising health care costs and time wasted chasing solutions to minor symptoms that would go away with time or deliberate applications of relaxation. The mind-body approach to combating health fears begins with developing awareness of negative health messages and noticing how they undermine your willingness to take responsibility for your health. Studies show that the mind-body approach of educating patients to feel more competent to understand and manage their health is associated with fewer doctor visits, reduced length of hospitals stays, and greater patient satisfaction.
Topics in this chapter include:
How we became the Worried Well
We’re only trying to help you!
Science shows us that nothing is safe anymore and we forget to notice that far more people live long and well than are cut down by rare health hazards.
That’s entertainment!
Bad news is good news for those selling the news: how our appetite for the vicarious thrills of other people's disasters pollutes our health confidence.
This is your brain on public health information: scrambled.
How the "looking for trouble" approach to health causes us to make mountains out of health molehills.
Come to Poppa! Modern medicine will take care of everything.
Victims and rescuers: the co-dependent doctor-patient relationship
It takes two to have a dysfunctional relationship: patients are not innocent victims of the medical system.
Annual checkups and routine screenings: preventive medicine or looking for trouble?
Just like public health's focus on disease, your doctor also sells you on possibilities for illness you might never have thought of on your own.
Diagnosis: part of the solution or training in how to be sick?
Once your symptoms have a name, your downhill slide is mapped out. How keeping a symptom diary can magnify your problems.
What's the downside of all this worry about health?
We do not have a health care system: the hazards of a disease-based model of health.
We learn plenty about how to be sick, but nothing about how to cultivate the mental habits that lead to genuine well-being.
Nothing to fear but fear itself
Anxiety undermines immune function, hampers the ability to think clearly and critically about negative health messages, and impedes your ability to take constructive steps toward helping yourself.
Expect the worst—you won’t be disappointed
Worried attention increases symptoms, magnifies pain, and blinds you to useful information about the fact that most of your body is functioning well.