Being healthy is a boon, but to be over-apprehensive about health with anxiety is a disease. A worrisome person invites trouble through excessive visits to a medical professional, leading to over-testing with an infusion of extra drugs in his system. The distress is tenfold when the person gets access to an available cyber for his overrated symptoms and starts evaluating and treating himself.
Cyber (Internet) + Hypochondria (health anxiety disorder) = CYBERCHONDRIA – ‘Unfolded anxiety concerning the state of one’s health brought on by visiting health and medical websites.’
A Guru of Palmistry once said – ‘The biggest problem with learning palmistry through consulting a book is that the person begins reading his hand and is troubled by gathering half-baked knowledge about his future.’
Consider someone suffering from a common cold and cough caused by a climatic change. A quick ‘Desi’ treatment would be to have ‘Adrak Ki Chai’ four times a day and relax. Now, if the person starts consulting ‘Dr Google Baba’ for each symptom, there is a long list of dos and don’ts and equally elaborate modes of treating the simple ailment. A Pandora’s box of recommendations will open once you start typing for every single sneeze or cough.
Mr Sharma is a health freak and leads his life through a cyber-suggestive diet, a strict yoga routine and a fitness mantra. At the shy age of sixty, he wants his body to behave like early thirties. While his peers indulge in OTT platforms to uplift their sagging virility, Sharma jee keeps toying with every detail he can excavate from Google Health. His mind is constantly at work, and he keeps checking his pulse rate in bed. He may seem robust physically but, frankly, is mentally cyber-stressed.
The worst scenario a medical consultant faces is satisfying the urge and information satiety of a cyber-savvy patient who has googled enough of his ailments and jumbles up his half-cooked information. There is so much confusion because his mind is jumbled up with suggestions and options, not solutions. He may even start questioning the Doctor’s credentials and experience by putting him in the frame of his raw acquaintances.
The problem becomes grievous when the person muddles the drug’s side effects with cyber. Google mentions one in a million side effects of a particular drug. This eventually causes the patients to lose confidence when they pop even a single tablet of innocent vitamin C.
The Cyberchondriacs become pathetic when they start relating their simple cough to the possibility of malignancy in the Lungs — or a spell of loose motions to Intestinal cancer. There is a thin line between Awareness and Anxiety when it comes to the ailment. Such people create a nuisance for themselves and for their families, who simmer in the heat of the patient’s cynicism. May indulge in overmedication and abuse when they are unable to handle their wrath.
The fundamental problems with cyberchondriacs are –
* There is compulsive, unwanted searching on the web.
* Worrying leads to distress, depression and desperation.
* A waste of precious time and energy.
* Seeking assurance at all times.
* Mistrust of concerned medical personnel.
Cyberchondria can be checked (FIVE WAYS) if the person –
* Stops humiliating and questioning his belief system.
* Understands his inner self and follows meditation.
* Speaks his heart out to a friend or professional.
* Understands that all diseases and ailments are not solely his own.
* Makes the right choices and stops living on options. After all, our lives are about choices. Some we REGRET and some we are PROUD of – some will haunt us; some will adulate us; we are what we choose.
In life, we have only two options – ACCEPT or CHANGE.
“Try to accept what you can’t change and try to change what you can’t accept.”
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