I am really anxious about my health. It is only when I think back to all the things I have worried that I have that I realise how bad the anxiety actually is.
At the moment my anxiety is fixated on cancer and I work in a cancer research lab. I used to be able to distance myself from cancer as I was just considering it from a biological point of view. However I had a cancer scare earlier this year that has now ramped up the anxiety and now I worry I have various different kinds of cancer (it seems to change weekly...) It's difficult because I have to spend so much time reading about cancer and some topics make me anxious to read about. That said I am so passionate about the research that I can't let anxiety make me change my career.
I have applied CBT principles to my thoughts and that has helped me a lot with the panicky feelings. However I know it is silly but I find myself struggling to enjoy normal daily life because the idea that I could have cancer and not know it or could have cancer in the future just looms over me. It is the uncertainty and potential 'what if' that makes me anxious.
Does anyone have any advice?