“Face fear of disease head on” advises Bob Clark in his March 19th, 2015 Tampa Bay Times article examining how fear drives up medial costs and the actions we can take to overcome fear. And while keeping medical costs down is certainly a goal in Kansas and across the nation, we probably all agree that finding peace in relation to one’s health is a universal desire. So you will find below an excerpt from Bob’s timely article and a link to continue reading it in the Tampa Bay Times. Hopefully you will be inspired to take a stand against fear.
You know things are bad when “phobophobia” (fear of fear itself) becomes one of 530 documented phobias now on record.
Many medical doctors agree that a large percentage of disease is rooted in fear and anxiety. These are also the biggest drivers of overdiagnosis and overtreatment, two chief causes of the upward spiraling cost of health care. Gilbert Welch chronicles and analyzes this phenomenon in his 2012 book Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health.
Here are some ideas I’ve found helpful in battling the fear of disease that surrounds and sometimes overwhelms us: