To begin with, psychologists today often separate what used to be called hypochondria into two separate conditions - health anxiety and hypochondriasis.

Health anxiety is a fear that some unusual symptoms or sensations you're experiencing could be signs of a potentially serious illness. In hypochondriasis you may be convinced that you already have a particular illness. Health anxiety is based on uncertainty whereas hypochondriasis is based on conviction. If you're not sure which applies more to your worries, check for the following:

1. How do you respond to reassurances from your doctor or if test results come back negative?
If medical opinions or tests reveal nothing wrong, a person with health anxiety will feel reassured (temporarily) but someone suffering from hypochondriasis can remain skeptical and seek further opinions.

2. Can your worries jump from one possible health problem to another fairly quickly?
In hypchondriasis, concerns tend to focus on one specific illness for quite a while and are hard to shake. In health anxiety, reading an article about some new condition can bring on new worries, which often replace older fears.

Health anxiety is the more common complaint and is associated with frequent visits to the doctor etc. So how can you tell if your concerns have become rather more than a responsible attention to your health?

One clue to anxiety is looking not so much what at you think about but what you leave out. In anxiety people tend to go straight to the worst case scenario without considering what else could be happening. It also focuses only on possibility without taking due account of probability. If you often worry that you may be ill, ask yourself:

Do you consider other possible explanations?
Do you have most of the symptoms of an illness or only a couple of them?
Do you also have symptoms that don't fit?
Do you only look for what does fit and skip over what doesn't?
Do you worry about illnesses that are rare in someone of your age, fitness level or lifestyle?
Do your symptoms come and go? Would this normally happen with the illnesses you worry about?
Have you experienced something like this before which went away with no lasting effects?
Can you have trouble recognizing the signs of minor complaints such as tiredness or flu?
Is your view of your health changed by things you happen to see, read or hear about?
Do you suspect deep down that things are okay but still need confirmation from an expert?

If you find it difficult to consider anything but the most frightening explanations without outside help, you may be prone to health anxiety.

Health anxiety can be caused by different events, but you may particularly vulnerable if you've experienced:

1. Illnesses in childhood which led you to see your health as fragile.

2. Illnesses that were misdiagnosed or went unrecognized for a long time which put what you were being told at odds with what you felt.

3. A health problem or accident that took someone you know by surprise, leaving you with the sense that anything could happen anytime to anyone.

4. Growing up with a parent or caretaker who is also a worrier.

Whatever the causes, overcoming health anxiety often involves restoring confidence in your own judgment so that you can reach a logical self-diagnosis on your own and not live in fear that you're likely to miss something crucial. If you or someone you know is suffering from health anxiety, try running through the list of questions above about information you might be leaving out. Fill in all the blanks and you might find you can figure things out better that you thought!

Learn more about this author, Adele Gregory.
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