Brazen Bibliophage

Yes, I know we’re all going to die eventually. Some of us think death is looming when we’re in the throes of health anxiety. Hi! This was me over the last few months.¹ I was terrified that something was gravely wrong with me, resulting in two visits to the ER, sleepless nights, and hypervigilant days.

I tried whipping out my usual tools to manage the anxiety, but they weren’t enough. It’s Probably Nothing by Casey Gueren came to my rescue. I discovered Gueren on the Rethinking Wellness podcast (hosted by Christy Harrison). I thought the book sounded interesting, but not an immediate buy because I didn’t recognize that I was deep in health anxiety and needed this to boost me out of it. 

Gueren’s practical guidance is grounded in personal experience and includes everything a health-anxious person needs to know, from googling symptoms to detecting misinformation to searching like a health reporter to getting empathetic, evidence-based care. 

If you find yourself constantly looking up symptoms or specific conditions and freaking out about the results, you need this book. If you are hyperaware of every little thing that your body does and worrying that it signals imminent death, you need this book. Even if you only occasionally do these two things, you need this book. 

At the very least, check out the Rethinking Wellness episode featuring Gueren. It’ll be the push you need to get this book.

1. Realistically, for about the last six months, with occasional breaks where the anxiety was significantly lower and not dictating my daily actions. ↩︎