If you worry about going to appointments, especially doctors’ appointments, you are not alone. Going to see the doctor can be scary and nerve-wracking for everyone, even if you are just going for a wellness visit or a check-up. While you are sitting in the waiting room of your doctor’s office or getting ready for an appointment, anxiety may creep in.
After all, a cold, sterile office and sharing intimate details about your health and personal life is not the most welcoming of environments. There are many reasons why you may experience anticipatory anxiety before a doctor’s appointment, but there is no reason to let your fear get in the way of you seeking medical care and/or treatment altogether.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
Why Does Scheduling A Doctor’s Appointment Make Me Anxious?
Your annual trip to your doctor’s office for a wellness visit is a great chance for you to build a meaningful relationship with your doctor and get up-to-date recommendations on the latest health tips and information. It is also a good time for your doctor to learn about your health history, your family history, and other social factors impacting your health. However, it may not always feel that way.
Once you do build a more comfortable, friendly relationship with your doctor, things will get easier and going to the doctor will not feel as nerve-wracking, but it takes time getting to that point.
There are many reasons why you may feel anxious making a doctor’s appointment. For starters, you may be worried that your doctor is going to shame you. Perhaps you think you will be criticized for your weight, lack of exercise, smoking habit, or other lifestyle factors.
People often feel shame at the doctor’s office when the following topics come up:
Weight
Eating habits
Anxiety (Take our Anxiety Quiz)
Depression (Take our Depression Quiz)
Sexual habits
Shame can prevent you from being 100% honest with your doctor. While it may help you dodge an uncomfortable situation in the present, it will only trigger more issues down the road. Let your doctor know what is going on with you so you can get accurate information about your health and learn how to protect yourself from future diseases or illnesses you may be at risk of.
We all have experienced shame at one point or another. But, when you are afraid to talk about your shame and avoid it at all costs, it gains power over you.
It also may be totally possible that you have a fear of needles, bloodwork, or other medical tests. These are very common fears. In fact, the term “scanxiety” was created to shed some light on the anxiety people experience before, during, or after a radiology scan or imaging test.
You may fear that you will receive bad news at the doctor’s office which prevents you from going altogether. Or perhaps you already have a diagnosis but do not know the details of your treatment plan which is breeding anxiety and nervousness.
You may also be concerned about how the health message is being communicated to you. If you had a bad medical experience in the past, you may not be thrilled to go running to the doctor’s office the next time your annual visit rolls around.
Maybe you do not really click with your doctor or other health care provider. Perhaps you feel rushed in your appointments together and like you are not getting all of the information about your health that you need.
One or all of these reasons may leave you feeling:
Annoyed
Scared
Upset
Disappointed
Frustrated
Hopeless
Your anxiety may also manifest physically. You may feel like your stomach is in knots before going to the doctor’s office and/or your heart may be beating out of your chest for example. If this is the case for you, check out our blog “3 Ways to Manage Your Physical Anxiety Symptoms.”
Or, in an effort to avoid going to the doctor’s office, you may try to fix your health problems on your own.
You may fall into the pattern of constantly rescheduling your doctor’s appointments for days, weeks, and months on end.
Why Do I Feel Like I Can’t Do Anything Before An Appointment?
Feeling like you are stuck in a waiting mode before an appointment is a common characteristic of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This waiting mode period is characterized by feeling like it is hard to get things done if you have an appointment or event later in the evening. You may feel like you cannot accomplish anything in the meantime if you have something coming up.
This type of anxiety is often referred to as ‘waiting mode’ or ‘wait mode.’ It’s relatively common for people with:
ADHD
Anxiety
Autism
Depression
You may have a difficult time waiting due to the nature of the above disorders and their symptoms. Waiting mode refers to you being overly-focused and fixated on an upcoming event. Even if there is plenty of time to accomplish a task, you will experience a hard time starting and completing them in wait mode. During these times, you may drop all of the items on your to-do list so you can minimize the stress you are experiencing and feel more in control of yourself and your schedule before your appointment occurs.
Let us say that you have a doctor’s appointment at 12:00 pm. You wake up at 6:00 am, and have six hours to go before your appointment, but you feel paralyzed by anxiety and impatience. You cannot seem to focus or get your head on straight. Chores and work assignments feel difficult to manage during this period. Your mind seems to go over the upcoming event time and time again. You feel like you cannot get something started until the doctor’s appointment is out of the way.
For people with ADHD, this wait mode is similar to ADHD shutdown which involves attention regulation and executive functioning. The brain fixating on a specific issue over and over again is a symptom of anxiety, but it is also a symptom of ADHD where a person cannot control where their attention is being directed.
Regarding ADHD’s executive functioning component, waiting mode showcases a struggle to motivate yourself and manage your time effectively, so you can get a task done and move to the next thing on your schedule.
Wait mode is heavily tied to anxiety which affects a lot of people with ADHD. You may feel like you cannot do anything before an appointment because it disrupts your typical schedule and/or work flow.
There may be other waiting mode triggers you experience. Think about when you are waiting to receive feedback from your boss about an important work project. Or when you are waiting for a friend to call you back. Appointments are a common trigger, but it is likely that it is manifesting in other areas of your life as well.
For more information on anticipatory anxiety, read our blog “How Psychodynamic Therapy Can Help You Overcome Anticipatory Anxiety.”
How to Deal with Waiting Anxiety
Waiting anxiety can be hard at times, but it is possible to overcome! The first step to overcoming waiting anxiety, also referred to as anticipatory anxiety, is to acknowledge your emotions. How are you feeling, really? It is okay to feel your feelings. Identifying and acknowledging your feelings alone can feel very empowering. Whether you state your emotions to yourself or to a trusted family member, partner, or friend, this can help you let go of some of your worries.
Some days, it may feel easy to push your feelings aside and ignore your emotions. Other days, your anxiety may feel uncomfortable, scary, and even debilitating. Ignoring your emotions and the root cause of your anxiety does not make it go away. It is likely that it will just manifest in other ways, including headaches; insomnia; stomach troubles; nausea; muscle pain; irritability; and so on.
Practice some self-compassion. You can worry, but you do not have to. Going to the doctor’s office is a normal experience, and you deserve to attend a doctor’s appointment with no anxiety and stress attached. If a loved one was going through this, you would likely be a support system for them. Try to show yourself the same love and compassion you would show them. We are often so much harder on ourselves than others are on us.
Getting to the root cause of your anxiety is the ultimate answer to resolving your worries surrounding going to a doctor’s appointment or any appointment generally speaking. Are you feeling on edge speaking to a specific doctor? Ask to switch. Do afternoon appointments stress you out because it disrupts your work schedule? Try to schedule a morning appointment instead of avoiding going to the doctor’s office altogether. Are you worried about getting a needle? Maybe you can speak to someone in the office before your appointment so you know what to expect.
If you have general anxiety issues, there are meditation, breathwork, and other relaxation activities you can try to tame your anxiety. Anxiety is a normal response to activities that we view to be putting us under threat. When anxiety arises, remember that self-care is your friend.
Self-care is an important aspect of managing anxiety. It can improve your mental health and overall well-being. Exercise, a healthy diet, and an adequate amount of sleep can add to physical health maintenance for example. Setting boundaries can also be an integral part of self-care. Saying “no” and setting boundaries can ensure that you are not over-committing yourself to people and events while reducing stress. For more guidance, read our blog “6 Ways to Set Boundaries & Enforce Them.”
Speaking to an anxiety counselor at Anchor Therapy will help you get down to the bottom of your anxiety issues. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a proven method to reduce anxiety. In CBT for pre-appointment anxiety, you can identify and challenge negative thoughts.
For example, you may be thinking “I am afraid the doctor will find something wrong.” You can interrupt this thought by thinking “What evidence do I have that this will happen?”. You can think of an alternate thought, such as “It is totally possible that the appointment will go smoothly and nothing will go wrong.”
You will also learn how to reframe catastrophic thinking. In this example, you can think “Even if the doctor finds something, it is better that I know so that I can address it properly.” Worst-case scenario thinking only worsens your anxiety and you can challenge that thinking by thinking of less-catastrophic case scenarios.
An anxiety therapist will also offer behavioral interventions, such as exposure therapy and role-playing exercises. Gradually exposing yourself to anxiety-provoking situations will reduce your anxiety or even panic response. This can include things like calling the doctor’s office, sitting in the waiting room, traveling to the clinic, and so on. A role-playing activity may involve working with your therapist to practice the appointment scenario. This can make the doctor’s appointment experience feel more familiar and manageable.
In anxiety therapy, you will also learn relaxation techniques and grounding techniques. Deep breathing can help calm your nervous system. One way to do this is through box breathing where you inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and hold for four seconds. Practice this breathing exercise for a few minutes.
Progressive muscle relaxation is another great relaxation technique. Tense and slowly release each muscle group. This can help alleviate physical anxiety symptoms.
Grounding can help you feel more in the present. One example of a common grounding exercise is naming five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
Practicing positive self-talk is another important part of the recovery process. Encourage yourself with positive affirmations! It is okay to feel anxious, and you are taking the necessary steps to feel better by attending anxiety counseling. For more information, check out our blog “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Negative Self-Talk.”
Anxiety can impact the lead-up to a doctor’s appointment and even the quality of the appointment itself. Learning ways to manage your anxiety, whether practicing meditation to seeing an anxiety therapist, can successfully ease your concerns before an appointment. This will help you make the most out of your doctor’s appointments.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager and Intake Coordinator at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark. In her roles, Victoria is committed to managing the office’s social media presence and prioritizing clients' needs.
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