Idris Elba reveals why he's been in therapy for a year to address 'unhealthy habits'
Topics: Celebrity, Idris Elba, Mental Health
Bec Oakes
Featured Image Credit: Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Idris Elba, Mental Health
Idris Elba has revealed he's turned to therapy to help him break out of unhealthy habits that he had fallen into.
The 51-year-old British actor is best known for his roles in the HBO seriesThe Wire and BBC crime seriersLuther. He balances his acting with a career as a DJ, performing at the likes of Glastonbury and Coachella.
He's also taken a shine to life on the other side of the camera, directing his first feature film Yardie and creating the TV series In the Long Run in 2018.
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However, the multitalented star has revealed that his love for staying busy with projects has had a negative impact on his wellbeing, describing himself as a 'workaholic'.
"I’m an absolute workaholic," he shared while appearing on the Changes with Annie Macmanus podcast. "And that isn’t great for life, generally. Nothing that’s too extreme is good. Everything needs balance.”
Elba also shared that he sought out therapy this time last year.
“It’s a lot,” he admitted. “In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths [sic] being changed and shifting.
“It’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that, it’s just because I have some unhealthy habits that have really formed.
"And I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits.”
While the Emmy-nominated actor acknowledged that the nature of his work can be massively rewarding, he said: "Someone that can go, ‘I’m not going to see my family for six months.’ And I’m in there grinding and making a new family and then leave them.
"Those are pathways that I had to be like, ‘I’ve got to adjust'."
But he joked that there was 'no chance' of him working less.
“The thing is, the things that make me relaxed end up being work,” he explained. “My studio in my house, I just love being in here.
“I’ll open that laptop and be like ‘I don’t know what to make today’ and it’ll come out like this or that. And I’m exhilarated by that and also so relaxed by it.
“I could work 10 days on a film, underwater sequences holding my breath for six minutes, and come back and sit in [his studio] and [feel relaxed], more so than sitting on the sofa with the family — which is bad right?" he added.
"This is the part where I’ve got to normalize what makes me relaxed, it can’t be all work."