Famous actor Idris Elba admitted to being in therapy to treat what he calls “unhealthy habits,” during the latest episode of the “Changes with Annie Macmanus” podcast.
Elba spoke candidly about the reason he sought help, and the work that he is putting in to create change.
“I’ve been in therapy for about a year now. It’s a lot,” he said on the podcast. “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.”
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The famous actor went on to call himself “an absolute workaholic,” and admitted that this issue has affected all aspects of his life.
“Nothing that’s too extreme is good, everything needs balance, but I’m rewarded massively to be a workaholic [compared] to someone that’s like ‘Eh, I’m not going to see my family for six months’ and I’m in there grinding and making a new family and leave them,” he said on the podcast.
“Those are pathways that I had to be like, ‘I’ve got to adjust.’”
He touched on the process he has undergone, in an effort to make a change.
“In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths [sic] being changed and shifting,” he said.
“So I’ve been thinking about this a lot and oddly enough a lot of our childhood is really at the root of it,”‘ he said.
Elba said he is making a conscious effort to take time out to take care of himself, and to learn how to relax.
“The thing is, the things that make me relaxed end up being work,” he said. (RELATED: Drew Barrymore Said She Drank So Much Her Therapist Quit On Her)
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“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,” he admitted on the podcast.
He explained how easy it is for him to get caught up in his work.
“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?”
“This is the part where I’ve got to normalize what makes me relaxed, it can’t be all work,” he admitted.