In the latest episode of The Joe Wicks Podcast, Fearne Cotton describes coming through depression, disordered eating and shares techniques like mediation and deep breathing which help her with anxiety.
She and Joe also talk family life and their shared enthusiasm for an ice cold shower in boosting their mood.
Describing her relationship with music as a form of therapy, Fearne said: “If I am feeling low but there is an edge of frustration, which is usually a kind of go to emotion for me, then listening to some really melancholic emotive music to make me cry and have that release…to have a good cry is one of the most therapeutic things you can do and just to allow yourself to feel sad for a minute instead of thinking ‘no, no – don’t be pathetic, people are having a worse time’. We don’t need guilt in those moments, we need to actually experience emotion, all of us do.”
There have been times during her career where she’s received criticism and admits that she’s been nearly floored by rejection or people trying to shame her. It took her to the point where she didn’t want to get out of bed and didn’t want to carry on in her career.
Describing her battle with bulimia and how she deals with public judgement now, Fearne said: “I dipped in to this world of bulimia at the age of 19 and looking back I disregarded bulimia for a long time, I didn’t see it as a mental health illness, I just saw it as a weird thing for me to be doing.
“Now I really honour that it was me looking for coping mechanisms because I didn’t feel mentally strong enough to deal with what I was dealing with within my career and I was looking for an outlet… no one needs to experience on mass public judgement.”
Fearne’s now reached a point where she realises that it’s none of her business what other people think of her, she says: “People are going to think what they think, people are going to state things in newspapers, it does not mean it is true.”
Although she has a fairly negative mindset and doesn’t see what she’s done as a success, Fearne says that it makes her grow and expand.
The Joe Wicks Podcast is available now on BBC Sounds.
