Idris Elba Admits He Is Seeing A Therapist To Improve His Work-Life Balance

Idris Elba has openly discussed his year-long therapy journey to address 'unhealthy habits' on a podcast, highlighting the need for work-life balance.

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The actor said his love for staying busy has had a negative impact on his health.

British actor Idris Elba has recently opened up about his year-long journey in therapy to address what he referred to as 'unhealthy habits.' During an interview on the 'Changes with Annie Macmanus' podcast, Elba expressed his commitment to making some positive changes in his life.

The 51-year-old actor detailed some of the problems he's working on in therapy.

"I've been in therapy for about a year now. It's a lot," he began. "In my therapy, I've been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths 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," he said during the podcast.

"And I work in an industry where I'm rewarded for those unhealthy habits."

Elba, the self-described "workaholic," had admitted that these habits were not good for his life or overall well-being.

"Nothing that's too extreme is good; everything needs balance, but I'm rewarded massively for being a workaholic [compared] to someone who'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 leaving them," he said.

"Those are pathways that I had to be like, 'I've got to adjust.'"

"So I've been thinking about this a lot, and oddly enough, a lot of our childhood is really at the root of it," the London-born actor added.

"My studio is in my house; I just love being 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 said.

"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 added.

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