In a recent appearance on the Changes with Annie Macmanus podcast, British actor Idris Elba revealed he has been in therapy for a year now because of “unhealthy habits” he has developed, PEOPLE reported.
“I’ve been in therapy for about a year now. It’s a lot,” the 51-year-old disclosed. “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,” he added. “And I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits.”
And though Elba also described himself as an “an absolute workaholic”, he admitted having the trait isn’t something that is beneficial to his life and health. “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. “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,” he continued. The Luther actor also explained he’s undergoing therapy in an effort to work on having personal time and looking for activities that will help him relax.
“The thing is, the things that make me relaxed end up being work,” he revealed. “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? This is the part where I’ve got to normalize what makes me relaxed, it can’t be all work.”
