Fearne Cotton has said she felt like a “freak” after having her first panic attack, which happened while she was driving on a motorway.
The TV presenter said that it did not feel like she expected it would.
Cotton, 36, told the i newspaper’s weekend edition: “It was almost like what I was seeing and experiencing around me was not what my body was feeling.
“They were disconnected. It’s not how I had thought a panic attack would feel.”
Cotton said that the “speed and the experience of what you’re seeing” when on a motorway can induce them to people who are susceptible, and has admitted to not having driven on one since her panic attack.
She said it occurred while she was working on her book about mindfulness, Calm.
“It was like, holy crap, thank you universe for sending me a big chunk of stuff to write about,” she said.
She added: “I felt like a right freak after the first one.”
The former BBC Radio 1 host said she had been “spinning a lot of plates” around the time of the first attack, and that it made her realise she needed to “take care of myself” in order to “be a good mum, a good wife and friend and person who can be capable at work”.
Cotton has also said she has chosen to let go of having a social life in order to focus on being a mother.
The Celebrity Juice star said: “For me, the thing that I’ve chosen to let go of is probably a little bit of reckless fun and a bit of social life. And that’s all right because it’ll come back.
“But I’ve chosen to not make that a priority. My priorities are my children, my family life, first and foremost.
“And my job and the creativity around it, because it makes me feel buzzed.”
Cotton has two children, son Rex Rayne and daughter Honey Krissy, with husband Jesse Wood.