Carson Daly Turns 50 After Spinal Fusion Surgery: 'I'm Really on My Bounce Back' (Exclusive)
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The 'Today' host is feeling great —mentally and physically — after celebrating his 50th birthday and recovering from major back surgery last year
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty
Carson Daly is feeling optimistic about turning 50 — and bouncing back after having a major surgery last year.
The Today host celebrated his milestone birthday on June 22 and opened up to PEOPLE about how he’s feeling after undergoing an Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion surgery, in which an intervertebral disc is removed and replaced with a bone or metal spacer, according to the USC Spine Center.
“I feel great, actually. I feel a lot better entering my 50s than I did leaving my 40s, to be honest with you. Physically, anyway,” he tells PEOPLE. “I had back surgery last year and my back is finally... It takes a year. I had back fusion surgery and I was really down and out.”
“I'm really on my bounce back right now as I enter my 50s, so I'm totally optimistic for the future,” he adds.
Daly also shared that he’s been feeling good mentally, reflecting on his own struggles with anxiety and the work he’s done in recent years to raise awareness about mental health care.
“I've been on a real mental health journey recently. I did a lot of advocacy work in the mental health space. And in my own exploration of my past, trying to figure out if my anxiety disorder, I have GAD, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. And I reflect on where it came from,” he explains.
“And so as I look back on my life, I realize all these times that I had panic attacks, I didn't really know what they were at the time. A lot of them happened in spring break in Cancun with MTV. At moments where you think I was having the greatest time of my life, often were sometimes the scariest times of my life because I was dealing with a mental health affliction that I really didn't know what it was.”
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The television personality says he would probably tell his younger self that “it’s okay to not be okay, to be vulnerable, be brave, talk to somebody about how you're feeling. Don't hold things in inside.”
Daly adds that so many people, including himself, suffer in silence for decades before they ask for help with their mental health.
“There are answers out there,” he continues. “You can get better and you're not alone. So many people are dealing with things that you don't know that they're dealing with. There's invisible pain that a lot of people are going through.”
“See, I have this whole philosophy that it's not just about accepting mental health, it's about celebrating it. I think there's wonderful traits that people have. It's just about perception. We have to reframe the way we look at it,” Daly tells PEOPLE.
“I could be nervous and have a panic attack and feel like there's an imminent threat and run out of a room and my fight or flight is crazy and I'm sensitive. But also I could have a glass of wine and listen to classical music and look at a sunset and have a visceral physical reaction of joy to that. Or when I hug and love my kids. The love is so strong," he added.
"That's the other side of that anxiety: sensitivity. I choose to look, so I'm a superhero and I look at it like that. I don't look at it like, ‘Oh, I have some mental health issue.’”
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