At 43, Gisele Bündchen Opens Up About "Severe Depression and Panic Attacks"

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• Gisele Bündchen opened up about struggling with “severe” panic attacks and depression in her early 20s.

• She also shared how she overcame them.

• “I had no idea that it was correlated with my lifestyle—and food was a big part of it,” she said.

Your early 20s are, stereotypically, a time of freedom, fun, and exploration. But for Gisele Bündchen, they were “one of the worst times in my life,” she recently said on The View. That’s because she struggled with “severe” panic attacks and depression, which she never thought to trace back to her intense, “hamster wheel” lifestyle as a new model, she explained. After a year and a half of struggle, a naturopathic doctor suggested changes in her diet, exercise, and sleep schedule.

“I wasn’t really paying attention, I was just going, like a hundred miles an hour,” the supermodel, 43, told The View co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Sara Haines. “I had no idea that it was correlated with my lifestyle—and food was a big part of it.”

At the time, she was traveling constantly for work after being emancipated from her family in Brazil at 14, she recalled. Behar asked if that transition could have contributed to her mental health, and Bunchden laughed. “I actually was loving [it]. I felt really independent,” she said. “I was living in Japan and moved to New York at 15. But I thought it was an amazing life... I just felt very grateful that I had a job.”

However exciting, that cycle did foster some detrimental daily habits. “I told [the naturopath] about my day. I drink, I smoke, I have coffee,” she said. “And he said, ‘Listen… stop right there.’ He says, ‘You’re not sleeping. You’re in different time zones all the time. You’re eating, like, terrible all day.’”

Because Bündchen was so busy, she ate whatever was convenient and accessible. “I was the kind of person who was like, ‘As long as it’s in the supermarket, it’s great to eat.’ Anything. I was just like, ‘Let me eat it,’” she said, which often was packaged comfort food, she added.

Her specialist recommended a more balanced diet, as well as eight hours of sleep nightly and daily exercise. “If you do those three things, you’re going to feel better,” he told her. A year and a half later, “everything changed,” she recalled. “I became a different person. I started practicing meditation. I started practicing yoga. I started practicing breath work.”

Now, 20-plus years later, she is releasing a cookbook, Nourish, which she hopes will help others avoid the turbulence she endured. “Let the food be your medicine,” she said. The book is full of simple recipes to empower the body and mind.

Although there is plenty of research to support the link between poor diet quality and depression, more is warranted on that between food and anxiety. Still, the little research that does exist on the topic suggests an association between healthy eating and reduced anxiety symptoms. There’s even more evidence that a solid sleep schedule and workout routine do wonders for mental health.

Everyone is different, so if you’re feeling low and think your lifestyle could benefit from a few tweaks, discuss them with your doctor, who can walk you through the changes necessary to help you feel your best.

If you or someone you know is at risk, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to 741741 to message a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text Line for free.

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