Gisele Bundchen smoked a pack of cigarettes a day to cope with her panic attacks.
Gisele Bundchen
The 38-year-old supermodel developed a fear of tunnels, elevators and other enclosed spaces in 2003 and she was left feeling so "powerless", she considered ending her life when she even found herself gripped by panic attacks even in her own home.
Explaining how she tried to cope, she said: "I was like, 'Okay, I really have to find help.' It made realise that you cannot be too proud or too feeling like people are gonna judge you or whatever ... You gotta ask for help. The way I was raised, a pill wasn't [a solution]. That did make me more anxious just to think that I was gonna be dependent on something else ... I gave up everything in one day. I was like, 'That's it.' Because I wanted to live. I choose life. I choose to smile again, to be free again. I don't wanna choose this."
It was then that Gisele decided to change her life for the better and find other ways to cope with her terrible panic attacks.
She added to People magazine: "When I started meditating, I started looking at life from a completely different perspective. It made me realise that I got into this hamster wheel. My life was playing in front of me like a movie ... I just told my parents and my agent, and I didn't even tell my sisters because I was embarrassed by it. I stopped all sugar. Completely. For the first two weeks, I had the worst migraines I've ever had in my life. It was a big shock to my body, but it was a three-month kind of cleanse."
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