World-famous superstar Jennifer Lopez got real in a recent newsletter where she told her fans the story of how a lack of sleep led her to have a pretty scary panic attack when she was younger.
She uses it as a cautionary tale and urges readers to get a proper amount of sleep lest something similar happens to them.
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Jennifer Lopez got a bit vulnerable in the recent edition of her newsletter ‘On the JLO’.
The actress and musician shared the importance of getting adequate sleep, specifying at least seven to nine hours every night. To really emphasize this, she told a story about what a lack of sleep did to her mental health in her late 20s.
She really overworked herself during that time.
“I was sitting in a trailer, and all the work and the stress it brought with it, coupled with not enough sleep to recuperate mentally, caught up with me,” she recalled.
She said that she was only getting three to five hours of sleep every night then.
This lack of sleep culminated in a panic attack.
“I went from feeling totally normal, to thinking about what I needed to do that day and all of a sudden I felt as if I couldn’t move […] I was completely frozen,” she continued, “I couldn’t see clearly and then the physical symptoms I was having started to scare me and the fear compounded itself.”
It scared her so much that her security guard brought her to the doctor.
“By the time I got there, I could at least speak again and I was so terrified I thought I was losing my mind,” she said, “I asked the doctor if I was going crazy. He said, ‘No, you’re not crazy. You need sleep […] get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night, don’t drink caffeine, and make sure you get your workouts in if you’re going to do this much work.'”
This isn’t the first time that Lopez has overworked herself to the point of being sick.
A scene in the documentary Halftime shows Lopez speaking to her doctor, telling him she’d become depressed and even physically ill from working way too much and being away from her family for so long.
Managing a work-life balance can be tough.
Especially when you’re a celebrity! We can only hope she’s learned to not push herself too hard anymore and knows to take care of her health above all else. She’s got the right sleeping patterns down at least!
h/t: Insider
