Speak Your Mind

Whether you know Chris Hughes from Love Island 2017, his TV shows with Kem Cetinay, or his presenting for ITV Racing, chances are you already know what an endearingly open guy Chris is.

Since entering the spotlight, he’s used his platform to reveal the power in being vulnerable, and is encouraging all men to feel no shame in showing their true emotions. As an ambassador for charities CALM and Movember, Chris is striving to help change the narrative around men’s mental health, and make a real difference.

This Movember, Chris candidly shares his anxiety, catastrophising, and panic attacks, the techniques he uses to ground himself, and feeling ‘low’ for the first time in his life...

hris Hughes saunters out of the elevator at Happiful’s east London studio, puts down his backpack, and within five minutes is unloading his innermost feelings, even before the dictaphone is running. Some celebrities require a few questions – others an entire interview – to build an emotional connection with a journalist, but Chris is the polar opposite. In person he’s exactly who he seemed on Love Island in 2017 – tender-hearted, empathetic and sentimental – an open book who was commended by fans and health professionals alike for laying bare his deepest state of mind again and again. Chris, 26, was often filmed in tears interacting with other contestants, and particularly when navigating the choppy seas of romance with then-girlfriend Olivia Attwood, who he split from in February 2018. He has since used his place in the public eye to raise mental health awareness, in particular talking about a difficult three years from the age of 19 where he was racked with anxiety. Panic attacks were a frequent reality. Eventually Chris turned to a professional hypnotherapist, and the treatment worked. He was anxiety-free before, during, and after Love Island, but today admits he’s noticed a decline in his mental health. In August, during a holiday to Bali with girlfriend, Little Mix star Jesy Nelson, Chris endured a severe episode of anxiety, and has since, for the first time in his life, been struggling with low moods.

“It’s really strange that we’re doing this interview now, because it’s come at such a poignant time,” sighs Chris, taking a seat on a sofa in the studio lounge, and breathing in the views of the River Thames. “Three days before we were coming back, I decided to get really drunk. I had a good blow out, then I felt awful the next day and started thinking: ‘Maybe there was something in my alcohol, maybe this isn’t the same kind of alcohol.’ I was panicking and worrying myself over it. For the last three or four days of my holiday, I couldn’t shake the anxiety, and now I’ve started feeling really low and down. “It is confusing because I can’t put my finger on why,” continues Chris, scrunching up his brow.

“Anxiety is feeling compelled to keep looking ahead to the future. With depression and feeling down, it’s the other way, about looking back”

Perhaps being propelled into stardom on Love Island was a contributing factor? Within three days of finishing third, Chris and winner Kem Cetinay landed an ITV2 spin-off show, You vs Chris and Kem, and went on to launch a fitness DVD, release a music single, and co-present from the National Television Awards red carpet. Chris has also published an autobiography, and worked with blue-chip brands galore including Topman, First Choice Holidays and McDonald’s, as well as landing a dream presenting job with ITV Racing in June this year. Most recently, Chris and Kem developed a new TV show idea, which they’re pitching to a production company. “I’ve enjoyed all the work I’ve done since Love Island, and I really like life,” he says. “I’ve got the best family, the best girlfriend, the best social life, the best friends, I love where I live. I don’t dislike anything. This is why it’s so weird. I shouldn’t be [feeling] like this. I learned the other day that anxiety is feeling compelled to keep looking ahead to the future. With depression and feeling down, it’s the other way, about looking back, but there’s nothing I reflect on and regret, or think, ‘I should have done that.’ I just can’t work out why I’m feeling this way.” Last year, on World Mental Health Day, Chris was unveiled as an ambassador of CALM – the Campaign Against Living Miserably charity, which receives thousands of calls a month from people experiencing anxiety and depression. He’s also an ambassador for Movember, a charity dedicated to investing in prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention. Shockingly, 12 men in Britain take their own lives every day, making suicide the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. In March this year, former Love Island star Mike Thalassitis, 26, ended his life. Sophie Gradon, who was a contestant in 2016, died by suicide in June 2018. >>>

Mike’s death heightened calls for improved aftercare for those who take part in reality TV shows. Chris, who describes the psychological support provided by ITV as “brilliant” and says it’s “completely” unfair to blame the channel for the contestants’ deaths, never felt suicidal, but admits that lately he has been better able to understand the plight of those who feel there is no other way out. “Since I’ve been feeling down, I’ve thought of people that have done it, and that’s a scary thought,” he says. “I think, ‘Does that mean, this is how they felt?’ I tell myself that how I am feeling now is how those people, who completed suicide, felt and that makes me feel worse inside. What I’m doing is convincing myself that I’ve got a greater issue or greater level of lowness than I actually have, and that’s what’s making me worse.” In an attempt to get to the bottom of his feelings and better understand himself, Chris turned to a London-based clinical hypnotherapist called Pippa, who advised practising excellent selfcare to feel his best possible self on the inside. “She explained that getting out for a one-hour walk in the sunshine, even on a cloudy day, increases your levels of serotonin – that happy hormone – and that it can also be increased by eating foods high in omega oils. This morning I made sure I had salmon and eggs for breakfast, because I wanted to get those fish oils in me,” explains Chris, who is also trying to reduce the time he spends on his phone. “My average is seven hours and 54 minutes. It’s a joke. I need to relearn how to be bored, but the main thing is to eliminate negative thoughts. I’ve got to stop saying to myself, ‘You’re feeling alright now, but you’re going to feel sad in a minute.’ Pippa tells me to think, ‘I’m OK, I’m happy, I will do this, I am this,’ instead of, ‘Will I be OK?’ You’ve got to be positive.” Chris has been sports-obsessed since the age of four, and over the years has played cricket, tennis, and semi-professional football. He’s ridden race horses, and is a huge fan of golf. It’s hard to match the go-get-’em mentality of sportsman Chris with the frequently negatively thinking version, and it’s puzzling for him, too. “I never walk into anything in sport and think, ‘I’m not going to play it well today.’ I walk in overly confident; it’s like I know I’m going to be better than everyone else. In my day-to-day life, it’s the complete opposite,” he says.

“My hands clenched together and I couldn’t move. I seized up and at that point, my mind was gone. I couldn’t breathe. I was hyperventilating”

Naturally, Chris is aware of the wellbeing-enhancing benefits of exercise. Before Love Island he worked out daily to get himself in tip-top shape, so it’s surprising to learn he’s steered clear of the gym for the past six months, following a terrifying panic attack 45 minutes into an early morning PT session. “I started getting pins and needles in my hands,” recalls Chris. “These pins and needles took over my whole body. They started at my feet and it was like a wave, going up my body and to my face. It even felt like they were in my cheekbones. In that moment, my hands clenched together and I couldn’t move. I seized up and couldn’t open my fingers, then at that point, my mind was gone. I couldn’t breathe. I was hyperventilating. I thought I was having a stroke.” It took “eight or nine minutes” before Chris was in a position to implement the calming techniques he’d learned in therapy when he first went through anxiety – a combination of deep breathing to “get rid of adrenaline by feeding it with oxygen”, visualisation and imagery, where you place negative thoughts inside different shapes to contain them. Again, he has struggled to pinpoint the cause, and although he’s not had a repeat episode, Chris’s life has been affected by the incident because he no longer feels able to enter a gym. When he first experienced anxiety, Chris would leave his family home near Cheltenham late at night and drive around aimlessly to avoid being in the place where his first episode of anxiety happened. Avoiding the gym is also about avoiding painful memories. >>>

“I don’t like going back to environments where I’ve been mentally scarred,” says Chris, picking at an invisible mark on the leg of his heavily ripped combat trousers. They’re noticeably baggy. “I’m a little skinnier now,” he explains later. “I’ve lost muscle because I haven’t been training.” Chris’ propensity for imagining “the worst” – wanting a blood test “for peace of mind” during his first anxiety attack, believing his hangover in Bali was the result of his drink being spiked, and fearing his pins and needles in the gym were caused by a stroke – is classic catastrophising behaviour, which psychologists describe as a cognitive disorder. Sufferers frequently imagine unpleasant and undesirable situations to be worse than they actually are. “That sounds about right,” agrees Chris. “Everything’s escalated and becomes 20-times worse.” Jesy, Chris’ girlfriend of nine months, who he moved in with four months ago, is one of his most treasured confidants – perhaps because she understands on a level that few ever could. In September this year, the 28-year-old singer spoke out in her moving BBC3 documentary, Odd One Out, about being the victim of years of online bullying after she and her Little Mix bandmates, Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, won The X Factor in 2011. In the film, Jesy revealed that in November 2013, after being relentlessly trolled over her body shape and size, she was driven to attempt suicide. “It was really difficult to watch,” admits Chris. “Some stages,” he breathes in then exhales sharply, “it broke my heart. It was proper “The amount of abuse I’ve difficult to watch. I’ve got a respect received on Twitter since has been for Jesy that I’ve never had for crazy. People think I’ve got that job another girlfriend. Just seeing all the things she has been through and overcome, she deserves every bit of happiness now."

“I’ve got a respect for Jesy that I’ve never had for another girlfriend. Just seeing all the things she has been through and overcome, she deserves every bit of happiness now”

In his capacity as a reality TV star and with more than 2.5 million followers across his Instagram and Twitter profiles, Chris is proud to be in a position where he can not only inspire change, but actually save lives. A year ago, as part of his role as a Movember ambassador, Chris had a testicular cancer check live on ITV’s This Morning in a bid to show men that they shouldn’t be embarrassed about getting their testicles examined. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among men, and although there’s a 95% chance of survival, one in 20 don’t make it. Chris, who had three operations on his left testicle as a teenager, could never have anticipated the outcome of his appearance on the daytime show. The following night, his older brother Ben, 27, found a lump in his testicle, which turned out to be cancerous. In January, he underwent an operation to have it removed, and in May Chris shared the happy news on Instagram that Ben is cancer-free. The brothers are now filming a BBC documentary about male infertility. “One hundred percent, it feels good knowing that by talking out loud about my feelings and experiences I’m encouraging other guys to be open about their emotions too, but with the testicular examination, if it helps just one person stay healthy, that’s a really good thing,” says Chris. “That’s the beauty of having a platform; it allows you to help others.” But what about his own journey? Chris is evidently doing his best to get his mental health back on track, and counts the listening ears of friends, family, and, of course, Jesy as “crucial” in his recovery.

“Many men feel that speaking about their feelings is a vulnerability, a weakness, but I’ve always seen the benefits in it. It’s little obstacles,” he says. “You’re not going to be happy every day of your life; it’s normal to have low points. Now I just want to shake it, and I’m trying to do everything right in my lifestyle to make myself feel better.”

This Movember, whatever you grow will save a bro. Sign up now at Movember.com, and change the face of men’s health.