Idris Elba Has Been in Therapy for 'Unhealthy Habits'

Idris Elba has admitted to undergoing therapy in an effort to work through some "unhealthy habits" he picked up while working in the entertainment industry. 

The "Luther" star shared during the last episode of the "Changes With Annie Macmanus" podcast that he opted to start therapy about a year ago, upon realizing he was an "absolute workaholic."

"In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths being changed and shifting," he explained, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "And it’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that, it’s just that I have some unhealthy habits that I’ve just really formed and they, you know, I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits."

Elba continued, "Nothing that’s too extreme is good. Everything needs balance. But I’m rewarded massively to be a workaholic, to someone that can go, ‘Oh, I’m not going see my family for six months.’ I’m in there, grinding and making new family and then leave them. You know, those are pathways that I had to be like, I’ve got to adjust."

Elba explained that he's trying to find activities that help him relax but still make him feel productive. He also pointed out it's tough because sometimes the things that relax him end up feeling like work.

Outside of acting, Elba focuses on his music career as a DJ. Although he says he enjoys spending time in his home studio, however, it did admittedly feel like work.

"I’ll open that laptop and be like, ‘I don’t know what to make today,’ and today it will come out like this and one like, and I’m exhilarated by that but I’m also relaxed by it," he said of his working habits.

"I could have worked 10 days on a film, underwater sequences, holding my breath for six minutes, and come back and sit here [in the studio] and [be relaxed], more so than sitting on the sofa watching TV with the family, which is bad, right?" he added. "And this is the part where I’ve got to sort of normalize, what makes me relaxed. Can’t be all work."

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