Nadiya Hussain has learned to confront her anxiety.
The former ‘Great British Bake Off’ champion used to stay away from situations that made her nervous but now she pushes herself to face her fears and do things that "scare the life" out of her.
Speaking about her struggles with anxiety on ‘Sunday Brunch’, she said: "It’s that feeling of… The only way I can describe it is, before I did ‘Bake Off’, I never really understood what it was like to be on the other side of fear.
"I always kind of stayed away from being scared. So, if something scared me, or frightened me, or I thought it was going to make me feel anxious, I’d avoid it completely.
"So now if somebody says, ‘Do you want to do that?’ I’m like, ‘That scares the life out of me… yes, I’ll do it’.
"And so, it’s that feeling of being on the other side, and I think that when you have anxiety, you’ve got to push yourself and say you know what, I can be on the other side of fear."
The ‘Big Family Cooking Showdown’ presenter – who has three children with husband Abdal – recently spoke of how she’s realised it is "important" that she’s a role model as a Muslim woman in the public eye.
She said: "I do identify as a Muslim and I do identify as a Bangladeshi girl, I identify as British, as well, and a woman and I’m a woman of colour, and why am I ashamed of that? And I used to not want to talk about it. But that is me.
"But I understand the importance of being a brown, Muslim woman of faith who is in the public eye, because there aren’t that many of us.
"So I know that I’m representing a lot of groups and I know how important that is, especially for women."
Nadiya Hussain faces her fears
