Steph McGovern needed therapy to cure a recurring nightmare she suffered about losing her baby.
The 38-year-old TV presenter – who has a nine-month-old daughter with her girlfriend – has experienced night terrors about losing her tot, and her partner would regularly find her on the floor "scrabbling around under things or in cupboards" looking for the little one in the middle of the night, despite the youngster being fine.
She told The Sun newspaper: "I don’t ever actually feel stressed but the way it manifests in me is at night. I have crazy dreams and awful night terrors. When I was younger, it would be worrying about school stuff. I once went out of the door and actually went to school – in my sleep, in my uniform – at two in the morning.
"As I’ve got older, they have become more vivid. And since having a baby, I will regularly wake up and think I’ve lost her. I imagine she’s in bed with me and I’ve dropped her, or I’ve lost her. Quite a few times, my partner has found me on the floor scrabbling around under things or in cupboards, looking for the baby."
While she is yet to be "cured", the therapy sessions are helping ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’ star to think about more rational thoughts.
She explained: "Everything now revolves around the baby. The thoughts aren’t rational – it’s totally irrational. But it’s something I have had help for.
"I’ve seen a therapist about it. I didn’t go to the doctor because I thought they’d just say, ‘Go to a therapist’. So I decided myself to go to a therapist to try to knock it on the head."It only really flares up when things are stressful – and it has really helped me."
But Steph has learned she needs to change her bedtime routine to get a peaceful night’s sleep.
She added: "It’s all to do with how you go to bed at night, about your peace of mind when you go to sleep. It’s about not looking at your phone, not reading terrible stories or watching the news. More often than not, if I read the headlines in the newspapers just as I go to bed, there’s a story about babies or some tragic thing – then inevitably your mind plays tricks with you.
"You imagine yourself in that situation, and in my sleep that’s kind of what happens. So I have tried to change my bedtime routine a bit and it has helped."