Things couldn’t get any better for Jennifer Lopez. Not only is she very successful professionally, everything seems to be perfect in her relationship with Ben Affleck. But that was not always so. Now the 52-year-old is talking about psychological problems that tormented her when she was younger.
Musician and actress Jennifer Lopez has struggled with mental health issues in the past. In the latest edition of her email newsletter, On the JLo, she looks back on this difficult time. According to this, she suffered from panic attacks in her late 20s, which were mainly triggered by lack of sleep. Physically, she felt “paralyzed” at the time.
“There was a time in my life when I only slept three to five hours a night,” says the 52-year-old. She was on the film set during the day and in the recording studio at night. She spent the weekends at events and filming videos: “I was in my late 20s and thought I was invincible.” But one day she was sitting in her trailer and the whole stress suddenly caught up with her. She could no longer move or see clearly.
“I was completely frozen,” Lopez continued. The symptoms scared her. “Now I know it was a classic panic attack triggered by exhaustion, but I had never heard the term before.” She doubted her sanity until a doctor urged her to change her lifestyle immediately.
Only later did she realize that there are serious consequences if you don’t give your body and mind enough rest. Today she leads a healthy and balanced life. At the time, her doctor advised her to sleep at least seven to nine hours a night, not to consume caffeine and to exercise regularly.
With her e-mail newsletters, Jennifer Lopez keeps her fans up to date with private details. In one such mailing in April, she also told of the marriage proposal that Ben Affleck made to her. It happened in the bathtub, she wrote there.
She has been with her ex again since last year and is now also engaged. For 17 years, the two were separated and otherwise in a relationship. After separating from Affleck, the singer married Marc Anthony and had twins Emme and Max with him in 2008. Ben Affleck married fellow actress Jennifer Garner in 2005, with whom he has three children.
