Gisele Bündchen Says She Cured Her Panic Attacks With One Simple Change

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen is getting candid about her mental health following her divorce from former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

The couple split in October 2022, and now co-parent their son Benjamin, 14, and daughter Vivian, 11. Brady is also a dad to his son, Jack, whom he shares with his ex, Bridget Moynahan.

Now, as Bündchen is promoting her new cookbook, 'Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul', she is revealing how food has helped her cope with mental health.

The former Victoria's Secret angel has been open about her mental health journey ever since the tough split from her ex-husband.

“To live in a state of gratitude is like a protection in your life," she said in a previous interview with the Wall Street Journal.

“We can look at things like, why is this happening to me? I believe we are here because we all have something to learn and to evolve and to grow," she continued, "When I look back, the biggest, most challenging experiences in my life were all happening for me. They showed me that I was stronger than I thought I was.”

Just weeks after reflecting on some of the most challenging experiences in her life, she is continuing to promote mental health awareness, revealing that she used to suffer from panic attacks.

In her early 20s, the supermodel said she suffered from “severe depression and panic attacks."

Over the course of one and a half years, she went “through all the specialists," but it led to “one of the worst times of [her] life." "[I] didn’t know what to do," she admitted.

That is when she decided to start seeing a naturopathic doctor.

She has since recovered from the panic attacks -- just by making one small lifestyle change.

“[The naturopathic doctor] said to me, ‘Gisele, we have to change your diet,'” she recalled of that time in her life. “And I was like, ‘Diet? What does that have to do with panic attacks?’ And he’s like, ‘No, it has everything to do with it'."

“I had no idea it was correlated with my lifestyle, and food was a big part of it,” she told 'The View' co-hosts. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was just going 100 miles an hour.”

According to Better Health Channel, a panic attack is a brief episode of intense anxiety, which causes the physical sensations of fear. These can include a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness, trembling, and muscle tension.

When looking back, she realized her diet was "terrible" as she was drinking coffee, smoking, and “eating terribly all day." She also recognized her lifestyle was “destroying [her] health and creating the condition [she] was in.”

So, she made a change. “I became a different person. I started practicing meditation. I started practicing yoga. I started practicing breath work," she said before adding, "It was a long journey.”

The supermodel is the author of a new cookbook, 'Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul', which will be released on March 26. She felt that food was something that changed her entire life, and wanted to share it with others.

She noted, “Food, for me, is medicine.”

“I like to go to bed at about 10 p.m. and I wake up around 5 and make sure that I have my meditation,” she told the Wall Street Journal of her day-to-day life. “I like to have lukewarm water with a little lemon and Celtic salt. Then I do my stretches, which I call my asana, for about 15 minutes, then 15 minutes of meditation. Then I walk my dog, feed my dog and then my day starts.”

And while she pays more attention to the food she puts in her body, she says there are ways for those who have a sweet tooth to get their fix without putting “poison” into their body. “There [are] so many other ways you can sweeten your things that are delicious,” she said before listing, “Honey, maple syrup, dates.”

Her new cookbook, ‘Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul,’ will drop on March 26.