Me and My Stress

"I don't want to sound ungracious, but I find dealing with the media incredibly stressful. When I do TV or radio, I go into a "rabbit caught in the headlights" stage. I am capable of talking but when I look back, I wonder why I say such idiotic things and I never feel that I come across as myself.

The most stressful thing is the time lag between doing an interview with a journalist and waiting for the article to appear. It literally gives me sleepless nights. I wonder if what I said could be taken out of context. If I make a joke and accompanied it with a laugh, could it appear in the newspaper without the joke and seem very sarcastic?

I also find driving very stressful. I only passed my test this year and am very conscious of traffic when I'm driving."

"As much as possible, I get my husband to drive, so that's one way of coping.

I try to be extremely careful when I do interviews so that I won't say anything that could be misinterpreted. But I've also come to realise that it's all part of the job. It was definitely worse at first. I remember waiting behind the barrier to go on the Pat Kenny Show one night and I literally thought I would die, my heart was racing so fast.

Everyone has a stressful part to their job and I get such immense satisfaction out of writing that the other parts of it are manageable."

"People will hate me for saying this, but Christmas doesn't stress me because I have all my presents bought in November."