Carson Daly Reveals His Lifelong Struggle With Anxiety and Panic Attacks

After seeing Carson Daly on Total Request Live, Last Call With Carson Daly, The Voice, and the Today show for the last 20 years, you may feel like you know everything there is to know about the veteran TV host. But on Friday’s episode of Today, Daly opened up for the first time about his struggles with anxiety disorder and panic attacks, which he’s experienced almost his entire life.

“I was a worrywart kid. I was always worrying,” the 44-year-old said. “My father died when I was 5. I had an ulcer when I was in high school. I’ve been nervous my whole life.”

For some people, a certain level of anxiety is just a normal part of being a kid that may come and go, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America explains. But if it starts to interfere with the child’s ability to function in school, at home, or with friends, this can be a sign of a more serious anxiety disorder. Left untreated during adolescence, an anxiety disorder can lead to the onset of other serious clinical conditions, such as panic disorder or major depression later in life. In fact, for most people with an anxiety disorder, their symptoms started before they were 21.

Daly said his first full-blown panic attack happened when he was a host at MTV—and he didn’t know what it was at the time.

“I had a hard time breathing. I was terrified for no apparent reason,” Daly said, going on to vividly describe his experience: “At times, I feel like there’s a saber-toothed tiger right here, and it is going to kill me, attack me, and bite my head off. I’m scared as if that’s really happening. You feel like you’re dying,” he said. He’s even gone to the hospital with these fears. “I’m like, my heart’s going to stop, or I’m going to have a heart attack, and, of course, what happens is you’re perfectly fine.”

And though he’s been on television since his 20s, Daly said that no amount of experience could cure his anxiety. “To this day, even when I’m on television—if you ever watch The Voice live on NBC, watch on a Monday or Tuesday night—I’m never still. It’s the same thing on the Today show in the morning. Some days I’m just a little anxious,” he said.

His anxiety doesn’t just surface in on-camera situations. “People hear anxiety [and] they think, ‘Oh, it’s a high-pressure life, you’re on television.’ [But] it has nothing to do with that,” he said. “I’ve had heightened anxiety and mild panic attacks at the playground with my own children and wife there, and the feeling was so gripping, so terrifying, that I literally had to leave and excuse myself.”

Daly finally sought help from a cognitive therapist after a friend shared their own experience with anxiety and recommended that he seek treatment.

On Friday’s show, he demonstrated the “muscle retention and relaxation” activity that his therapist taught him to help work through anxiety and panic attacks; the exercise involves clenching the muscles in his hands, wrists, and arms like he’s lifting a weight, then releasing all of the tension.

Receiving treatment for and learning more about anxiety, he said, has helped him learn to embrace it as part of who he is. “This is the way I was born, this is the way I’m hardwired,” Daly said. “This is kind of the downside of the way God made me, and there’s a tremendous upside as well: I’m very sensitive, I love music, and music moves me in a very visceral way physically, so I get the chills when I hear certain music, definitely soul music.” And when he’s with his family, he says those moments can be “euphoric” because they resonate so deeply and he feels “so much love and empathy and compassion.”

Now, Daly wears the way he is “like a badge of honor,” he says. “This is who I am and I’m proud of it. I may be a little anxious, but I know I’m gonna be OK.”