• [Daily Mirror Icon]
• 3am
• Celebrity News
• Sian Williams

EXCLUSIVE: BBC star Sian Williams on how 'monster' anxiety has become her superpower

BBC Breakfast host Sian Williams tells of the anxiety she's suffered since childhood. Now a psychologist, she says she now knows being sensitive was a superpower

[Presenter and psychologist Sian Williams, pictured at her home in Kent]

View 5 Images

Presenter and psychologist Sian Williams, pictured at her home in Kent(Image: PHIL HARRIS)

As the host of BBC Breakfast and anchor of Channel 5 News, Sian Williams appeared unflappable. She delivered news of devastating events to the nation, from the 1989 Hillsborough disaster to the aftermath of Princess Dianas death in 1997 and the Kashmir earthquake in 2005. What viewers didnt know was that Sian, 61, suffers with crippling anxiety that, at times, she worried might derail her sparkling career. She says: I was once so overwhelmed with anxiety that I backed into my programme manager's car and wrote it off.

Qualifying as a psychologist in 2021, Sians book, The Power of Anxiety, is released today. She continues: In the beginning of my career there were times when it was hard to think straight. Sometimes the weight of responsibility was all too much. There were times when I felt my heart was beating so fast and I would feel a wave of anxiety. I experienced it first with Hillsborough in 1989 and then, subsequently, every time a big story came up. When I was reporting on the Kashmir earthquake in 2004, I was so aware of that responsibility I had to tell people what was going on. That weight it was like holding a vase across the floor.

Sian, who cut her cloth as a radio reporter in Liverpool,says reporting on general election night for the BBC was another tense moment. She explains: Youve got to know everything about every constituency, you've got to respond and you've got to be right when youre reporting those results.

[Sian Williams qualified as a psychologist in 2021 and now dedicates her life to helping others]

View 5 Images

Sian Williams qualified as a psychologist in 2021 and now dedicates her life to helping others(Image: PHIL HARRIS)

I was presenting one of those elections in 2010 - it was the hung parliament - and I was taking over after host David Dimbleby. Whoosh, that is a big old job. Youre sitting there in your chair and stuff is coming in all the time. You've got to digest it and then put it out there and make sense of it.

Sian, who lives in Cranbrook, Kent, with her husband, producer Paul Woolwich, shares sons Joss, 34, and Alex, 32, with her first husband Neale Hunt. As well as being step mum to Emily, 29, she shares son Seth, 19 and daughter Eve, 17, with Paul. She admits her anxiety began as a child and has remained an ever present companion, adding: You cant run from it, you can't block it, you can't withdraw and avoid and struggle with it. Its like having a tug of war with a monster, you just need to drop the rope, because it will pull you in.

Now presenter of Radio 4s Life Changing and Classical Unwind on Radio 3 Unwind, she recalls fainting and falling off her chair while presenting live coverage of the Diana Memorial Fountain opening in 2004. She says: Im still not sure what was responsible for it - the hot day, sitting on a high stool for a long time, maybe I hadnt eaten enough. My feed went down, so I couldn't see the pictures and I was meant to be commentating on them.

[Sian Williams with her husband Paul Woolwich ]

View 5 Images

Sian Williams with her husband Paul Woolwich (Image: Alan Davidson/Shutterstock)

Stress happens when the demands of what you are facing exceeds the resources you have to deal with it. At that moment, I just fell off the bar stool. My body said, nope, this is too much. I was given a few biscuits, custard creams, by my producer, who said, understandably,eat these and get back on the stool - theres a job to do. The viewers didn't notice because I was out of vision but they might have heard the thud.

Feeling ashamed, she asked the team to keep the incident quiet, saying: I told no one. You don't want people to think, what's going to happen if she goes on the next one? Now I would probably handle things a little differently. I wouldn't be so conscious about saying, Cor that came out of nowhere. The conversation around anxiety is much more open, which is a wonderful thing.

Sian had a happy childhood, growing up in Eastbourne with a journalist father and a nurse mother, but says her family rarely spoke about their feelings. She says: I grew up in the 70s. There was not a lot of emotion expressed in the house, although my parents did a brilliant job. Being told youre too sensitive, or you need to grow a thicker skin, or you need to just toughen up - that was a narrative that I think a lot of people my age experienced.

[Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams on BBC Breakfast]

View 5 Images

Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams on BBC Breakfast(Image: BBC)

And her confidence was knocked at school. She says: I was told by the career officer, you won't be a journalist., youre not clever enough to go to university, and you should go to secretarial college. Now she would congratulate her younger self on believing she could make it, adding: It takes a long time to think that you don't have to be the label that is slapped on you - like a jam jar. I now know the key is to be absolutely authentic to who you are.

She recalls watching Angela Rippon work in her early days, saying: Im a big fan of Angela, shes a friend of mine - and I thought, that's who I need to be, I need to be Angela Rippon'. In her second career as a counselling psychologist, Sian now works both in the NHS and privately, helping families, couples, teens, and individuals manage everything from stress, anxiety and depression to psychosis and self-harm.

She says her personal experience of anxiety has helped her both in her counselling and as a journalist. She says: People who are highly sensitive - about 30 per cent of the population - while they might experience negative things more negatively, and while they are more likely to experience anxiety, they have incredible skills. They tend to be more intuitive, more creative, more empathic - because they are simply more open to the stuff the world throws at them.

[Presenters Dr Ranj and Sian Williams on Save Money Good Health]

View 5 Images

Presenters Dr Ranj and Sian Williams on Save Money Good Health(Image: ITV)

I know first hand that, when you look at that sensitivity - and anxiety when it crops up - there is a power in this. Its not that you are overawed by this, and you cant do this job or this thing. If you stand back from it and you see where the power lies and what you can do with it, thats an incredible strength.

Rather than developing a thicker skin, she says: Sensitivity I think is the thing that helped me in journalism and certainly helps me as a psychologist. It can be your superpower - it has been mine.

Sians anxiety toolkit

Remember to CARE

C is curiosity. Be an interested observer when anxiety shows up.

A is acceptance. Know its part of you and your sensitivity to the world.

R is relating. Develop a new relationship so it's no longer the enemy.

E is empathy. Allow for kindness. Other peoples yes, but your own too.

*The Power of Anxiety: How to Ride the Worry Wave by Dr Sian Williams (Atlantic Books, 14.99) is out today

[Daily Mirror Icon]

ENJOYED THIS STORY?

Choose Daily Mirror as a 'Preferred Source' on Google News for quick access to the news you value.