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Jameela Jamil has revealed she was driven to multiple attempts on her own life due to her decades-long struggle with the debilitating sleep disorder insomnia.
The actress and presenter, 39, admitted she would trade everything she has to be a good sleeper because of the ‘despair’ it has brought her over the years.
Jameela opened up about how lack of sleep has affected her sex drive, left her feeling hopeless and occasionally driven her to ‘madness’.
The Good Place star admitted that ‘every suicide attempt’ she has ever made was due to going several days in a row ‘without a wink of sleep’.
Sharing her thoughts on Substack, Jameela wrote: ‘I would, without flinching, trade in all the success, money and adventures I’ve had to just be a good sleeper. Insomnia is the absolute ghetto of the mind, body and soul.
‘It is years of the loneliest, darkest and most despairing hours in the middle of the night… It’s a lower sex drive. It’s nihilism and hopelessness. It’s being desperate for donuts all f****** day because you need some respite and consolation.’
Jameela Jamil has revealed she was driven to multiple attempts on her own life due to her decades-long struggle with the debilitating sleep disorder insomnia
The actress and presenter, 39, admitted she would trade everything she has to be a good sleeper because of the ‘despair’ it has brought her over the years
‘Every suicide attempt I have ever made was a result of just that few too many days in a row without a wink of sleep,’ she adds.
‘You lose your mind. You fully lose your grip on reality. Hopelessness and bitterness takes hold of you and sinks into your marrow. Death feels undramatic, it just sounds like a nice big slumber. Your empathy reserves switch off.
‘You don’t have the capability of thinking about how your actions will affect others. You convince yourself that it’s the only sensible option.
‘Nothing has ever felt more rational or clear in the moment. It’s not sad. It’s not angry. It’s quiet and it feels like autonomy. It is a liar. It is a thief.
‘This devastating act of chaos comes to you disguised as peace and tranquility. It’s terrifying. Insomnia is corrosive in every way.’
Jameela, who was born in London and now lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, James Blake, has been outspoken about her physical and mental health battles.
This includes experiences with anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and an eating disorder.
In 2019 to honour World Mental Health Day, Jameela said she survived a suicide attempt six years earlier.
Jameela, who was born in London and now lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, James Blake (pictured), has been outspoken about her physical and mental health battles.
In an episode of the talkshow Red Table Talk the following year, she said she had also attempted suicide eight years earlier due to a nervous breakdown.
Jameela went on to reveal that she’s now found a way to tackle her insomnia.
‘After three decades, having started valium at the age of f***** ten… I am finally clean off all sleeping pills,’ she says.
‘I didn’t take them every single night, but maybe four times a week (I would stay awake the other nights.)
‘In the past year and a half my short term memory has started to go, and I’ve learned that they can cause early onset dementia (I was calling it Jamentia) so I’ve finally thrown in the towel and flushed them down the loo.
‘Doing so is dangerous without medical observation, so please make this decision with the help of a professional.
‘The drugs are designed to keep you dependent, because pharma is pure evil… so the insomnia is the worst you have ever known it to be in the weeks after, but I promise it starts to relent within time.
‘I’ve given up caffeine. I’ve given up carbs after 2pm as they’re too energising at night at my old age. I eat a light, easily digestible dinner, as your stomach can keep you up all night if you give it cause to be too busy.
‘Nothing raw. No red meat. Soup/stew is fantastic. Get all your fun in by lunch. Dinner is to be monastic and medicinal.
‘I’m walking 10k steps a day and ensuring daylight and nature are a daily practice.
‘In February, out of nowhere, the upper part of my digestive system slipped and is squishing an important artery from the heart to my digestive system’ the actress (pictured, in 2024) said
‘I’m boiling 6 cloves for 20 minutes, to make tea, every night. (Even if this does nothing, my brain registers the practice, as a consistent night time ceremony, that means I’m winding down.)
‘I’m still struggling with this, but I’m trying to not be on my phone after 10 and I remove the blue light from it all day and have it on that night time mode constantly, so everything I see on it, is infused with the hue of dehydrated piss.
‘I have a heavy weighted blanket, I sleep in a cold room, I stop drinking liquids 2 hours before bed, just little sips, I use the world’s softest and most joyous (and affordable) sleep mask, called a Snoozy.
‘I pound magnesium glycerinate about two hours before bed. I take lion’s mane, and vitamin D3 and K2 with it.’
Her decision to detail her insomnia battle comes just weeks after she revealed that she’s been left at ‘death’s door’ by a rare health disorder.
She said: ‘In February, out of nowhere, the upper part of my digestive system slipped and is squishing an important artery from the heart to my digestive system, and it is also crushing down on the blood supply to my kidney.’
‘This has made me so violently ill that I have developed a hiatal hernia in my oesophagus. I can barely eat. I’m in so much pain. I’m so tired and I can’t breathe properly for hours.’
It’s been a tough few months for Jameela, who is pals with Meghan Markle and even appeared on her podcast Archetypes, with the star revealing in October that her ‘body is broken forever’ by societal beauty standards.
It’s been a tough few months for Jameela, who is pals with Meghan Markle (pictured, in February) and even appeared on her podcast Archetypes
Collecting Glamour’s Game Changing Voice Of The Year, she expressed her sadness at the return of ‘heroin chic’ as she gave an impassioned speech on how women are once again ‘suffering and risking our lives’ in the pursuit of the ‘same Snapchat face’.
Urging women and girls to be kinder to themselves, she said: ‘I beg of you, as I stand here with a body broken forever because of what I put it through for our society’s beauty standards… to not sell your old lady self short.’
Jameela began her speech by speaking about the optimism of the 2010s, before sharing her concern that there had been a back track.
The Good Place star said: ‘Boys are encouraged to build their bodies, and build their futures and legacies.
‘While women and girls are starving, injecting and hurting – and sometimes literally dying – for the fastest possible route to the ever-changing, fickle beauty standard.’
‘Why is women’s discomfort and harm still so hyper normalised?’ the actress asked.
The star revealed in October that her ‘body is broken forever’ by societal beauty standards as she was named Glamour’s Game Changing Voice Of The Year (pictured)
In May, Jameela explained how she had undergone a bone graft before suffering ‘horrendous’ Gastritis after taking post-op antibiotics and pain killers
She wrote on Instagram: ‘Guess who had a lil emergency operation and a bone graft and took antibiotics and pain killers and woke up with gastritis?!’
In May, Jameela explained how she had undergone a bone graft before suffering ‘horrendous’ Gastritis after taking post-op antibiotics and pain killers.
She wrote on Instagram: ‘Guess who had a lil emergency operation and a bone graft and took antibiotics and pain killers and woke up with gastritis?!’
The star then asked her followers: ‘Please send me funny animal videos at this horrendous time. Fork everything.’
She captioned the post: ‘Pls send what works for you with gastritis. I have a long haul FLIGHT TODAY.’
‘I’m gonna be Kristen Wiig in bridesmaids,’ she added in reference to the 2011 comedy’s iconic vomiting and diarrhoea scenes.
The Mail’s Richard Eden reported in April that, during a photoshoot for Vogue magazine, celebrated photographer David Bailey allegedly treated Jameela so unkindly that she starved herself for almost a month afterwards.
‘I was told I was “too fat” to wear the size-zero clothes and had to just hold the dress over me as I stood almost naked in a room full of strangers,’ she said.
‘David Bailey literally shouted, cheerfully, “She’s too fat for the dresses – we’ll shoot her naked”.’
Jameela, who lives in Los Angeles with her musician boyfriend James Blake, 36, added: ‘I don’t think I ate for about three weeks after that.’
The model later shared a snap of herself on following a long plane journey with her beloved dog Barold
In April The Mail’s Richard Eden reported that Jameela said: ‘David Bailey literally shouted, cheerfully, “She’s too fat for the dresses – we’ll shoot her naked”.’
