Gillian Anderson opens up about her mental health battles

Actress Gillian Anderson has opened up about her struggles with mental health.

The 48 year old, who has recently written a self-help book entitled 'We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere', opened up to The Guardian about her battles with her emotional wellbeing and subsequent journey to happiness.

The X-Files and The Fall star admitted that she had been in therapy since she was 14, explaining that there had been times in the past where she had wanted to isolate herself from the outside world.

'There were times when it was really bad,' she said. 'There have been times in my life where I haven't wanted to leave the house'.

Of her book she continued: 'I have struggled with self-esteem myself, and in looking at the ways that I have dealt with overcoming those things, I started to think that maybe some of it might be potentially useful for other people of all ages.'

Mum-of-three Gillian revealed to the paper that the demands of juggling an ever-growing career and a family can be challenging, but it's something that she's learned to successfully manage.

'I've definitely deliberately slowed down. Because I kept hearing myself say, "I've got to slow down, I've got to slow down, I've got to slow down." I must have said that for 10 years, or maybe even 20 years. I was just sick and tired of hearing myself,' she said.

'People would laugh at me because I'd be like, "I had an extra 10 minutes, so I stopped in to say hi, you know." It became enough of a joke among my friends that I had to start paying attention to it. So one of the things I try really hard now to do is, no matter what, after I drop the kids, I go back home so I can meditate.'

Later in the interview, she added that one of her other coping mechanisms is to make a list of things that she's thankful for each day.

'I do a gratitude list every night,' she explained. 'I mean, it's in my head now, but I go through stages where I think I'm just complaining all the time again. It's too floating in my head, it needs to be on paper.'