Love Island star Malin Andersson says giving up smoking has helped her feel happier with life – after previously battling depression and suffering a string of tragedies.
The 30-year-old, who starred on the ITV2 show in 2016, has branded her cigarette habit a “crutch”. But now, as she backs the Stoptober campaign to help people quit smoking, she tells the Daily Star ditching cigarettes has made her feel “more present” and “lighter”.
Malin explains: “I started when I was around 18. It was like a routine, and then it would be going out having a wine with a cigarette. It just escalated from there and became a habit.” Eventually smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, the former air hostess adds: “Deep down I really do think it was due to lots of events in my life. I think it was a crutch.
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“We all need a vice and obviously that was an unhealthy vice, but that was me almost using cigarettes as a coping mechanism for something a lot deeper. The more I smoked, the more anxiety I got. The nicotine actually increased my anxiety.
“When I was on Love Island I was smoking stupid amounts. It was almost controlling my life and that’s very unhealthy.” Malin stopped smoking when she became pregnant. But after her four-week-old daughter Consy with partner Tom sadly died in 2018, stresses and strains made her restart.
She quit again when she fell pregnant with daughter Xaya, born in 2022, but it was following the split with the baby’s
father, Jared, that she gave up for good. Malin says: “I had one or two when me and her dad split up when she was two months old because of the stress, and I immediately stopped because I didn’t like the smell or the taste. I went cold turkey.”
This time Malin stuck to her pledge and, with the help of a new healthy exercise and diet regime, believes quitting eased the depression she was feeling after an emotional rollercoaster – she’d also lost both her parents to cancer. “It helped massively,” she says. “When we mask our pain with external things you have to stop at some point and I think the best thing I did was stop smoking. I actually felt a bit lighter in my mind, less clouded.”
Malin, who now works as a life coach and practises meditation and yoga, adds: “I feel more present, I’m not waiting for the next cigarette. Now I have my daughter I think so differently. I’m watching her grow up and having fun. I don’t want to destroy that so I can’t think about doing it ever again.”
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