Millie Bobby Brown has revealed that a three-month anxiety attack left her shut down until a visit to Japanese monks pulled her out of it, opening up on a podcast released on Monday, 13 July 2026.
Speaking on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, as reported by E! News, the actress traced the spiral to being chased by someone. “It was a really traumatising, I would say, 20 minutes,” Brown said.
“It was very, very intense and very scary.”
What triggered Millie Bobby Brown’s anxiety attack
Brown said the encounter tipped her into a prolonged episode she struggled to escape.
The chase, she recalled, “sent me in a three-month-long anxiety panic attack,” a stretch during which she effectively withdrew and shut down, unable to shake the fear the incident had planted.
She did not name who was chasing her or where it happened, leaving the specifics deliberately vague.
What she made plain was the fallout: an anxiety attack that refused to lift for months and quietly reshaped how she moved through the world long after the immediate danger had passed.
How a visit to Japanese monks helped
The turning point came far from home. “I went to Japan and I sat with these monks and it was the most amazing experience,” Brown said.
“I’m getting teary eyed talking about it, but it took me out of the cycle,” she added of the trip.
She described the shift as immediate and physical. “Finally, peace in my heart,” Brown said of the aftermath.
“And my husband literally said, You radiated this light after,” she recalled, crediting the quiet ritual with steadying her in a way nothing else had managed to.
What struck her, she said, was how little it took. No grand intervention, just stillness, silence and the company of monks who asked nothing of her.
For a young woman whose life is lived under relentless attention, the anonymity of that room seems to have been the point.
The candour marks a notable shift for Brown, who grew up on screen as the breakout star of Stranger Things and has spoken increasingly about the toll of fame.
Now married and building a life away from the cameras, she has leaned into franker conversations about her mental health.
Brown has not said whether she will return to Japan or speak further about the ordeal, and the account arrives with the final season of Stranger Things looming as her most scrutinised chapter yet. For now, she is framing the experience as proof she found her way back.
