In a moment that gripped viewers in Melbourne, Australia, meteorologist Nate Byrne paused in the middle of his weather forecast during a live broadcast.

As he stood before the camera on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News Breakfast program, Byrne, 39, suddenly appeared breathless and visibly tense.

“I’m actually going to need to stop for a second,” he said, his voice revealing the strain.

“Some of you may know that I occasionally get affected by some panic attacks and actually that’s happening right now.”

The moment, though brief, was profound. Byrne quickly passed the baton to his co-host, Lisa Millar, who calmly reassured him and the audience.

Millar explained that Byrne had been open about his struggles with panic attacks, making it clear that his experience was not an isolated one.

Byrne later returned to the broadcast, visibly more composed, and expressed his gratitude to his colleagues for their support.

“Sorry if I gave anybody a bit of a scare there,” he said. Millar responded warmly, emphasizing the importance of Byrne’s transparency.

“Not really, because you’ve been very honest before about getting panic attacks on air, and it’s so great for people to know that it can happen to anyone.”

This was not the first time Byrne had encountered such a challenge in his career.

In a 2022 essay, he recounted his first panic attack, which also occurred live on air. He described the experience as “absolutely terrifying,” triggered by the stress of running late for a segment and arriving at the weather wall out of breath.

“My heart was racing, I was gasping for breath and sweat was pouring out of every pore as my brain screamed ‘RUN!’” he wrote.

After seeking help from a psychologist, Byrne learned that his panic attacks were likely a result of over-controlling his breathing, which deprived his brain of sufficient oxygen and triggered a flight response.

His doctor prescribed a beta blocker, a medication that slows the heartbeat, which provided some relief.

Byrne also adopted techniques to manage his symptoms, such as pressing his thumbnail into the side of his finger during an episode to distract his brain.

Despite these measures, panic attacks still occasionally affect Byrne, but his experience has profoundly changed his perspective on mental health.

“While I appreciated that things like anxiety and depression are very much real, I had no idea about the complete lack of control you can sometimes have over your brain, nor the ways in which it can take over,” Byrne reflected.

Byrne’s experience is not unique. In Washington, digital creator Anthony Polcari shared a similar story of experiencing a panic attack during a TV appearance.

Meanwhile, Carson Daly, a well-known American television host, has been vocal about his struggles with panic attacks, dating back to his time hosting MTV’s “Total Request Live” in the 1990s.

Daly described his first attack as a moment of sheer terror: “I thought I was going to die,” he recalled. The attack, he later learned, was a symptom of stress and anxiety.

Daly, now a co-host on TODAY, has since been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, a condition characterized by excessive and sometimes intrusive feelings of anxiety or worry.

Through therapy, medication, and techniques like meditation and breath work, Daly has learned to manage his condition.

However, he acknowledges that the possibility of future panic attacks remains. “That doesn’t mean I’m never going to have a panic attack again. The body can always trick the mind,” he said.

Like Byrne, Daly views his mental health struggles as an integral part of who he is. “This is how God made me, I’m wired this way,” he remarked, adding that he wears his mental health challenges “like a badge of honor.”

Byrne’s on-air episode and subsequent openness have contributed to a growing conversation about mental health, particularly in high-pressure environments like live television.

His willingness to share his struggles publicly is a reminder that mental health issues can affect anyone, regardless of their profession or public persona.

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