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• Sun Jun 1 2025

Ranganathan opens up about mental health struggle

7 hours ago Share Save Annabel Rackham and Steven McIntosh Culture reporters Share Save

BBC Ranganathan said he used running, reading and breathing exercises to help centre himself when feeling down

Romesh Ranganathan has said he is in "one of the best places I've ever been in my life", after years of struggling with his mental health. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, the comedian described how he had used running, reading and breathing exercises to help centre himself, after previously having suicidal thoughts. "Recognising it is half the battle," he told host Lauren Laverne. "So sometimes I just go through a dark period and I know that I've got to do something about it." The broadcaster also said he often felt conflicted about how much of his own mental health journey to share publicly, noting: "You?ve got to be careful because it's triggering [for other people]. "The way that I try and tackle that is to talk about it, I'm trying to normalise feeling like that, not that it is normal, but I'm trying to destigmatise it to make the conversation normal," he said.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line.

"You would talk about physical illness openly, ideally you would talk about [mental health] openly, and you'd express all those things, but you do also have to be mindful of the fact that people may have been affected by that. "And then if I suddenly say I had thoughts about taking my own life and somebody's lost someone through that or they've had those moments themselves, you have to be sensitive to that. "You don't always get it right," he reflected, "but I think the rewards outweigh the risks."

Romesh Ranganathan chose tracks from Eminem and Kanye West, now known as Ye, on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs

The 47-year-old also said he had learned it was important to make time for activities which he knew would make him feel better. "One of the things I've noticed when it comes to mental health, is you do stuff that works, and it's proven to work for you personally, and then for some reason you just stop doing it," he said. "You go, 'Oh, it's really good if I spend some time reflecting, or if I run, or do a bit of reading, or some breathing exercises, that makes me feel better'. "'Oh, I've done that every day for a week, I'm really feeling better, shall I just stop? Yeah!'" he laughed. "And then a few weeks later, wonder why I feel much worse than I did." The presenter, who first got into comedy in the early 2010s, picked tracks from the likes of Kanye West, Eminem and Huey Lewis and the News for Desert Island Discs, which is broadcast on Sunday.

'My mum is one of my heroes'

Ranganathan, who hosts a weekend show on BBC Radio 2, also spoke about how his family had moved to the UK from Sri Lanka in 1970, before he was born eight years later. "My dad was a bit of a tornado, he came over to England and he'd been so used to the Sri Lankan way of life," he recalled. "He was like a kid in a candy store, people were drinking and going out and he just threw himself into British life, wholly and completely. "And there's a strong argument he should've implemented more boundaries than he did," Ranganathan laughed. "He was the life and soul of the party."

PA Media Ranganathan ran the London Marathon earlier this year