Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Strictly adrenaline is like superfuel... you’re flying
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Stockists: durex.com/red IF Tess Daly has ever had a moment to be grateful for the stress of working on live TV, it was while filming one of the early episodes of last year’s Strictly Come Dancing.
“I had a sickness bug and I was literally green,” the 49-year-old remembers. “My poor make-up artist Amy had to paint me three shades darker because even my fake tan had faded off my face.
“I needed a bowl next to me during rehearsals, and then I had take travel sickness pills so I didn’t throw up during the actual broadcast. I felt terrible, but a live show must go on. Fortunately, adrenaline is our friend. It’s fight or flight – you can’t be sick so your body makes you forget.”
It seems that as well as helping cavemen escape predators back in the day, the hormone brings benefits to presenters who aren’t feeling their perkiest, reducing their pain threshold and sharpening minds.
“That’s one of the reasons I love live TV. Adrenaline is like superfuel,” says Tess. “You might be sipping on a Lemsip beforehand, but once that red light on the camera flicks on, you’re flying and completely forget any ailments.
“It’s why you don’t see any presenters sniffing on live shows or pulling a tissue out of their sleeve. You forget you have a cold or a bug and just get on with it. Then, once it’s done, you collapse in a heap again.”
That rush of hormones isn’t all positive, though, and Tess, like many of her fellow showbusiness colleagues, finds it hard to come down from the “high” being live on air creates.
“The adrenaline definitely remains an undercurrent for a few hours after you finish,” she says. “You’ve had the energy surging and the adrenaline peaking all evening, so I get home and find I can’t sleep until 2am.”
Tess, who lives in Bucks with her husband, fellow presenter Vernon Kay, 44, and their daughters, Phoebe, 14, and Amber, nine, has found one surefire way to bring herself back down to earth after the show – chores.
“I just get stuff done around the house,” says Tess, who is the face of multivitamin supplement Wellwoman. “I start folding school uniforms and sorting their bags out for Monday. Checking things off a to-do list, that’ll soon send me to sleep. Or I’ll watch something on Netflix. I have to try and chill out and get some sleep because on Sunday it’s all systems go – I’m in full mum mode doing fun stuff with the girls.” And despite working a 14-hour day every Saturday during Strictly’s three-month run, there’s no such thing as a lazy Sunday morning for Tess.
“I haven’t had a lie-in since I became a parent,” she laughs. “But that’s because I want to be the first one up. I wake up at full speed, although I can’t speak until I’ve had a strong builder’s tea. I set the alarm 20 minutes before everyone else wakes so that by the time they show their faces I’m ready for them.”
Luckily for Tess, it isn’t a struggle to get by on five hours’ sleep. “I can still run around all day, but not consecutively,” she says. “On Sunday night I’ll definitely need seven hours again.”
Tess certainly knows what it feels like to be exhausted though – and she has daughter Phoebe to thank for that.
“The no-sleep years were diabolical,” admits Tess, whose eldest wouldn’t settle easily.
“We didn’t sleep for the first threeand-a-half years, which is why there’s four-and-a-half years between our girls. We were so sleep deprived and would compete with our friends about who was getting the least. Vernon and I always had the worst stories.
“It was tough in those early years. I would go to work and have to lie down for half an hour at lunchtime. But you do what you can because you have to.
“Number two slept 12 hours a night from about three months, which was amazing. I could never go back to those dark days of sleep deprivation.”
The presenter will be celebrating a significant birthday next April, but it doesn’t look like hitting 50 means she will be slowing down.
“I feel no different now to how I’ve ever felt. My energy levels are exactly the same,” she says. “I jump out of bed and don’t sit again until 9.30pm at night. But I wouldn’t have it any other way – I have that speedy metabolism. I’m like the Duracell bunny, I just keep going – and long may that continue.
“I come from quite fit stock, though. My mum’s 75 and she’s never been in hospital and is still wearing a bikini on the beach – go mum! – so fingers crossed.”