Getting real. Hannah Brown explained the ups and downs she has experienced as someone who struggles with sleep paralysis — and why it’s so unnerving.
“Do any of you experience sleep paralysis, because I’ve already had an alternate morning in my sleep paralysis state,” the 27-year-old ABC star asked her followers via her Instagram Story on Wednesday, January 19. “It’s the weirdest thing, I am like, ‘Hannah, open your eyes,’ in my head while I’m sleeping.”
The former Bachelorette noted that she tries to tell herself to “move your body,” but she can’t make it happen.
Brown revealed that her recent incident with sleep paralysis, which is described as a feeling of consciousness without being able to move, wasn’t “nightmare-ish” but she did slip into a dream.
“Then it felt like I had woken up and done a whole morning, but I couldn’t move,” she continued. “It’s the weirdest thing. So, I’m still just recuperating from that.”
The God Bless This Mess author recalled not being able to “establish what was real or not” and wondering if she had woken up “while also being aware I wasn’t moving.”
The Alabama native admitted she can relate to people who have “any type of abnormal sleep stuff,” adding, “I feel your pain.”
While this wasn’t her first time dealing with the sleep issue, Brown said she finds it “super scary” whenever it happens.
“It feels [like] you’re unable to move or speak for a bit,” she concluded. “Also, you just wake up really confused.”
Since making a splash on season 23 of The Bachelor in 2019, Brown has been vocal about her own highs and lows, including body issues and mental health struggles.
In February 2021, she opened up via a YouTube video about her time on the reality series, revealing that she “only ate candy” while in the mansion. After splitting from season 15 Bachelorette winner Jed Wyatt in 2019, Brown recalled having another dip in her weight.
Living in the public eye, going through breakups and later competing on Dancing With the Stars led Brown to reevaluate how she thought about herself and her health.
“I didn’t have any self-worth through all that. I have definitely struggled with accepting the way my body is now,” she said at the time. “Loving myself and knowing because I have taken off this time [from working out post-DWTS], is loving my body. I needed rest. I needed to dig deep emotionally in who I want to be.”
She added: “Mentally, I’m healing and I’m resting my body so I can slowly love on my body. There is not a world where I am not going to let myself enjoy life. I love sugar. I’m not doing to deprive myself.”
