Ashley Tisdale Opens Up About Dealing With Anxiety: 'I Thought I Had Something Really Wrong with Me'

Ashley Tisdale is getting candid about her mental health challenges. 

The Disney Channel alum, 38, shared her problems with anxiety on a recent episode of Melissa Wood-Tepperberg’s podcast, Move with Heart. 

“I was really struggling for months, and didn’t know what I was struggling from," said the High School Musical star. "I thought I had something really wrong with me."

Looking back, she now knows these moments were when her anxiety was out of control.

“I’ve definitely had panic attacks in the past and I didn’t know what they were. Obviously when I was on tour, nobody was like you’re having a panic attack ... I remember going to a doctor and being like, my heart flutters sometimes before going on stage and he was like, ‘That’s just anxiety. But you have a healthy dose of anxiety.’"

Tisdale went on to discuss the wellness rituals she's learned over time. "I was seeing all these experts and practitioners of Eastern and Western medicine and being like, something is wrong," she says. "Through this experience of meeting with everybody, I learned balance and moderation and how living a cleaner lifestyle is beneficial for your mental health.” 

One of the tools she uses is meditation. "I sometimes do it twice a day," she says. "My husband does, too. When we put the baby down at the end of the day, we both kind of go off to do our meditation just to relax from everything."

For Tisdale that means leaving the house for a few minutes. “I  go outside and I just sit outside and look at the sky and sit there in nature for like five minutes. No phone. Disconnect," she says. "You’re not doing anything and you don’t have to be doing anything. The pressure’s off.” 

In 2019, the singer released her album Symptoms, which explores different anxiety symptoms she was facing.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“I knew when I did my album Symptoms not a lot of people were talking about mental health. And I thought that it was important to start sharing it ...I had lost somebody to depression, and I was just like, that’s the scariest when people don’t want to talk about it. And you always go, ‘I never knew he struggled.’ And so, I was like let’s start this conversation.” 

In August 2020, Tisdale launched her own wellness brand, Frensche, rooted in “helping you live a balanced non-toxic life.” 

She attributes the formation of the brand to her own struggles with mental health.

These days she suggests positive self-talk when dealing with anxiety. 

“Talk to yourself like you would talk to your best friend. And that’s so important because usually we’re so hard on ourselves and we also are so willing to give love to others but not to ourselves. It’s just something that I’m not perfect with, at all, but I make an effort to do that when I’m having those negative thoughts. It’s like no, replace them with a positive one. Be kind to yourself.” 

Near the end of the podcast, Tisdale explained why she is committing this chapter of her life to being a mental health advocate.

“I feel that I have this strength in me that I am able to be vulnerable and talk about these things. Because at the end of the day, I just want to help other people. I want to help them in what they are going through and make sure that they don’t feel so alone.”

“When I feel alone in something, it feels horrible. So to know that somebody else is trying to connect with you and reach out a hand and be like ‘I’ve been there. I totally understand what you’re going through.’ You feel seen in some way.”