Paul Wesley Opens Up About Prioritizing His Health (Exclusive) – ryan

• Paul Wesley has learned to take better control of himself since his stressful 20s
• The Vampire Diaries actor is a brand ambassador for Hone Health, a subscription-based online health clinic that offers personalized supplement recommendations
• By using supplements and prioritizing nutrition, exercise and meditation, he feels better than ever

Paul Wesley is putting his health first.

During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about his partnership with Hone Healththe Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor, 42, opened up about how being “overworked and stressed” in his late 20s and early 30s led him to have a “complete adrenal shutdown” at the time.

Wesley tells PEOPLE that he was 26 years old when he landed his famous role as Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diariesand while he took his role “very seriously,” he was also quick to neglect his health at the time, he says. He recalls having the mindset, “I’m lucky, I have good genetics. I don’t need to worry about anything,” when it came to his health.

However, he quickly found himself struggling to manage his stress after long work days and unhealthy sleep habits — and it started to take a toll on him.

“As I got older, I was really inundated with work and filming, crazy hours, and stress,” Wesley recalls. “I started to really notice changes in my sleep pattern and just overall health.”

The actor notes that after dealing with certain health issues in the last couple of decades — including “extremely low energy levels, brain fog, and unpredictable sleep patterns” — he became eager to learn more about holistic health and how to take preventative measures in his 40s.

“I was like, ‘Okay, why is this happening? I’m a healthy guy. What’s going on?’ And that’s when I became interested in it,” he says. “I realized that you can have certain protocols — like supplements, dieting and exercising, and even meditation — that can prevent so many things.”

After learning more about the impact of preventative health habits, he became a brand ambassador for Hone Health, a subscription-based online health clinic that recommends personalized medication and supplement plans, as well as lifestyle interventions and community support.

“For the last, maybe five or six years, I’ve been much more focused on trying to approach things from a holistic perspective, and I had always looked at things the way that Hone Health looks at it.”

Wesley adds that Hone Health’s approach “spoke” to him and encouraged him to take more control of his well-being. Now he wants others to be able to do the same.

“Traditionally, especially in America, we get sick, we go to the doctor, we take medicine and we continue doing what we’re doing. We never really look under the hood to see what’s going on,” he explains.

In order to fully understand what his body needed, he worked with the clinic to create a specialized plan using a blood test to find out which supplements he should take.

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“On top of that, we used to think of exercise as something you do just because you want to look good,” he adds. “And obviously, that’s a component, but it’s also something that we need to do for longevity, for mental health — every aspect.”

While he notes that focusing on his diet and exercise were important, one thing in particular was a true game-changer.

“Meditation is something that really changed my life in my early-30s. I was like, ‘Whoa’ — I couldn’t believe that I was missing out on it,” he says.

To learn more about Hone Health, visit honehealth.com.