Ranganathan opens up about mental health struggle

"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."

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.