Ellie Simmonds shares dance partner's advice after battling crippling nerves on Strictly

Ellie Simmonds is a fighter - and despite the daunting prospect of performing in front of millions of TV viewers on Strictly Come Dancing, the competition actually ended up boosting her confidence.

Chatting exclusively to Express.co.uk, Ellie revealed her secret, as well as the advice she received from her dance partner Nikita Kuzmin, to keep the crippling nerves at bay. Nikita told her: "Go out there and enjoy it and cherish those nerves and just use those nerves as adrenaline."

Instead of extinguishing her fears, she transformed them into positive energy. "When the lights went down, we just focused on each other and we had that routine," she explained, reminiscing over the moment the pair performed the cha cha cha to the tune of DANCE by Dnce.

As well as chatting to Nikita and making him part of her "support system", Ellie drew on some of the stress management skills she'd learnt as a competitive athlete. The Paralympian, who won multiple gold medals for Great Britain before retiring from swimming, revealed: "Those skills helped me manage the pressure that I had every Saturday night, in front of not just the judges, but all the millions of people at home.

"I think being an athlete definitely helped because I had the skills already in place to cope from the London Olympics in 2012, with seven and a half thousand people in the stadium cheering and the whole expectation and pressure from the public and the media and sponsors." Meanwhile, Ellie's even been able to find the silver lining in moments where she's struggled.

"I think you learn about yourself when things don't go well," she explained.

"When I was an athlete, when races went really, really well and I came away with personal best gold medals, I would just be on a high, whereas when races didn't go well, I always used to evaluate everything and learn a lot more about myself.

"I think it's okay to have that rollercoaster and have that journey of highs and lows."

Ellie has also developed mental resilience against social media trolls. "People say what they want, but also you see all these amazing positive messages and just try to focus on them rather than that one [negative] comment," she explained.

She's not afraid to turn away from social media altogether when the situation calls for it either, with one holiday in Madagascar seeing her getting away from it all in a no-signal zone.

Ellie didn't look at her phone for 24 hours - and welcomed the break.

Meanwhile, she's now trying to find balance in her life after retiring from swimming and transferring into a completely new and different career, presenting TV shows and creating documentaries.

Ellie's taken part in a video series showing how she's managed change and transition in her life while also maintaining her physical and mental fitness, after teaming up with a supplements company, Bioglan.

Ellie Simmonds has partnered with supplement brand Bioglan for their third series of ‘In Bioglan Balance’ to show how she finds balance in her busy life. To watch the series, visit @bioglansupplements on Instagram.