Brie Larson Says She Hasn't Found the Balance Between Work and Health: 'The Rules Always Change' (Exclusive)

The "Captain Marvel" alum said she tries to avoid bringing work home so "I'm not that character anymore"

• Brie Larson told PEOPLE exclusively that she has "not found a work-health balance" — but said making movies "is my life"

• She spoke about the challenges of staying healthy on a movie set, where there are "lots of germs flying around"

• Larson said it can be a challenge to disconnect from work but she takes steps to not "take any drama home"

Brie Larson said that she’s still struggling to find a balance between her work and her health — especially when she takes on emotionally and physically grueling roles.

“I have not found a work-health balance,” Larson, 35, told PEOPLE exclusively Wednesday, Oct. 9 at a mocktail event sponsored by health and wellness company Thorne at Apotheke NoMad. “The rules always change. I can get close to things — but what about when suddenly we're filming night shoots and then we're filming day again? Or I'm on a press tour, and I'm on five different time zones.”

But, as she said, “I really love what I do, and I love my job. So if you want to look at a pie chart, I'm working a lot, yeah, but I love my work so much, like, it is my life.”

“Making movies and being an artist is my life. That's what makes my life. So I don't feel like there's a true balance to be had, because they all kind of live together,” she said.

However, the Captain Marvel star said that it can be a challenge to stay healthy on a film set, explaining, “You're in a sound stage. You're surrounded by people. There's lots of germs flying around. It's very taxing on the system.”

“Once I start filming, we're getting up before the sun is up, we're going to bed after the sun is down. And so the thing about filming is that the schedule is the schedule. Sometimes you have the ability to move things, but a lot of the time it's like, the day is happening, and you're filming whether you're ready or not, whether you feel awake at 6 a.m. or not. It's gonna happen.”

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For Larson, who recently played a chemist-turned-culinary star in the Apple TV+ series Lessons in Chemistry, “it's just been about finding ways that I can maximize my focus. I mean, even just thinking about the amount of memorization and focus that I have to do in like a 12-hour period is quite a lot, you know, so you have to find ways to continue to support your system, because we're asking of it something that is just pretty much impossible.”

She told PEOPLE that she’s been taking steps to ensure she stays healthy, sharing that she's been focusing on "gut health stuff " which she says has "been a huge game changer.” It's one of the reasons she is collaborating with health and wellness supplement company Thorne.

"The secret gift that you get from taking some of the [supplements] that I'm taking, is — you don't even realize it until you start hearing people talking about how they're feeling — they're getting a cold, and you're not, and you're like, oh, maybe what I'm doing is working."

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She’s been paying attention to her mental health as well, telling PEOPLE how she tries to draw a line between her character and herself — especially when it’s an emotionally taxing role, like the one she played in the The Room, which earned her a Best Actress Academy Award in 2016.

"You talk about it with your production team. Everybody knows, okay, Brie's playing this role, she got to prepare this role. But the thing that I have to do that isn't talked about is what I'm doing to support myself at the end of the day so that I don't take any drama home, so that I'm not that character anymore, and that I'm comfortable, sleeping well — all of that, and that's my responsibility.”

“It has become more of a two-pronged system. There's okay, ‘How am I gonna play this part?’ And it's like, ‘How am I not going to play this part?’ “

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“If you don't figure out a way to have a ritual of that and support yourself at the end of every single day,” Larson said, “One day, you wake up and you're like, ‘Oh my God, I feel confused.’ “

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