Helena Christensen says being jet-lagged feels like taking drugs.

The 42-year-old supermodel has travelled the world with her work - including a recent trip to Nepal on behalf of Oxfam to highlight the impact of climate change - and admits the realities of crossing several time zones in short spaces of time leaves her feeling out of sorts.

She said: "I've been jet-lagged for over a month.

"I've decided to pretend I'm on some kind of interesting drug, because that's basically what it feels like."

When she was 17, Helena was voted Miss Denmark "by mistake" and she and her family were horrified to learn she would then have to spend a month in Panama for the Miss Universe competition.

She recalled to InStyle magazine: "I cried for a month before that trip and my parents were devastated.

"We tried to get out of it, to pay them back the prize money and the lawyers were like, 'We'll sue you.' I lived in a boot camp for a month, with security guards and 12 hours of rehearsing every day for the show. We couldn't leave the bedrooms. That was the old fashioned way of doing beauty competitions."