Luke Combs recently suffered his "worst flare-up" of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in years

Speaking on '60 Minutes Australia', he said: "Probably the worst flare-up of it I've had in, I would say three or four years, started about two days before this trip.

"The first two weeks for me here were not ideal [because of] a lot of like, rumination, OCD stuff."

The 'Fast Car' hitmaker explained his form of OCD doesn't manifest as repetitive actions or urges, but is "thought-based" and he struggles to surpress the intrusive moments.

He said: "Mine's different ... it's all, like, thought-based. I mean, I guess all OCD is thought-based, right? ... It's thoughts, essentially, that you don't want to have that you're having.

"And then they cause you stress and then you're stressed out, and then the stress causes you to have more of the thoughts, and then you don't understand why you're having them.

"You're trying to get rid of [the thoughts] but trying to get rid of them makes you have more of them. And it's really complex and really detailed ...It's very tedious to pull yourself out of it."

Luke explained the thoughts aren't always the same.

He said: "They can be intrusively violent thoughts or thoughts about religion. It focuses on things that don't have an answer. No one worries about: 'Is two plus two four?' That's not what we're talking about here. It's really questions about who you are as a person ... there's never a yes or no answer, and so that's what fuels the anxiety.

"When it hits, man, it can be all-consuming."

But the country star - who has two sons with wife Nicole - feels "lucky" to have learned how to manage his condition.

He said: "I'm lucky to be an expert [on] how to get out of it now. I feel for people that struggle ... anyone with OCD, really, but the variant that I have is particularly wicked."

Having had his first symptoms when he was "12 or 13", Luke hopes he can be a role model to young people.

He explained: "I definitely want to spend some time, at some point in my life, doing some outreach to kids that deal with this, because it held me back so many times in my life.

"You're trying to accomplish something, you're doing really great, and then you have a flare-up and it ruins your whole life for six months - and then you're back to where you started.

"That's something that I hope people take away from me at the end of my career. Regardless of the musical success.

"I want to be an example for those kids that don't have any hope - that you can still go on and do great things, even though you're dealing with something that's is really tough."