Martha's 10 Best Tips for Healthy Aging

When Martha Stewart graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition this year, people paid attention. She radiates health and happiness and exudes a joie de vivre that's contagious even through the pages of a glossy magazine. 

Martha's recipe for good living isn't only about eating well and exercise—she also maintains an active work and travel schedule, spends time with her favorite hobbies, and surrounds herself with strong relationships she has cultivated over the years. Here are some of our founder's best healthy aging tips—straight from the source herself.

Wear Sunscreen Every Day 

The sun’s UV rays are notoriously damaging, and SPF is easily your best defense against visible signs of aging like laxity, sun spots, and wrinkling. It can also prevent skin cancer. Martha applies SPF daily, and it undoubtedly plays a huge role in her youthful appearance

"I tell my patients if I cloned them today and [didn't allow] their clone to wear sunscreen daily, that if we met in one year and they did nothing but wear the mineral sunscreen, that their skin would be smoother, brighter, and have a better glow compared to the clone," says Kseniya Kobets, MD, a board-certified dermatologist.

Nourish Friendships

As social creatures, it’s important for our overall health to spend time with friends and family. Martha says that maintaining friendships with people like Snoop Dogg has played a key role in her own successful aging. 

"When we create a new hobby or try something new, we develop an inverse sense of excitement, motivation, and weakness to try. That is what new types of friendships and interaction are like," says Reena B. Patel, MA, LEP, BCBA, a licensed educational psychologist and board-certified behavior analyst. "The novelty makes it exciting and energizes you. It can also bring more curiosity to learn more and challenge you to think outside your comfortable mindset."

Learn New Things

A proponent of waking up early, Martha endeavors to make the most of every day. "As one gets older, and we were getting older the minute we’re born, right away I think it’s terribly, terribly important that we learn something new every day," she told Maria Shriver last year during the Radically Reframing Aging event. "It really is about constantly enlarging your body of knowledge so that you can have interesting conversations, you can actually teach other people new things."

Patel agrees, saying that learning new things keeps us youthful in mind, spirit, and heart. "The act of experiencing something new can all generate these new brain cells and these new pathways,” she says. "New brain cells can have connections with other brain cells and, as a result, form new pathways throughout your brain."

Be Adventurous

Part of learning new things is seeing new things—which is why Martha has prioritized traveling the globe, tasting new cuisines (she recently told Condé Nast Traveler that the best food she's ever had was in Tasmania) and experiencing local cultures firsthand. She has visited myriad countries, from Australia and France to the Dominican Republic and Botswana, often with her grandchildren, Jude and Truman, in tow. In fact, they're two of her favorite travel buddies: "I want to take the kids to places that I've never been so we can experience the oohs and the ahhs together," she told NBC TODAY in 2018.

Be Creative

From cooking to crafting, creative endeavors are the foundation of Martha's life, both personal and professional. "Creativity is really probably the best thing one can do—to be creative to keep one’s spirit alive," she told Shriver. "Because if you can’t create, you just sort of stagnate. So again, there are those words that are very important to me: curiosity, creativity, inspiration, information—all of those things are extremely important. And that’s what I live by."

Drink Green Juice Each Morning  

A glass of fresh green juice is part of Martha’s morning routine, and she’s refined her green juice recipe to perfection over the years. (It's a simple combination of pear, English cucumber, celery, parsely, and fresh ginger.) 

"Juicing can provide a great opportunity to consume a high volume of vitamins and minerals from fresh, nutrient dense foods," says Ben Brown, owner of BSL Nutrition, who holds master's degrees in exercise science and clinical nutrition. "Additionally, because many don’t enjoy eating large quantities of these foods, it’s an easy way to boost daily nutrition intake."

Challenge Your Brain 

Our brains naturally change as we get older, and there’s a tendency for our memory and mental sharpness to dwindle a bit. Taking time to engage in stimulating activities—if only for a few minutes each day—can improve neuroplasticity and keep your brain healthy. One of Martha’s favorite ways to challenge her brain is via a daily crossword puzzle. 

"Crossword puzzles are generally tough, and challenging activities have shown to be very beneficial to brain health," says Rachel Fleischman, LSW, a licensed social worker and founder of Bliss Counseling. "They also activate different parts of the brain while you decipher and search for words." The clues that go with crossword puzzles also allow the brain to interact with new concepts, which triggers the brain to form new neural pathways, she adds.

Keep Moving

Exercise is crucial to our well-being, particularly as we age. It builds and sustains muscle, keeps our heart in good shape, enhances flexibility and endurance, and even stimulates our brain. 

Martha’s favorite exercise is pilates, which she does every other day. This is a low- to moderate-intensity workout that increases muscle strength, promotes circulation, and improves breathing. Like other exercise, it also encourages a mind-body awareness and can reduce feelings of stress.

Pamper Yourself  

A facial may feel like pure luxury, but this pampering habit can improve the quality of your skin both instantly and over time. In fact, Martha tells Glamour that routine facials—without injections—is one of the best ways she keeps her skin looking great. 

"Depending on the skin needs, facials may involve a light exfoliation, pore extractions, and ideally a lymphatic massage," says Dr. Kobets. "These massaging techniques can reduce puffiness by promoting lymphatic drainage and improving blood flow, which can in turn improve penetration of active topical products like hyaluronic acid and vitamin C."

Prioritize Good Living 

Martha insists that prioritizing good living and having confidence is one of her best secrets when it comes to healthy aging. "I think all of us should think about good living and not about aging," she said in an interview with NBC TODAY about her cover for the 2023 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. "The whole aging thing is so boring."

"Many gero-psychologists believe that aging can either be active or disengaged," Fleischman says. "Active means a person carries over activities and attitudes into later life. Disengaged means the person removes themself from an active life."

Remaining active and engaging in productive daily activities contributes to successful aging and also helps us experience a deeper sense of meaning. Fleischman says it's important to invest in human connection, remain curious about the world around you, and stay creative. Just like Martha.