Martha Stewart Does This One Thing Every Day (It's Her No-Cost Aging Secret)

In these days of Peak Wellness, you can't click a link without being told to take supplements to gird your gut health, take medicinal mushrooms and put stickers on your skin to sleep better. All are worth exploring, but there's something refreshing about talking to a badass woman of a certain age and having her give you an unexpectedly simple and cheap wellness tip. That's what happened when I had a chat with legendary businesswoman and media mogul Martha Stewart; we were talking about gardening and she casually mentioned it's a part of an anti-aging routine she's committed to.

"My cardinal rule: Go outdoors every single day," she says. "Even if I get home at 11 o'clock at night from a New York day at the office, I go and look at my gardens. I see my animals. I go outside, I walk around. I breathe the fresh air. It's extremely important to me," she says.

As I'm pondering the safety of an 83-year-old traipsing the grounds of an 153-acre estate in the dark, after being stuck in traffic for more than an hour, I remember—this is Martha Freaking Stewart. She's safe.

I'd asked Stewart, who was promoting her advisory role with Miracle-Gro lawn and garden products, about the health-inducing aspects of gardening. She concurred that chemical-free gardening is key ("I have always been an organic gardener. I do not spray, I do not use harsh chemicals. I use organic soils. I want to eat, or use things that I have grown in as pure and nice an atmosphere as possible."). But it's the simplicity of her up-and-at-'em message that she really drove home.

"It is so important to commune with nature; [noted cardiologist] Eric Topol just wrote a book called Super Agers," Stewart said. "And the number one thing that super agers all do, the ones that are successful in getting aging well, is spend time outdoors."

Point taken, Martha. Parka on, walking tall.